The Baby-sitters Club
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The Baby-sitters Club is a series of children’s books published by Scholastic between 1986 and 2000. The books are credited to Ann M. Martin (who did write the first 35 books), though many were ghostwritten (43 by Peter Lerangis[1]). Spin-offs from the series include a number of other books, a TV show, PC games, a movie, board games and dolls.
The books follow the adventures of a group of middle-school students in the fictional town of Stoneybrook, Connecticut, who run the title business on a part-time basis. Clients are invited to call during the club's regular meetings, with sitters assigned based on schedule and other factors. All of the members charge the same fee, paying part back to the group as weekly dues; they also share notes on particular jobs and children for future reference.
The club starts out with four members, eventually expanding to nine. All of the main characters are about the same age, with the exception of junior members Mallory and Jessi, who are two years younger. The older characters are in the seventh grade when the club is founded and advance to the eighth grade; after that, the characters remain static in age until the final book, in which they finish middle school.
Contents |
[edit] Structure of the books
In the regular series and Mystery spinoff series, each book focuses on and is narrated by one member of the club. Some chapters begin with an entry from the club’s notebook, in which members are required to take notes on each of their baby-sitting jobs. The regular books are generally 120 to 150 pages long, with 15 chapters. To aid readers who may be starting mid-series, each book begins with the narrator explaining a bit about the club’s history and introducing the main characters, usually in the second chapter. Approximately 3 or 4 chapters in the book are often dedicated to the various babysitters as they are baby-sitting their clients. These chapters provide a break from the main storyline and are often smaller subplots within the novel itself. Each babysitting chapter also begins with a notebook entry from the babysitter as well. This style of narration started from book #1 and continued until book #131.
[edit] Titles
[edit] Main characters
[edit] Kristin Amanda "Kristy" Thomas
- Club position: President, founder
- First appearance: #1, Kristy’s Great Idea
- Birthday: August 20th
- Favorite sitting charge: "I try not to play favorites, but I find Karen, Andrew, David Michael, and Emily are definitely my favorites."
- Kristy is known for her great ideas (namely, The Baby-sitters Club), as well as her bossiness and a big mouth that can occasionally get her in trouble. Somewhat of a tomboy, Kristy is usually in her "uniform" of a jeans and a t-shirt (in the winter, a turtleneck and, if needed, a sweater) and sometimes a baseball cap, and she loves sports, even coaching a kids' softball team, Kristy's Krushers. She is the shortest member of the BSC with brown hair and brown eyes and is described as physically similar to her best friend, Mary Anne. When Kristy was six, her father walked out on her family, including her mother, Elizabeth, and three brothers, Charlie, Sam, and David Michael. Her mother later married a millionaire, Watson Brewer, and the Thomases moved into his mansion, where they live with Watson's two children, Karen and Andrew. The family later adopts a two-year-old girl from Vietnam whom they name Emily Michelle Thomas Brewer, and Elizabeth's mother, Nannie, also comes to live with them and help raise Emily Michelle. Kristy has a boyfriend, Bart, who also coaches a softball team.
- On the BSC: "We're a great group. (I'm not bragging, I'm just being honest). We're all different, but our differences work together to bring out the best in each of us . . . which, of course, helps make us good baby-sitters."
[edit] Claudia Lynn Kishi
- Club position: Vice president
- First appearance: #1, Kristy’s Great Idea
- Birthday: July 11th
- Fashion Plate: "I just adore dressing up coolly! I like to wear wild clothes. I have long hair which I love to style! Take today's clothes for instance. I'm wearing a tie-dye shirt; I made it, of course! I'm wearing a pair of white skin-tight trousers. I've added jewelry to it. I'm also wearing pink sunglasses."
- Favorite charges: "No one in particular, but I like the Perkinses very much and the Newtons too!"
- Claudia is extremely creative in both her artistic endeavors and her funky wardrobe, which generally take up more of her attention than her schoolwork; she is particularly bad at spelling. Her marks are so bad (with the exception of art) that she is briefly sent back to seventh grade until her grades improve enough to allow her to advance again back into eighth grade. She is Japanese-American and comes from a scholarly, conservative family, including her genius older sister Janine. Claudia is the only member with a private phone line, so her room is the club’s official meeting place; it is liberally stocked with hidden junk food and Nancy Drew books, which Claudia loves but her parents disapprove of. Her best friend is Stacey, another BSC club member. Claudia has a grandmother named Mimi, who suffers a stroke later in the series.
- On the BSC: "One of the very nicest things about the Baby-Sitters Club is how it has made good friends out of all the members."
