The Baby Sitters' Club Series

[laconicchick]

My mother wouldn't buy them for me because Sunny's mom had cancer and my mom's mom had cancer too when she was a teenager. So it was "too painful" for her to buy the books for me. I am totally serious. It was ridiculous. I think I skimmed them at the library or something, but then they ended up freaking me out anyway because of the drugs or sex or whatever. I was a bit sheltered.

[luciano]

susyhomewrecker said:

Dawn's series was supposed to be "edgy." I never read her books, because I'd outgrown the series by that point, but I think I remember seeing synopses about Dawn and Sunny Winslow doing drugs or getting pregnant or selling themselves into prostitution or something. Did anyone here read them?

I read some of them. Dawn was just Dawn - I think the biggest thing that happened to her was her stepmother having a baby. The other kids had their own issues:

Amalia - Dealt with abusive boyfriend and racism.
Maggie - Dealt with an alcoholic mother and an eating disorder.
Sunny - Rebelled [got drunk, cut school, ran away, etc.] as a way to not face the fact that her mother was dying. The last book on her was just so freakin' sad.
Ducky - Dealt with a suicidal friend and parents that weren't really around. May have been gay.

[dragonfly80]

susyhomewrecker said:

Dawn's series was supposed to be "edgy." I never read her books, because I'd outgrown the series by that point, but I think I remember seeing synopses about Dawn and Sunny Winslow doing drugs or getting pregnant or selling themselves into prostitution or something. Did anyone here read them?

They were "edgier" but not to that extent. The above synopses does sound a bit more like some of the stories over on Fanfiction.net, especially the ones by Lioness Black.


Auron summed up the California Diaries perfectly. If you read the Friends Forever series there is one book where Dawn and Sunny come back to Stoneybrook for a Summer.

[ivy]

luciano said:

Amalia - Dealt with abusive boyfriend and racism.

Man, Ann M. Martin loved the topic of racism. Was Amalia black? Ann also wrote a book called Slam Book featuring a girl named Randy who was black and her only real character trait was that people called her an "Oreo" because she hung out with white girls.

I don't mean to say the topic of racism should never be brought up, but the way Ann M. Martin's books covered it was so preachy and lame.

I would have liked for Dawn to get pregnant. I want to know what she would have named her baby. She was from California, you know! Everyone from California is a hippie! They have names like Clover and Daffodil and Ducky and Sunny! Plus, they eat apples with peanut butter instead of junk food. Because they are hippies! Does everyone understand that part yet? Hippies hippies hippies! Dawn should have named her baby "Blonde California Orange Hippie Dandelion All-Natural Foods Schaeffer".

This thread is so totally bringing back the lameness and rampant stereotypes of this series. I love it.

[linared]

I think Amelia was Latina.

Ann M. Martin always seems to handle racism poorly. I remember reading somewhere that it was weird that they had Jessi move into Stacey's old house and have all the neighbors be racists and then continue to have those families as clients (I forget the name of the neighbors). I also never understood why they would have Jessi think someone was racist and be wrong. Like when she thought the little girl in the book where they go to the winter lodge was racist when she was lonely and homesick. Or when she thought Mallory was racist because she was acting shy around Jessi's relatives. I never got the point of that. Where the readers supposed to think that Jessi was paranoid and blamed racism if someone didn't like her? Kind of a bad message to give out.

[laconicchick]

The weirdest thing is that when I was reading these books, I always pictured Dawn going back east when she went to California. I am pretty sure I knew where California was. But I don't think I knew where Connecticut was (although somehow I knew how to pronounce it, so THAT must have been in the book). So since I was in the west (and you know how when you read something, you kind of picture it in your surroundings? Like if you picture a living room, you tend to picture yours?), when Dawn went across the country, I pictured her going east. Weird. I think I knew Stacey was in the east when she was in New York. I did not know it was that close to Connecticut.

[linared]

Another thing I never understood about the CD books is why they didn't write that Dawn was entering high school. They already had her going to the high school for 8th grade so why not just graduate her already. It was just a weird juxapostion with Dawn in Ca and Sunny is drinking and making out with seniors and then to have Kristy in Conn. wondering if she like likes Bart or whatever.

[ivy]

linared said:

I also never understood why they would have Jessi think someone was racist and be wrong. Like when she thought the little girl in the book where they go to the winter lodge was racist when she was lonely and homesick. Or when she thought Mallory was racist because she was acting shy around Jessi's relatives.

I don't remember that book but-damn! Jessi thought Mallory was racist because she was shy around her family? Her own BEST FRIEND? Why in the world a black girl think her very best friend didn't like black people? That's pretty insulting to Mallory. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Mallory could not get a break.

[linared]

It was in BSC in the USA and Jessi thinks Mallory is racist because she is shy when she mets Jessi's entire extended family for the first time. I actually like that super special because all the BSCers get pissed off at each through out the whole book.

[susyhomewrecker]

Wasn't Mallory just shy and generally lame? Why would Jessi equate that with racism? Oy.