STACEY'S DIFFERENT... AND IT'S HARDER ON HER THAN ANYONE KNOWS
Welcome to the discussion post for week three! Don't panic if you haven't finished The Truth About Stacey yet - we're all in different time zones, so things will be a little bit staggered. The post doesn't have an expiry date on it, so just comment whenever you're ready.
This is the post to discuss your reading of The Truth About Stacey.
What was your favourite part? What was your least favourite part? Any memorable quotes you'd like to share? What had you forgotten about since the last time this book was read? If someone wrote a fic set during the timeline of this fic, what should they write?
There are no mandatory questions or points of discussion for this - anything you want to talk about in relation to this week's book, go ahead!
Next week's book is BSC #4 - Mary Anne Saves the Day.
I won't be around again for a few hours (and I still have to read this one, eek!) but I'm going to hijack the post momentarily to promote the FIC PROMPTS POST, in case you haven't seen it yet!
So many Mimi and Mary Anne feels! I am tearing up that Mimi is able to tell Mary Anne when she was born! Mary Anne was born in the fall, right? So Claudia and Kristy were already born! I'm having so many feelings imagining it, the Thomases and the Kishis with their babies watching the Spiers go off to the hospital!
I love how seriously Mimi and Janine already take the BSC, though. They are awesome.
I love MA's idea to call the agency! Coupled with the burglar alarms from last week, she is really a quick thinker. I'm not surprised she gets to save the day next week. I love how that is almost foreshadowed with her slowly growing boldness and resourcefulness. Having friends is good for her!
I had forgotten that Stacey didn't tell her old friends about the diabetes either. Poor Stacey. All of this is just heartbreaking. And she is so desperate to hold on to the club and her new friends. :(
The visor makes its first appearance! AND KID KITS. I've always wondered how big they are intended to be, so their first citation is "carton" which isn't terribly clear.
I do think Kristy is interesting in her desperate willingness to hand over jobs to Sam, Charlie, and Janine. It also kind of foreshadows the club's need to expand later on.
Love that Stacey can talk to Dr. Johanssen about her problems!
Oh, Charlotte, you need Becca real bad. :(
This book has a lot of interesting Kristy and Stacey stuff, since a lot of it is based in Stacey's desperation to keep the club alive. They're a pairing I never thought much about, but it's interesting. I think I said that back in Kristy's Great Idea too. It's interesting how intimate things are with only four of them.
Here's Mal's first appearance! She goes back and forth between the sitters and the kids. That's kind of funny. And weird, since the other kids are like, six, tops and she's 10.
Mimi teaching Mary Anne to knit! And telling her about Alma! I love these two so much. I want all the Mimi and MA bonding.
Ugh, I remember Janet and Leslie. THEY MADE KRISTY CRY. I forgot Kristy cried. :(((
I forgot all about Stacey and Laine making up. I know things go bad with Laine later, and I guess that was all I remembered. Laine is just a huge bitch in my head but they are really sweet here. (And now that I think about it they had to be friends in the NYC Super Special because some of them stayed at her apartment.)
This isn't a book I remember liking too much as a kid, probably as evidenced by my vague memories of it. I was into these books for the baby-sitting, the wild plans, the big family antics. Stacey was one of the less interesting girls and I wasn't into the plots about the sitters dealing with their own problems. (I was only in first or second grade when I started reading the BSC so I think I was too young. I was a strong reader falling in that weird gap where age-appropriate books were too easy and books that were on my reading level were about teen/adult problems and went over my head.) So it'll be interesting to revisit these as an adult, because I liked this book a lot. Stacey's situation is really sad and I love how mature she is in laying everything out for her parents. It's still clear to me that her parents are a mess and I know they divorce soon, so I'm sure they have underlying issues that Stacey's diabetes has just exacerbated. Poor Stacey. That has to be tough for her to feel like she's caught in this. I'm fascinated by the McGills calling on actualfax QUACKS, though! They seemed more normal than that to me. And it's fricking diabetes, not some rare, deadly disorder. I know a lot has changed since the books were written but it is seriously bizarre.
It is super sweet thinking of how the Thomas/Spier/Kishi families were probably all there for each other due to having babies around the same time. And yeah, Mary-Anne was September, Claudia was July and Kristy was August (of course she's a Leo, could she be anything else?). And all four girls were born at night!
Stacey keeping quiet about her diabetes is so sad and is probably one of the few times she acts like a legit teenager. Laine was always a character that I never thought much of even before book #50 happened. She was just Stacey's New York best friend and that was it.
I've always wondered how big the kid kits were supposed to be too! I think it was the the TV show that had them as a medium sized cardboard box, and that makes more sense than them being a shoe box or something.
Kristy crying about the agency pops up again in a later as one of the few times that they ever saw her cry (it might have been a book narrated by Claudia or Mary Anne because I think they also referenced her dad leaving which the other girls wouldn't have seen).
I did love how Stacey took initiative and had Dr. Johanssen help her find a way to tell her parents that she didn't want to see that holistic doctor and just wanted to see her own doctor. That was pretty savvy for a 12 year old! Must be that sophisticated personality of hers.
Yeah, for kid kits I got into the habit of imagining shoe boxes but would then get annoyed at their TARDIS-like properties. The graphic novel for this book includes the scene where they decorate them (it's adorable <3), and it has them using document box type things, with lids and hand holes and dimensions like this. Which makes way more sense! I can't remember what the tv show did, but I guess it was something similar?
I had a great big grin at the visor's first appearance! And one of my favourite things about the earlier books is how the director's chair exists, but it's not Kristy's spot during meetings yet. I think Mary Anne was sitting in it.
