Flashback Reads: The Baby-Sitters Club

As a 30-something woman who grew up in middle class America, it should come as no surprise that my favorite books growing up were The Baby-sitters Club books. I read them in elementary school and I made it until the point when Abby was introduced and I was like “I just don’t know you anymore, Baby-sitters Club” and I happily moved on to California Diaries. Plus, in California Diaries, there were super dramatic issues like eating disorders and abusive relationships, and since I loved drama as a tween, I was all about it. 

Anyway, like many sane people, I listen to and love the podcast The Babysitters-Club Club, and it inspired me to dig up some of my old BSC books and re-read them along with the show. I didn’t have them all in sequential order anymore (I think my mom donated them to the library, which has instilled a bitterness in me that will never dissipate), but still had a few essentials and I may have secretly ordered a few (original covers only!) on Amazon to fill in some gaps. And, after re-reading about ten last year and a few more in 2017, I was so happy that they held up! Sure, there are some cringe-worthy descriptions that would hopefully not fly in contemporary YA and middle grade, like describing the only Asian character as “exotic”. Also the casual racism in Stoneybrook, CT that Jessi Ramsay and her family encounter is horrifying, and Mallory's little sister Claire has apparently only seen African-American people when they come to clean her house which is...unsettling, to say the least.

Although, the Ann M. Martin-penned books were written during a time when pop culture representation of African-Americans and Asian-Americans was really terrible (Long Duk Dong, anyone?), so I think the goal was to expose kids to some more positive representations of POC that were their age. Maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part because I hold these books in such high regard, so despite those missteps and the horrifying outfits that the girls wear and describe in minute detail, the BSC books are still extremely entertaining, well-written, and memorable. I was surprised when I remembered the names of random pets that the girls or their charges own, or that I distinctly remembered specific passages and was transported to being in fourth grade and reading those same lines and connecting with them. So far, I’ve re-read books between book #4 Mary Anne Saves the Day and book #14 Hello, Mallory, then jumped ahead to book #29 Mallory and the Missing Diary because my other childhood books in between were missing. Below, a few impressions of the BSC members 20 years later in no particular order. Note: if you’ve never read these books, I’m sorry because I don’t explain who any of these characters are because how dare you.

Mary Anne Spier

Pre-makeover Mary Anne is the best one

I found out at some point that I was mispronouncing Mary Anne's last name my entire life (I pronounced it to rhyme with "fear", but apparently it rhymes with "fire"), so that's the first thing. Second, reading Mary Anne POV books as an adult reveals that this kid clearly has like social anxiety disorder, or some other trauma related to, oh I don't know, having her mom die when she was a child and her father projecting his loss onto to his young daughter by controlling every aspect of her life. During book #10 Logan Likes Mary Anne, the BSC throws Mary Anne a surprise birthday party and she becomes so overwhelmed by the fact that people are looking at her that she bursts into tears and runs out of the party without saying a word. She clearly had a panic attack, and everyone is like “She’s just shy.” Mr. Spier, you need to take your daughter to a counselor or therapist ASAP. Other than the fact that I’m super worried about her and want to help her build her self esteem, I’m loving Mary Anne’s POV books. They were some of my favorites as a kid, although she loses points for how often she bursts into tears. However, she gains points for having Tigger, a perpetual kitten.

Claudia Kishi

Ponytail queen

Hands down Claudia was my favorite sitter as a kid, largely because I longed for other cool Asian-American girls to look up to. Sadly, Claudia Kishi is not as perfect as I remember her being (still my favorite, but I realize she has faults). This is a truth I did not want to admit to myself, because growing up she was my only Asian leading lady to look up to in fiction. She had bangs and wore side-ponytails, which were also my MO in the early 90’s. Plus, she loved fashion and art, which I also loved as a kid. I was the weirdo fifth grader with a subscription to Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue in the ‘90’s, which was a really intense time for fashion. I thought Claudia was the coolest, and I loved that she wasn’t the stereotypical over-achiever mathlete that most Asians in pop culture were portrayed as, although her older sister, Janine Kishi, kind of filled that role to the max. But now that I’ve re-read a few of her POV books, her spelling is honestly driving me crazy. There's no logic to it! She's also kind of moody and insecure even though all the baby sitters agree she is the most beautiful and the coolest (evidence to be found during Stacey's Mistake when she is a jerk to all of Stacey's NYC friends since she's jealous of them). Also, as a kid I thought her junk food obsession was cool and quirky but reading what she eats as an adult is another story; everyone talks about how she’s thin and has a ‘creamy complexion’ so nbd, but how are her insides, people? There’s only room for one diabetic character in this series and we all know who that is.

Stacey McGill

Stacey has diabetes

As a kid, I always thought that Stacey (aka Anastasia) was super cool (she’s from New York!) but she’s actually kind of a dork and a little boring. Stacey is shipped as super sophisticated, classy, and stylish, but she does things like Daffy Duck impressions and makes terrible puns. She also seems to have some Daddy issues, as book #8 Boy-Crazy Stacey foreshadows her interest in older men (I’m pretty sure she has a crush on a student teacher later in the series, and in the movie she pretends to be 16 to date a 19-year-old AND HE'S BASICALLY FINE WITH IT). I think after Stacey gets to college and takes a few women’s studies courses, she’ll be a lot cooler. As it is, she is currently that girl who is ready to ditch her friends as soon as she gets a boyfriend. Or male attention of any kind. Also, she’s promoted as having amazing fashion sense, but on all the book covers she just loves chunky sweaters. Dawn dresses way cooler than Stacey, IMHO.

