The Baby Sitters' Club Series

[marywebgirl]

I think I'm way older than you guys because I stopped reading at Jessi's first book because I outgrew it. Since I was reading them as they were released, I remember being sort of pissed when they re-started 8th grade since they'd been aging up until that point.

[spinsterliz]

When I look back, I think those BSC girls were the biggest bitches ever. Remember when none of them would speak to Mary Anne because she cut her hair without telling them first?

There was some girl in their school who made only a few apperances; I think her name was Cookie, and she was supposed to be really mean since she didn't like any of the BSC members. Something tells me that if I re-read these books I'd be on Cookie's side.

[Mutagen]

When I look back, I think those BSC girls were the biggest bitches ever. Remember when none of them would speak to Mary Anne because she cut her hair without telling them first?

YES! That was just horrible! They acted like Mary Anne had tattooed "CHILD MOLESTER" across her forehead! I can't believe she actually agreed to stay friends with them after that.

[susyhomewrecker]

spinsterliz said:

When I look back, I think those BSC girls were the biggest bitches ever. Remember when none of them would speak to Mary Anne because she cut her hair without telling them first?

There was some girl in their school who made only a few apperances; I think her name was Cookie, and she was supposed to be really mean since she didn't like any of the BSC members. Something tells me that if I re-read these books I'd be on Cookie's side.

Cokie Mason. I don't remember what her problem was, exactly, but she and Kristy were rivals. In the BSC movie, she was played by Methanie Tanner's friend Gia from "Full House" (the edgy one who corrupted Steph).

[lallybroch]

Cokie and her best friend Grace were the stuck up popular girls who were always making fun of the BSC. The rivalry really heated up when they played tricks on them during one of the October books and somehow it ended with the BSC getting the better of them in a graveyard on Halloween night.

Cokie had a thing for Logan and after Mary Anne dumped him (he was becoming too possessive and controlling, the drama!), she made her move. This happened a few books after the break up, when the entire eighth grade was assigned to group projects on popular authors. Logan and Mary Anne naturally were placed in the same group and Cokie maneuvered her way into it. That's when Cokie and Logan started going out all the time, to movies, football games, concerts, etc., in addition to some moderately couple-ish touching in front of Mary Anne. They totally blew off the project until *dum dum dum* it was announced that their assigned author (along with a couple others) was coming to Stoneybrook Middle and that the group would have to make their presentation during an assembly in the writers' honor. So Logan buckled down, came to his senses and realized that there was more to life than having a girlfriend who liked to go out and have fun and let him get to second at the very least. In the end, Cokie's slackerdom was revealed before everyone (her speech about the author was completely cribbed from the book jacket) while Logan and Mary Anne got back together and lived sappily ever after (until the BSC Forever series, anyway).

Somewhere along the way, it was revealed that Cokie had had a nose job and that her real name was Marguerite.

[susyhomewrecker]

Marguerite is totally a better name than Cokie, IMO.

[ang]

Marguerite's my middle name. Now I want to dig out old BSC books and see where that part was.

[lallybroch]

I think it was something that might have just been in the movie. I figured that they got it from one of the trillion BSC books, but maybe not. And maybe it was someone else who got the nose job, but I remember thinking the characters were much too young for something like that when I read that. But that was the BSC's trade, peddling an unrealistic vision of the eighth grade to elementary school girls who didn't know better.

[linared]

That's when Cokie and Logan started going out all the time, to movies, football games, concerts, etc., in addition to some moderately couple-ish touching in front of Mary Anne

I love the part of the book where Mary Ann realizes that Logan would like Cokie better because Cokie will actually will be social. Mary Ann lists all of the times that she refuses to dance at dances or left parties early because she was too shy. I know that I am shy but I would never run out of surprise birthday party that all my best friends were at. Mary Ann was so stale.

Were any of you disappointed when you realized that if you knew the BSCers in real life, they would all be considered dorks and losers? I always thought that they were cool but when they had book arc where Stacey's breaks off from them, I realized they were all pretty lame.

[susyhomewrecker]

But Stacey befriended BAD GIRLS! OMG they shoplifted!

In retrospect, I find it quite funny that everyone that was outside the BSC was "bad," or a boy. There were, apparently, only 7 nice girls at Stoneybrook Middle School. Remember the rival club that started taking the BSC's jobs in one book? They were fifteen, and clearly Satan's babysitting service. I remember one of the girls burned a hole in somebody's chair with a cigarette.