I loved Mimi teaching Mary Anne to knit so much <3 and I also kind of love that both Claudia and Janine were completely uninterested, lmao.
For some reason, the thing that always hit me even harder than Kristy crying was when she was going, "why didn't we think of balloons? Why didn't we think of balloons?" The desperation! Oh Kristy D:
ngl, I wanted to smack the McGills so hard reading this book. My older brother and I both had diabetes - I was diagnosed less than ten years after this book came out, so the medical tech and knowledge hadn't changed that much - and their reactions were so unhelpful. I get that your child being diagnosed with a chronic condition is scary, but think how much scarier it is for the kid! And they just handled everything so badly. Of course, it's not helped by the fact that AMM doesn't seem to have done the sort of research you really need to do in order to write about something like diabetes.
I love how that is almost foreshadowed with her slowly growing boldness and resourcefulness. Having friends is good for her! Yes! And also, she was the first to brave sitting at Watson's and Morbidda Destiny and she kept her head throughout that.
They're a pairing I never thought much about, but it's interesting. I think I said that back in Kristy's Great Idea too. It's interesting how intimate things are with only four of them. True. It’s like, at this point, they’re the toughest cookies of the group, the two who’ve been through a lot, and so they’re the ones who get fierce during tough times.
I remember liking Laine in the NY Super Special, but not a lot else. It’s kinda sad that they never make up, but at the same time, she was showing signs of being a fair weather friend early on. Was BSC Remember written after Stacey’s Ex-Best Friend? Because the former shows Laine in a harsher light when Stacey flashes back to the memory of first getting diagnosed.
This book has a lot of interesting Kristy and Stacey stuff, since a lot of it is based in Stacey's desperation to keep the club alive. They're a pairing I never thought much about, but it's interesting. I think I said that back in Kristy's Great Idea too. It's interesting how intimate things are with only four of them.
They're actually more alike than I remember, once you get past their superficial differences. They're both very driven and professional. I would read all of the Kristy/Stacey and Kristy&Stacey.
I forgot all about Stacey and Laine making up. I know things go bad with Laine later, and I guess that was all I remembered. Laine is just a huge bitch in my head but they are really sweet here. (And now that I think about it they had to be friends in the NYC Super Special because some of them stayed at her apartment.)
Yeah, I forgot about that, too. Now that I think about it, there's at least one book where Laine visits Stoneybrook, IIRC. I don't even remember what Laine and Stacey fight over, but I have a very strong conviction that Laine is Terrible, so.
I feel like Stacey's old friendship with Laine comes up again during the Bad Girls arc, when (IIRC) Stacey compares her new, sophisticated friends to Laine.
Stacey's situation is really sad and I love how mature she is in laying everything out for her parents. It's still clear to me that her parents are a mess and I know they divorce soon, so I'm sure they have underlying issues that Stacey's diabetes has just exacerbated. Poor Stacey. That has to be tough for her to feel like she's caught in this. I'm fascinated by the McGills calling on actualfax QUACKS, though! They seemed more normal than that to me. And it's fricking diabetes, not some rare, deadly disorder. I know a lot has changed since the books were written but it is seriously bizarre
I guess I can understand it in an abstract sense, in that Stacey is all they have and they're scared and want her to be well. But yeah. I was kind of disturbed by how easily they seemed to be influenced by anyone who claimed to know what they were talking about, and how they seemed to believe that a miracle cure was just around the corner. IDK if there's been a cultural shift in how we think about doctors and diabetes since this was written, or if this is specifically about the McGills. I was definitely cheering Stacey on when she stood up for herself, though.
(Whoops, that's what I get for typing so fast on my lunch break, combining Dr. Johannsen and Mrs. Newton into one person. Lemme just, uh, rewrite those sentences to be clearer....)
This was another one that hadn't stuck in my brain, but I agree with most of the comments here.
Mary Anne and Mimi spending time together, and Mimi telling her about her mom broke my heart.
I really enjoyed Dr. Johannsen's relationship with Stacey, as well as Mrs. Newton's relationship with the BSC. Not only does Dr. Johannsen help Stacey with her parents and steering clear of quack doctors, but Mrs. Newton also is a very good mom and neighbor, knowing that an infant needs older care but not shutting the BSC out entirely because Jamie loves them and needs stability.
(And I liked that of all the agency rivals, the one sitter who turned out reliable was the boy, a nice nod to the fact that boys can be baby-sitters too.)
Also I also forgot that Kristy cried. Kristy! :(
Another thing that I considered when reading this was that this book came out in 1986, during the first few years of the AIDS crisis-- with Stacey being forced to keep her illness a secret, I wonder if some people were wondering if that was it. Laine does stay away from her worried that whatever she has is infectious, after all. Possibly I'm overthinking it, but I just suspect that a kid having "a mystery illness" in the 1980s might cause a lot of problems (thanks for letting her tell her New York friends what was going on, Stacey's parents!).
Oh, I never thought of that, but that makes perfect sense. That would have been the era for the AIDS bogeyman and lots of misinformation. I can totally see the rumor starting that she has AIDS and all the ridiculous rumors that would have followed that (Stacey is a crack whore! Needles in pay phones!). That makes me even more sad for her and glad for her Stoneybrook friends.
— SMS is apparently the only middle school in Stoneybrook which I’m gonna just take as early instalment weirdness. Because Stoneybrook Day School, Stoneybrook Academy, and Kelsey. Or I guess it also could be informed by Stacey having a totally different frame of reference for what constitutes a tiny town. The way she talks about Stoneybrook, it's like she's moved to Dungatar (the town in The Dressmaker, which I'm reading rn and was the first tiny town I thought of). Stoneybrook is not Dungatar.