Dawn Shafer

Dawn is the literal best

Speaking of Dawn, Dawn is the best, until she moves back to California. Connecticut Dawn is super chill, a peacemaker, and gets along with pretty well with everyone. She’s also second after Claudia when it comes to cool outfit choices. She takes fashion risks like wearing little straw hats, and she has multiple piercings in her ears! California Dawn, meanwhile, is kind of a prude and pretty judgemental (I’m talking California Diaries Dawn, when she’s super judgey of Sunny, whose mom is dying!!!). But for now, Dawn is passing Claudia as my favorite babysitter, and she inspires me to eat healthier. How ahead of the trends is she that she’s eating tofu salad in like 1989??? Plus, California girl solidarity. I also like how much Dawn is super into ghosts, and I, unlike most adults, was totally fine with her scaring the shit out of Mary Anne in Dawn and the Wicked Stepsister to get Mary Anne out of her room, because it was funny and Mary Anne was pretty awful in that book. Why have a rational conversation explaining how you feel when you could just trick your alleged best friend and new stepsister into thinking a ghost wants her dead?

Kristy Thomas

Resting bitchface game is strong

Now it's time to talk about one of the most controversial sitters of them all, babysitting overlord Kristy Thomas. When I was a kid, I thought Kristy Thomas was overbearing and kind of annoying, and wore way too many turtlenecks, but now I see her for what she is: a boss bitch. Kristy gets things done, she’s practical, rational, and pretty mature and well-adjusted despite having no relationship with her father and basically having a full-time job at age 13. She's also a good friend, has excellent money-making schemes, and is really great at smiting her enemies. Plus, her step-sister Karen Brewer (the star of the Little Sister books, which I sadly never read) is one of the greatest characters in American literature, and without Kristy there would be no Karen. Kristy is going to be an awesome CEO some day, and Karen is going to make a great cult leader.

Jessi Ramsay

Jessi, making scrunchies ballet chic

I haven’t gotten to re-read any Jessi POV books yet, but I’m planning on it (#36, Jessi's Baby-sitter, is the one I'm looking for). From what I remember, Jessi was always pretty chill and she’s an incredibly talented eleven-year-old. I think I was like ten when I read these books and I felt like a failure compared to Jessi at eleven. I think as a kid my favorite Jessi book was Jessi and the Dance School Phantom, because it combined ballet (obsessed with ballet books as a kid btw), and one of my favorite BSC tropes, the random mystery. In fact, I need to track down some of the Baby-sitters Club Mystery books, because those were good shit.

Mallory Pike

Mallory hates everything

For some reason I remembered Mallory, eldest of 8 children, as not being a favorite, but re-reading a few of her POV books kind of won me over. She’s sort of intense and a little dramatic, but overall she's smart and pretty rational, and she likes nerdy things like history and books about horses. She wants to be a writer, which I also wanted to be when I was eleven, so I can definitely relate to her on that level. Also, in Hello, Mallory she’s been described as having brown hair, but we all know that’s a lie and she’s a redhead, right? Am I imagining that she’s a redhead? I mean, look at the cover of every Mallory book! 

Louisville's own, Logan Bruno

Do I need to mention Logan Bruno? I never understood the accent that Ann M. Martin wrote his dialog in when I was a kid and I’m not sure I do now either. I also never read his Readers’ Request POV book as a kid, because boys were gross. However, credit where credit is due: he does have a great love interest name. I also don't care enough about Shannon Kilbourne to even crop an image of her, so that pretty much sums up my feelings about her. Shannon the puppy is the superior Shannon.

Where's Anna?

Don’t even talk to me about Abby. Abby is not canon. She’s like when Dawn appears as Buffy’s sister in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I probably won't make it to re-reading any of the Abby books, but who knows. Depends on what I stumble across at used book stores. Disclaimer: Abby’s crushed velvet dress was and forever will be fashion goals, and I actually kinda liked her as a kid, because she was a twin and she was Jewish. I had recently read Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself by Judy Blume when Abby was introduced and I was very interested in learning about being Jewish. However, I think Abby's arrival was just about when I was getting “too old” (as if there is such a thing) for these books so now I remember her as a harbinger of doom.

Basically, these books are still amazing. It’s so rare to read books that are explicitly about female friendships the way the Baby-sitters Club books are, and the writing still holds up well. They also make great collectors items due to the beautifully (sometimes) rendered covers, unless you have the UK editions because those are terrifying. I think I saw somewhere that Ann M. Martin has the original painting from Book #1 Kristy’s Great Idea, and I would kill for paintings of these covers! Anyway, I’m not going to recap every book because there are already blogs that do that, but I’ll probably do a few flashback reads of some of my favorites. Stay tuned!