The Baby Sitters' Club Series

[Mutagen]

OMGosh! Weren't the Pike kids just so excited about that "orange sauce" (ketchup and mustard together)?

Okay, but the book I am thinking about (the non-BSC one) had lyme disease in it, right?

I remember Stacey freaked out and thought she had Lyme disease in the first super special...

[littlecatfeet]

The steel wool incident was interesting to me (in my BSCology studies as an adult) because it was one of the few times I can think of when one of the baby-sitters was actually portrayed as doing something wrong. As the series went on, they seemed to become more two-dimensional and I can't remember a time when they made baby-sitting errors. They might have ostracized each other for getting a haircut or daring to talk to a non club member, but they were pretty much perfect sitters.

I once T.A.ed a college course and then found out that one of my students had been in the BSC movie. I was super excited! I played it cool around her, though.

[laconicchick]

mutagen said:

Okay, but the book I am thinking about (the non-BSC one) had lyme disease in it, right?

I remember Stacey freaked out and thought she had Lyme disease in the first super special...

Okay, but I'm still pretty sure there there was lyme disease in Eleven Kids, One Summer (the sequel to Ten Kids, No Pets). I don't think I'd put it past her to reuse a plot point.

[littlecatfeet]

laconicchick said:

Okay, but I'm still pretty sure there there was lyme disease in Eleven Kids, One Summer (the sequel to Ten Kids, No Pets). I don't think I'd put it past her to reuse a plot point.

This sounded familiar to me so I peeked on Amazon and you're right, LC. One of the kids deals with Lyme disease.

[monkey]

I remember the Ten Kids, No Pets series...read them when I was eight or so. And my TC is that I spent the next couple of years thinking that the cat's name, Zsa-Zsa, was pronounced 'Zzz-sah-zzz-sah.'

[laconicchick]

littlecatfeet said:

laconicchick said:

Okay, but I'm still pretty sure there there was lyme disease in Eleven Kids, One Summer (the sequel to Ten Kids, No Pets). I don't think I'd put it past her to reuse a plot point.

This sounded familiar to me so I peeked on Amazon and you're right, LC. One of the kids deals with Lyme disease.

Thank goodness! I would hate to be going senile at this age. ;D

[ivy]

Ten Kids, No Pets was stupid. I could not get through the sequel. Although I admit I had fun when I was younger by going through baby name books and using the alphabetic naming system to see what I came up. Actually, I still do that on occasion. It's a challenge to come up with names as bad as the ones Ann M. Martin used. ("Bainbridge"?! WTF?) So far I've never done it.

AMN recycled plots all the time. Racism storylines were her favorite, I think.

Does anyone remember how Dawn got earrings shaped as oranges for "her home state"? (Just in case you forgot, for five seconds, that she's from California and it's totally better than Stoneybrook because they like healthy food there.) I still remember that, and I don't get it. Don't oranges symbolize Florida more than California?

[Deleted]

Heh, I do remember when Dawn says, in Goodbye Stacey, Goodbye, that people in CA don't have yard sales.

Whatever! Just being in California for a month I've seen about five signs for yard sales!

Oh wait, everybody in California is a tofu eating health nut too...

[susyhomewrecker]

We had a yard sale one time. In California.

Maybe she just meant in Southern California, because that's like, a way different state. I don't remember the orange earrings, though. Maybe I didn't read that book.

littlecatfeet said:

I once T.A.ed a college course and then found out that one of my students had been in the BSC movie. I was super excited! I played it cool around her, though.

Who was it!? Was it one of the Babysitters?

[linared]

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The steel wool incident was interesting to me (in my BSCology studies as an adult) because it was one of the few times I can think of when one of the baby-sitters was actually portrayed as doing something wrong. As the series went on, they seemed to become more two-dimensional and I can't remember a time when they made baby-sitting errors. They might have ostracized each other for getting a haircut or daring to talk to a non club member, but they were pretty much perfect sitters.

Yeah you're right. In the early, AM written books, the girls do screw up. They fight at Lucy's christening party and get in trouble. Stacy ignore the Pike kids to flirt. The girls get hypercompetivative over the pageant and poor Charlotte freaks. When the ghostwriters come in, not only are the BSCers perfect, they know more than the parents about the kids.

I once T.A.ed a college course and then found out that one of my students had been in the BSC movie. I was super excited! I played it cool around her, though.

Awesome.