— Janine FREAKING OUT over the Baby-Sitters Agency, awww <3
— If Stoneybrook is as small as Stacey's narration makes me imagine, the Agency should flop immediately because parents would already know (or know of) Liz and Michelle. Or, at the very least, Kristy and MA would know who they are if they're in the grade immediately above. I guess this is just Stacey's NYC frame of reference at work again? Stoneybrook sounds like a decent-sized town to me.
— I tried the milky-way-bars-in-the-freezer thing once. It sucked :( from memory, they were that horrible combination of way too hard, becoming way too chewy. Though I've since learned that what we call milky ways aren't the same thing what the USA calls milky ways, so maybe it works better with a USA milky way. Feel free to test this and report back! :D
— I love this:
"I have two more thoughts," Kristy went on. She was speaking hesitantly, and I noticed Claudia glance at her sharply.
CLAUDIA’S RADAR FOR KRISTY GOING TOO FAR HAS A LIFETIME OF FINE TUNING LMAO <3
— I said this somewhere up the page, but the point where I feel worst for Kristy in this book is when she's all “why didn’t WE think of balloons?” Something about the helplessness of it gets me even more than when she cries.
— Aww Charlie taking DM to watch cheerleader practice. And he learns the cheers and performs them at home! <3
— MA's really specific skill of nailing The Little Engine That Could made me grin really hard.
— Stacey buys a dinosaur pin for her beret <3 that strikes me as more of a Claudia move than a Stacey one, but that's cool. I love BSC fashion.
— “You’re liars! And… and dirty businesswomen!” is such a winner insult.
— Stacey's cheer has never ever managed to leave my brain. Rah rah rah! Sis boom bah! Something... something... the Baby-Sitters Club! Hooray!
I love how Stoneybrook's size/amenities seems to fluctuate! Is it a small, old town with a lot of history? Is it a bedroom community for Stamford? I imagine it's bits of both - I always picture the downtown area with all the stores as being a sort of classic Colonial town, and Dawn's house was obviously a farmhouse (but it's close enough to Bradford Court to bike to) so that will be as far from Main Street as a farm would have been in the 1700s. Bradford Court (and nearby streets) is probably a post-war construction, if not '70s. (Maybe I just like the idea of the Kishis, the Thomases and the Spiers all buying new builds at the same time.)
Apparently, you can't bike to Watson's, a fact that is pretty firmly established from the the first book and also that the girls walk to school. And if Watson's house is zoned for Kelsey Middle School, is KMS on the "old" side of town (Ben Brewer etc. implies Watson's house is old)? I realize you can have new and old houses all over the place, but if Bradford Court is near Dawn's house then it was probably once farmland too? This is probably far deeper than anyone is ever meant to go into this, I just wonder about Stoneybrook's history/construction! Sorry to take up your thread with this rubbish.
Stoneybrook's history/construction is *exactly* the sort of rubbish I want to talk about! :D
I also always got the impression that Watson's house is old (for the same reason, good old Ben Brewer), and Mrs Porter's house is apparently this crumbling Victorian mansion. And then the Delaney place sounds like a snazzy new mansion. So yeah, I'm like you -- I think it's a bit of both. I've been playing attention to little geographic details on this read through and it's helping my mental image of Stoneybrook. Like, I think in Kristy's Great Idea, it said that the Pikes lived a few doors down from the Newtons. I didn't know that! But I'm still left with a lot of "???" about the broader things, like Stoneybrook's size.
On a related note, I would legit love to read fic about the James Hickman era of Stoneybrook.
I desperately want lots and lots of meta about Stoneybrook as a town. Or at least a collection of facts from the book all in one place. OR a better map, because god damn.
"I have two more thoughts," Kristy went on. She was speaking hesitantly, and I noticed Claudia glance at her sharply.
CLAUDIA’S RADAR FOR KRISTY GOING TOO FAR HAS A LIFETIME OF FINE TUNING LMAO <3
YES, I LOVED THAT TOO. Claud immediately knows what's up.
MA's really specific skill of nailing The Little Engine That Could made me grin really hard.
Me tooooo ♥ I think this is one of those things that's stuck with me, because I have this really strong THING about MA totally putting on stupid voices and doing little performances when she reads to kids. I vaguely incorporated it into a fic once!
“You’re liars! And… and dirty businesswomen!” is such a winner insult.
+1, I need to incorporate this into my regular vocabulary.
-This book was one of my favorites! Sooo good for my underdog-loving id as a kid. The honest and hardworking baby-sitting club versus the corrupt sellout kids? The BSC becoming more fire-forged than ever? Bring it! Not to mention heaps and heaps of woobie Stacey.
-So, fun story: as ESL, I was always learning new English words from BSC books, and rereading, I suddenly remembered that for this one it was “competition”, which is what Claudia calls the Baby Sitters Agency. Will probably be finding these all over the rereads, lol.
-I love how Stacey says that Claudia is her best friend but she also doesn’t know what [she] would do without Kristy and Mary Anne, awww. The divides (at first) in the club are also interesting, character-wise: Kristy and Stacey are ferociously protective of the club for different reasons, and so they’re the ones who want to take immediate action against the agency while Claudia and Mary Anne want to wait it out.
-Mary Anne is not very close to her strict father. Hmmm, I feel like at this point, AMM was still feeling out how she should characterize Richard, since he had yet to make an on-page appearance. That said, Mary Anne is one of the first who suggests going to their parents for advice on what to do about the kids being mistreated.
-Haha, does anybody remember Mary Anne’s Atlanta Pig Farm call in Poor Mallory? This was the first thing I thought of when she had her brain wave in calling the agency.
-I don’t remember how dark Stacey’s thoughts got re: her diagnosis. Learning Maureen and Edward couldn’t have kids anymore then wondering what if she’d died and they’d been childless…those are really harsh things to think of, let alone to digest when you’re twelve. : (
- I really like the whole sense we get of families that grew up next door to each other helping each other out. Awwww at the Thomas(-Brewers) having Thanksgiving with the Spiers, and Elizabeth taking Jamie to the office.
-Uh, Charlie, you may not have a thing for Big Brother Parties but you damn well deserved one after Friends Forever #1.
-Mallory went back and forth between charges and babysitters – oh hey, foreshadowing.
-I always assumed Claudia was Jamie’s favorite, but here he cries about Kristy hmmm. I guess because she has the more dominant personality and her absence makes more of an impact. They’re all so great with Jamie here, from giving him a party to all of them giving him gifts.
-CHARLOTTE! :( Becca can’t come soon enough. Childhood bullying is really horrible. And Stacey-Charlotte almost sister feels! Stacey’s pretty great at handling sulky kids- I like how she was honest with Charlotte about money being a good bonus of baby-sitting but she also tells Charlotte how much she sincerely likes baby-sitting for her.
-Also, the way the BSC finally handled the agency was actually rather, ah, professional for 12-year-olds. I like their indecision at first because they didn’t want to ‘rat’ but also how they went to grown-ups for input, because they themselves are just kids after all. And how they all advised the charges to be the one telling their parents.
-So, this book sealed the deal for Stacey being the mature/sophisticated one early on, y/y? Stacey taking charge of what she wants from her treatment is really great, though I reckon a little psychiatry wouldn’t have hurt her after what she went through in NY (it was certainly good for Mary Anne later). And I love how she goes to Dr. Johannsen, how she says it’s MY body to her parents.
-finally, lmao @ Kristy taking the makeovers flyer from Liz and Michelle. Classic Kristy!
I don’t remember how dark Stacey’s thoughts got re: her diagnosis. Learning Maureen and Edward couldn’t have kids anymore then wondering what if she’d died and they’d been childless…those are really harsh things to think of, let alone to digest when you’re twelve. : (
Yeah, that was rough. :( I didn't remember any of that, and it's a lot for a twelve year old to handle.
So, this book sealed the deal for Stacey being the mature/sophisticated one early on, y/y? Stacey taking charge of what she wants from her treatment is really great, though I reckon a little psychiatry wouldn’t have hurt her after what she went through in NY (it was certainly good for Mary Anne later). And I love how she goes to Dr. Johannsen, how she says it’s MY body to her parents.
That was awesome! I felt so bad for her, being shuttled back and forth between doctors and with her parents looking for a "miracle" cure. It felt awesome to see her stand up for herself and for what she wanted in her own treatment.
This book was one of my favorites! Sooo good for my underdog-loving id as a kid. The honest and hardworking baby-sitting club versus the corrupt sellout kids? The BSC becoming more fire-forged than ever? Bring it! Not to mention heaps and heaps of woobie Stacey.
YES, to all of this. ♥
I really like the whole sense we get of families that grew up next door to each other helping each other out. Awwww at the Thomas(-Brewers) having Thanksgiving with the Spiers, and Elizabeth taking Jamie to the office.
yesss, I love the "community" feeling. I never saw it as a kid (and it probably wouldn't have interested me if I had) but as an adult, I'm so much more interested in the parents and their relationships with one another.
"It’s the biggest one around, with five levels of stores, a zillion restaurants and food stands, four movie theaters, a videogame arcade, a petting zoo, and an exhibits area."
Is this pretty big as malls go? I grew up in Minnesota so we had the Mall of America which was enormous but also very atypical, and I got the impression that most malls...weren't like that.
I sort of sympathized with Stacey more this time around than I remembered. I'm twice her age and I get nauseating migraines, and I only just learned/worked up the nerve to give myself shots for them every so often. Still, the idea of having to carry those around and be dependent on them is pretty nerve-wracking. Poor kid. :(
Yeah, I raised an eyebrow at that too. I thought maybe it could mean just four screens? Rather that four separate movie theatres run by four different companies? There's a mention in one of the other books (I think it was in Phantom Phone Calls) that the movie theatre in Stoneybrook is only playing one movie, so maybe it's just meant to be four times the size of Stoneybrook's tiny movie theatre...
A mall that size would be HUGE. The biggest mall I can think of that I've visited is 3 stories, and the top story is just a movie theater. I guess if it were small around, and they built up, but that doesn't make sense for a mall that also has a petting zoo (?) and exhibits (???).
But it's also not completely atypical; I know of at least one mall with an ice rink.
Okay I finally got this one done. I think everyone has already commented on the stuff I noticed, but here are my notes anyway!
- Fun fact: my book is obviously one I've bought secondhand. The previous owner was Marisa or Marise - I wonder if she misses her BSC books.
- Omg Stacey not making any friends for a month, until she met Claudia. :(
- One of the things I'm frequently infuriated by is how poor the canon map of Stoneybrook is. And here, Stacey says Fawcett Avenue is "two streets away" from Bradford Court. THE MAP IS SO WRONG.
- Awww Mimi remembering when Richard and Alma went to the hospital ♥
- Even if the sitters in the Baby-sitters Agency are as old as 15 or 16 (it only says "13 and up" on the flyer), that still seems super young to have an 11PM curfew on weeknights.
- Stacey's physical descriptions of the girls after Janine brings the flyer in are SUPER weird.
- I had somehow forgotten about the whole "Candy Kane" dating "Winston Churchill" thing haha. OTP, amirite?
- Stacey talking about her diabetes breaks my heart. You can tell how hard it is for her.
- Ugh these books are so inconsistent with switching out American stuff with what we say/use in Australia. Like "twinkie" is still there but then Maureen is all "you've lost a kilogram!" It's so jarring.
- THE VISOR ♥ Kristy suddenly being in Full President Mode.
- I want fic about the Johanssens being all brainy. Charlotte's mom is a doctor and her dad is an engineer!
- Omg Polly from Polly's Fine Candy. I kind of love the idea of this grumpy old lady who dislikes children running a candy store. I bet Polly is friends with Mrs Porter. OR omg what if Polly is Polly Porter and Morbidda Destiny is just the oldest, crankiest sister, but on Sundays Polly and her other sister go over there for tea and they talk irritably about children while they suck butterscotch candies together. BOOM. NEW HEAD CANON.
- The Spiers and the Thomases having Thanksgiving together! ♥
- Can someone please write a fic about Charlie and David Michael at cheerleader practice, both of them totally enjoying it for different reasons.
- Aww, Stacey cuddling Jamie in the laundry, and Louie leanng on them. Aww ♥ My feels.
- Uggghhh Stacey's parents are making me so mad. I know their hearts are in the right place, but NO, you guys.
- Oh, the scene with Stacey and Dr. Johanssen ♥
- Stacey and Pete are adorable.
- MARY ANNE AND MIMI FEELS ♥ I'm impressed Mary Anne learned how to make hats before she could make scarves.
- Lmao Kristy confronting Mrs Newton.
- Ugggh the Agency sending "false sitters" makes me SO ANGRY.
- Wow, NYC is a two hour drive? Why did I think it was closer? And Abby's mom commutes that every day in the later books! I thought MY commute was bad (1.5 hours in the car each way.) Ugh two hours, nooo.
- God, Ed and Maureen are fucking clueless. Thank god they come to their senses.
- Stacey and Laine making up is really sweet ♥ I love that they just start talking about dumb stuff and mutual people they know.
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stoneybrook2016-05-15 10:20 am
STACEY'S DIFFERENT... AND IT'S HARDER ON HER THAN ANYONE KNOWS
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(Anonymous) 2016-05-15 12:31 am (UTC)(link)So many Mimi and Mary Anne feels! I am tearing up that Mimi is able to tell Mary Anne when she was born! Mary Anne was born in the fall, right? So Claudia and Kristy were already born! I'm having so many feelings imagining it, the Thomases and the Kishis with their babies watching the Spiers go off to the hospital!
I love how seriously Mimi and Janine already take the BSC, though. They are awesome.
I love MA's idea to call the agency! Coupled with the burglar alarms from last week, she is really a quick thinker. I'm not surprised she gets to save the day next week. I love how that is almost foreshadowed with her slowly growing boldness and resourcefulness. Having friends is good for her!
I had forgotten that Stacey didn't tell her old friends about the diabetes either. Poor Stacey. All of this is just heartbreaking. And she is so desperate to hold on to the club and her new friends. :(
The visor makes its first appearance! AND KID KITS. I've always wondered how big they are intended to be, so their first citation is "carton" which isn't terribly clear.
I do think Kristy is interesting in her desperate willingness to hand over jobs to Sam, Charlie, and Janine. It also kind of foreshadows the club's need to expand later on.
Love that Stacey can talk to Dr. Johanssen about her problems!
Oh, Charlotte, you need Becca real bad. :(
This book has a lot of interesting Kristy and Stacey stuff, since a lot of it is based in Stacey's desperation to keep the club alive. They're a pairing I never thought much about, but it's interesting. I think I said that back in Kristy's Great Idea too. It's interesting how intimate things are with only four of them.
Here's Mal's first appearance! She goes back and forth between the sitters and the kids. That's kind of funny. And weird, since the other kids are like, six, tops and she's 10.
Mimi teaching Mary Anne to knit! And telling her about Alma! I love these two so much. I want all the Mimi and MA bonding.
Ugh, I remember Janet and Leslie. THEY MADE KRISTY CRY. I forgot Kristy cried. :(((
I forgot all about Stacey and Laine making up. I know things go bad with Laine later, and I guess that was all I remembered. Laine is just a huge bitch in my head but they are really sweet here. (And now that I think about it they had to be friends in the NYC Super Special because some of them stayed at her apartment.)
This isn't a book I remember liking too much as a kid, probably as evidenced by my vague memories of it. I was into these books for the baby-sitting, the wild plans, the big family antics. Stacey was one of the less interesting girls and I wasn't into the plots about the sitters dealing with their own problems. (I was only in first or second grade when I started reading the BSC so I think I was too young. I was a strong reader falling in that weird gap where age-appropriate books were too easy and books that were on my reading level were about teen/adult problems and went over my head.) So it'll be interesting to revisit these as an adult, because I liked this book a lot. Stacey's situation is really sad and I love how mature she is in laying everything out for her parents. It's still clear to me that her parents are a mess and I know they divorce soon, so I'm sure they have underlying issues that Stacey's diabetes has just exacerbated. Poor Stacey. That has to be tough for her to feel like she's caught in this. I'm fascinated by the McGills calling on actualfax QUACKS, though! They seemed more normal than that to me. And it's fricking diabetes, not some rare, deadly disorder. I know a lot has changed since the books were written but it is seriously bizarre.
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(Anonymous) 2016-05-15 01:30 am (UTC)(link)It is super sweet thinking of how the Thomas/Spier/Kishi families were probably all there for each other due to having babies around the same time. And yeah, Mary-Anne was September, Claudia was July and Kristy was August (of course she's a Leo, could she be anything else?). And all four girls were born at night!
Stacey keeping quiet about her diabetes is so sad and is probably one of the few times she acts like a legit teenager. Laine was always a character that I never thought much of even before book #50 happened. She was just Stacey's New York best friend and that was it.
I've always wondered how big the kid kits were supposed to be too! I think it was the the TV show that had them as a medium sized cardboard box, and that makes more sense than them being a shoe box or something.
Kristy crying about the agency pops up again in a later as one of the few times that they ever saw her cry (it might have been a book narrated by Claudia or Mary Anne because I think they also referenced her dad leaving which the other girls wouldn't have seen).
I did love how Stacey took initiative and had Dr. Johanssen help her find a way to tell her parents that she didn't want to see that holistic doctor and just wanted to see her own doctor. That was pretty savvy for a 12 year old! Must be that sophisticated personality of hers.
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I loved Mimi teaching Mary Anne to knit so much <3 and I also kind of love that both Claudia and Janine were completely uninterested, lmao.
For some reason, the thing that always hit me even harder than Kristy crying was when she was going, "why didn't we think of balloons? Why didn't we think of balloons?" The desperation! Oh Kristy D:
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Yes! And also, she was the first to brave sitting at Watson's and Morbidda Destiny and she kept her head throughout that.
They're a pairing I never thought much about, but it's interesting. I think I said that back in Kristy's Great Idea too. It's interesting how intimate things are with only four of them.
True. It’s like, at this point, they’re the toughest cookies of the group, the two who’ve been through a lot, and so they’re the ones who get fierce during tough times.
I remember liking Laine in the NY Super Special, but not a lot else. It’s kinda sad that they never make up, but at the same time, she was showing signs of being a fair weather friend early on. Was BSC Remember written after Stacey’s Ex-Best Friend? Because the former shows Laine in a harsher light when Stacey flashes back to the memory of first getting diagnosed.
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They're actually more alike than I remember, once you get past their superficial differences. They're both very driven and professional. I would read all of the Kristy/Stacey and Kristy&Stacey.
I forgot all about Stacey and Laine making up. I know things go bad with Laine later, and I guess that was all I remembered. Laine is just a huge bitch in my head but they are really sweet here. (And now that I think about it they had to be friends in the NYC Super Special because some of them stayed at her apartment.)
Yeah, I forgot about that, too. Now that I think about it, there's at least one book where Laine visits Stoneybrook, IIRC. I don't even remember what Laine and Stacey fight over, but I have a very strong conviction that Laine is Terrible, so.
I feel like Stacey's old friendship with Laine comes up again during the Bad Girls arc, when (IIRC) Stacey compares her new, sophisticated friends to Laine.
Stacey's situation is really sad and I love how mature she is in laying everything out for her parents. It's still clear to me that her parents are a mess and I know they divorce soon, so I'm sure they have underlying issues that Stacey's diabetes has just exacerbated. Poor Stacey. That has to be tough for her to feel like she's caught in this. I'm fascinated by the McGills calling on actualfax QUACKS, though! They seemed more normal than that to me. And it's fricking diabetes, not some rare, deadly disorder. I know a lot has changed since the books were written but it is seriously bizarre
I guess I can understand it in an abstract sense, in that Stacey is all they have and they're scared and want her to be well. But yeah. I was kind of disturbed by how easily they seemed to be influenced by anyone who claimed to know what they were talking about, and how they seemed to believe that a miracle cure was just around the corner. IDK if there's been a cultural shift in how we think about doctors and diabetes since this was written, or if this is specifically about the McGills. I was definitely cheering Stacey on when she stood up for herself, though.
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This was another one that hadn't stuck in my brain, but I agree with most of the comments here.
Mary Anne and Mimi spending time together, and Mimi telling her about her mom broke my heart.
I really enjoyed Dr. Johannsen's relationship with Stacey, as well as Mrs. Newton's relationship with the BSC. Not only does Dr. Johannsen help Stacey with her parents and steering clear of quack doctors, but Mrs. Newton also is a very good mom and neighbor, knowing that an infant needs older care but not shutting the BSC out entirely because Jamie loves them and needs stability.
(And I liked that of all the agency rivals, the one sitter who turned out reliable was the boy, a nice nod to the fact that boys can be baby-sitters too.)
Also I also forgot that Kristy cried. Kristy! :(
Another thing that I considered when reading this was that this book came out in 1986, during the first few years of the AIDS crisis-- with Stacey being forced to keep her illness a secret, I wonder if some people were wondering if that was it. Laine does stay away from her worried that whatever she has is infectious, after all. Possibly I'm overthinking it, but I just suspect that a kid having "a mystery illness" in the 1980s might cause a lot of problems (thanks for letting her tell her New York friends what was going on, Stacey's parents!).
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(Anonymous) 2016-05-17 02:05 am (UTC)(link)no subject
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— SMS is apparently the only middle school in Stoneybrook which I’m gonna just take as early instalment weirdness. Because Stoneybrook Day School, Stoneybrook Academy, and Kelsey. Or I guess it also could be informed by Stacey having a totally different frame of reference for what constitutes a tiny town. The way she talks about Stoneybrook, it's like she's moved to Dungatar (the town in The Dressmaker, which I'm reading rn and was the first tiny town I thought of). Stoneybrook is not Dungatar.
— Janine FREAKING OUT over the Baby-Sitters Agency, awww <3
— If Stoneybrook is as small as Stacey's narration makes me imagine, the Agency should flop immediately because parents would already know (or know of) Liz and Michelle. Or, at the very least, Kristy and MA would know who they are if they're in the grade immediately above. I guess this is just Stacey's NYC frame of reference at work again? Stoneybrook sounds like a decent-sized town to me.
— I tried the milky-way-bars-in-the-freezer thing once. It sucked :( from memory, they were that horrible combination of way too hard, becoming way too chewy. Though I've since learned that what we call milky ways aren't the same thing what the USA calls milky ways, so maybe it works better with a USA milky way. Feel free to test this and report back! :D
— I love this:
"I have two more thoughts," Kristy went on.
She was speaking hesitantly, and I noticed Claudia glance at her sharply.
CLAUDIA’S RADAR FOR KRISTY GOING TOO FAR HAS A LIFETIME OF FINE TUNING LMAO <3
— I said this somewhere up the page, but the point where I feel worst for Kristy in this book is when she's all “why didn’t WE think of balloons?” Something about the helplessness of it gets me even more than when she cries.
— Aww Charlie taking DM to watch cheerleader practice. And he learns the cheers and performs them at home! <3
— MA's really specific skill of nailing The Little Engine That Could made me grin really hard.
— Stacey buys a dinosaur pin for her beret <3 that strikes me as more of a Claudia move than a Stacey one, but that's cool. I love BSC fashion.
— “You’re liars! And… and dirty businesswomen!” is such a winner insult.
— Stacey's cheer has never ever managed to leave my brain. Rah rah rah! Sis boom bah! Something... something... the Baby-Sitters Club! Hooray!
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(Anonymous) 2016-05-18 02:31 am (UTC)(link)Apparently, you can't bike to Watson's, a fact that is pretty firmly established from the the first book and also that the girls walk to school. And if Watson's house is zoned for Kelsey Middle School, is KMS on the "old" side of town (Ben Brewer etc. implies Watson's house is old)? I realize you can have new and old houses all over the place, but if Bradford Court is near Dawn's house then it was probably once farmland too?
This is probably far deeper than anyone is ever meant to go into this, I just wonder about Stoneybrook's history/construction! Sorry to take up your thread with this rubbish.
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I also always got the impression that Watson's house is old (for the same reason, good old Ben Brewer), and Mrs Porter's house is apparently this crumbling Victorian mansion. And then the Delaney place sounds like a snazzy new mansion. So yeah, I'm like you -- I think it's a bit of both. I've been playing attention to little geographic details on this read through and it's helping my mental image of Stoneybrook. Like, I think in Kristy's Great Idea, it said that the Pikes lived a few doors down from the Newtons. I didn't know that! But I'm still left with a lot of "???" about the broader things, like Stoneybrook's size.
On a related note, I would legit love to read fic about the James Hickman era of Stoneybrook.
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"I have two more thoughts," Kristy went on.
She was speaking hesitantly, and I noticed Claudia glance at her sharply.
CLAUDIA’S RADAR FOR KRISTY GOING TOO FAR HAS A LIFETIME OF FINE TUNING LMAO <3
YES, I LOVED THAT TOO. Claud immediately knows what's up.
MA's really specific skill of nailing The Little Engine That Could made me grin really hard.
Me tooooo ♥ I think this is one of those things that's stuck with me, because I have this really strong THING about MA totally putting on stupid voices and doing little performances when she reads to kids. I vaguely incorporated it into a fic once!
“You’re liars! And… and dirty businesswomen!” is such a winner insult.
+1, I need to incorporate this into my regular vocabulary.
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-So, fun story: as ESL, I was always learning new English words from BSC books, and rereading, I suddenly remembered that for this one it was “competition”, which is what Claudia calls the Baby Sitters Agency. Will probably be finding these all over the rereads, lol.
-I love how Stacey says that Claudia is her best friend but she also doesn’t know what [she] would do without Kristy and Mary Anne, awww. The divides (at first) in the club are also interesting, character-wise: Kristy and Stacey are ferociously protective of the club for different reasons, and so they’re the ones who want to take immediate action against the agency while Claudia and Mary Anne want to wait it out.
-Mary Anne is not very close to her strict father.
Hmmm, I feel like at this point, AMM was still feeling out how she should characterize Richard, since he had yet to make an on-page appearance. That said, Mary Anne is one of the first who suggests going to their parents for advice on what to do about the kids being mistreated.
-Haha, does anybody remember Mary Anne’s Atlanta Pig Farm call in Poor Mallory? This was the first thing I thought of when she had her brain wave in calling the agency.
-I don’t remember how dark Stacey’s thoughts got re: her diagnosis. Learning Maureen and Edward couldn’t have kids anymore then wondering what if she’d died and they’d been childless…those are really harsh things to think of, let alone to digest when you’re twelve. : (
- I really like the whole sense we get of families that grew up next door to each other helping each other out. Awwww at the Thomas(-Brewers) having Thanksgiving with the Spiers, and Elizabeth taking Jamie to the office.
-Uh, Charlie, you may not have a thing for Big Brother Parties but you damn well deserved one after Friends Forever #1.
-Mallory went back and forth between charges and babysitters – oh hey, foreshadowing.
-I always assumed Claudia was Jamie’s favorite, but here he cries about Kristy hmmm. I guess because she has the more dominant personality and her absence makes more of an impact. They’re all so great with Jamie here, from giving him a party to all of them giving him gifts.
-CHARLOTTE! :( Becca can’t come soon enough. Childhood bullying is really horrible. And Stacey-Charlotte almost sister feels! Stacey’s pretty great at handling sulky kids- I like how she was honest with Charlotte about money being a good bonus of baby-sitting but she also tells Charlotte how much she sincerely likes baby-sitting for her.
-Also, the way the BSC finally handled the agency was actually rather, ah, professional for 12-year-olds. I like their indecision at first because they didn’t want to ‘rat’ but also how they went to grown-ups for input, because they themselves are just kids after all. And how they all advised the charges to be the one telling their parents.
-So, this book sealed the deal for Stacey being the mature/sophisticated one early on, y/y? Stacey taking charge of what she wants from her treatment is really great, though I reckon a little psychiatry wouldn’t have hurt her after what she went through in NY (it was certainly good for Mary Anne later). And I love how she goes to Dr. Johannsen, how she says it’s MY body to her parents.
-finally, lmao @ Kristy taking the makeovers flyer from Liz and Michelle. Classic Kristy!
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Yeah, that was rough. :( I didn't remember any of that, and it's a lot for a twelve year old to handle.
So, this book sealed the deal for Stacey being the mature/sophisticated one early on, y/y? Stacey taking charge of what she wants from her treatment is really great, though I reckon a little psychiatry wouldn’t have hurt her after what she went through in NY (it was certainly good for Mary Anne later). And I love how she goes to Dr. Johannsen, how she says it’s MY body to her parents.
That was awesome! I felt so bad for her, being shuttled back and forth between doctors and with her parents looking for a "miracle" cure. It felt awesome to see her stand up for herself and for what she wanted in her own treatment.
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YES, to all of this. ♥
I really like the whole sense we get of families that grew up next door to each other helping each other out. Awwww at the Thomas(-Brewers) having Thanksgiving with the Spiers, and Elizabeth taking Jamie to the office.
yesss, I love the "community" feeling. I never saw it as a kid (and it probably wouldn't have interested me if I had) but as an adult, I'm so much more interested in the parents and their relationships with one another.
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(Anonymous) 2016-05-20 02:56 am (UTC)(link)Is this pretty big as malls go? I grew up in Minnesota so we had the Mall of America which was enormous but also very atypical, and I got the impression that most malls...weren't like that.
I sort of sympathized with Stacey more this time around than I remembered. I'm twice her age and I get nauseating migraines, and I only just learned/worked up the nerve to give myself shots for them every so often. Still, the idea of having to carry those around and be dependent on them is pretty nerve-wracking. Poor kid. :(
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(Anonymous) 2016-05-20 02:58 am (UTC)(link)no subject
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(Anonymous) 2016-05-20 04:23 am (UTC)(link)This title always confused me as a kid, too, because we learned the truth about her in book 1! So why are we naming this book after it?
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But it's also not completely atypical; I know of at least one mall with an ice rink.
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- Fun fact: my book is obviously one I've bought secondhand. The previous owner was Marisa or Marise - I wonder if she misses her BSC books.
- Omg Stacey not making any friends for a month, until she met Claudia. :(
- One of the things I'm frequently infuriated by is how poor the canon map of Stoneybrook is. And here, Stacey says Fawcett Avenue is "two streets away" from Bradford Court. THE MAP IS SO WRONG.
- Awww Mimi remembering when Richard and Alma went to the hospital ♥
- Even if the sitters in the Baby-sitters Agency are as old as 15 or 16 (it only says "13 and up" on the flyer), that still seems super young to have an 11PM curfew on weeknights.
- Stacey's physical descriptions of the girls after Janine brings the flyer in are SUPER weird.
- I had somehow forgotten about the whole "Candy Kane" dating "Winston Churchill" thing haha. OTP, amirite?
- Stacey talking about her diabetes breaks my heart. You can tell how hard it is for her.
- Ugh these books are so inconsistent with switching out American stuff with what we say/use in Australia. Like "twinkie" is still there but then Maureen is all "you've lost a kilogram!" It's so jarring.
- THE VISOR ♥ Kristy suddenly being in Full President Mode.
- I want fic about the Johanssens being all brainy. Charlotte's mom is a doctor and her dad is an engineer!
- Omg Polly from Polly's Fine Candy. I kind of love the idea of this grumpy old lady who dislikes children running a candy store. I bet Polly is friends with Mrs Porter. OR omg what if Polly is Polly Porter and Morbidda Destiny is just the oldest, crankiest sister, but on Sundays Polly and her other sister go over there for tea and they talk irritably about children while they suck butterscotch candies together. BOOM. NEW HEAD CANON.
- The Spiers and the Thomases having Thanksgiving together! ♥
- Can someone please write a fic about Charlie and David Michael at cheerleader practice, both of them totally enjoying it for different reasons.
- Aww, Stacey cuddling Jamie in the laundry, and Louie leanng on them. Aww ♥ My feels.
- Uggghhh Stacey's parents are making me so mad. I know their hearts are in the right place, but NO, you guys.
- Oh, the scene with Stacey and Dr. Johanssen ♥
- Stacey and Pete are adorable.
- MARY ANNE AND MIMI FEELS ♥ I'm impressed Mary Anne learned how to make hats before she could make scarves.
- Lmao Kristy confronting Mrs Newton.
- Ugggh the Agency sending "false sitters" makes me SO ANGRY.
- Wow, NYC is a two hour drive? Why did I think it was closer? And Abby's mom commutes that every day in the later books! I thought MY commute was bad (1.5 hours in the car each way.)
Ugh two hours, nooo.
- God, Ed and Maureen are fucking clueless. Thank god they come to their senses.
- Stacey and Laine making up is really sweet ♥ I love that they just start talking about dumb stuff and mutual people they know.