[edit] Mary Anne Spier
- Club position: Secretary
- First appearance: #1, Kristy’s Great Idea
- Birthday: September 22nd
- Fashion Plate:: " . . . [U]ntil recently I didn't care much about the way I looked. Well, that's not true. The fact of the matter is that Dad used to pick out my clothes for me and I always ended up looking like a baby in these dumb jumpers or plaid kilts. But when he loosened up, he let me pick out my own clothes. I'm nowhere near as cool as Claudia, but I did buy some neat stuff. If Claud's fashion sense could be rated a ten, and Kristy's a two, I guess I must be about a six. Maybe a seven."
- Known for her extreme sensitivity, shyness, and romanticism, Mary Anne is the only club member to have a steady boyfriend (Logan Bruno). Her mother died when she was a baby, and her father was very strict in her upbringing until she stood up to him, and even more so when he began dating Sharon Schafer, Dawn's mother and his high school sweetheart, and he realized that Mary Anne was growing up. She is best friends with Kristy (her former next-door neighbor) and Dawn (who became her stepsister when Mary Anne's father married Dawn's mother). She is secretary because of her organization skills and neat handwriting. She has short brown hair and brown eyes, and wears reading glasses. She and Kristy initially looked similar because they were quite short and had long brown hair and brown eyes (Mary Anne cut her hair soon after the series began, and in book #30, mentioned that she was now growing and two inches taller than Kristy). She also vowed never to get her ears pierced due to being traumatized by almost having her ears pierced by a fellow camper at Camp Mohawk. Author Ann M. Martin said that she based the character of Mary Anne on herself.[2]
[edit] Anastasia Elizabeth "Stacey" McGill
- Club position: Treasurer
- First appearance: #1, Kristy’s Great Idea
- Birthday: April 3
- A native New Yorker, Stacey moved to Stoneybrook in the seventh grade and quickly became friends with Claudia. The two share a love of fashion and are the wildest dressers at Stoneybrook Middle School, although Stacey's style is more sophisticated. The McGill family moved back to New York after Mr McGill received a company transfer; Stacey returned to Stoneybrook with her mother after her parents' divorce. For a while, she also had a best friend in New York, Laine Cummings. Stacey is diabetic and has been hospitalized several times as a result. She has fluffy blonde hair, which she often cuts and/or perms, and blue eyes, and is treasurer because of her math skills. Stacey is known to be very "boy-crazy." Her favourite movie is Mary Poppins and her favourite baby sitting charge is Charlotte Johanssen, whom she considers her "almost sister."
[edit] Dawn Read Schafer
- Club position: Alternate Officer, Treasurer #14-28 & #84-88, Honorary Member #89-
- First appearance: #4, Mary Anne Saves The Day
- Birthday: February 5
- Dawn is a California girl and looks the part, with very pale blonde hair long enough to sit on and very light, bright blue eyes. She is somewhat of an environmentalist, an advocate of health food (and is somewhat of a vegetarian--although she eats fish, and if she must, any meat), and met Mary Anne (who would eventually become her best friend and later her stepsister) before the rest of the club. She loves ghost stories, and enjoys taping movies from television--her favorite is The Parent Trap. Later in the series, she decides to return to California, as her brother, Jeff, did. She loves the Barrett children, and sits for them often.
[edit] Mallory Pike
- Club position: Junior Member, Honorary Member #69-74 & 126-
- First appearance: #3, The Truth About Stacey (as client); joins the club in #14 Hello, Mallory
- Birthday: May 2
- Mallory is the oldest of eight children: Claire, age 5; Margo, age 7; Nicholas "Nicky," age 8; Vanessa, age 9; and the triplets, Adam, Byron, and Jordan, age 10. They all have distinct personalities and problems. For example, Claire is known for her silliness (her mantra is 'silly-billy-goo-goo'), Vanessa is an aspiring poet who will often speak in rhyme, and Nicky wants to fit in more with the triplets, who often refuse to play with him. The Pike family is one of the Baby-Sitters Club’s most frequent clients. Though the club's members are initially reluctant to let Mallory in to the club, and force her to undergo various difficult tests beforehand, she becomes a junior member at the age of 11. Mallory, who plans to become a writer and illustrator of children’s books, has red hair and wears clear braces and glasses, and is often insecure about her appearance. She loves reading horse stories, especially those by Marguerite Henry.
- After having a hard time at Stoneybrook Middle School with being teased by older students, Mallory decides to go away to an exclusive Massachusetts boarding school in book #126, "The All-New Mallory Pike." She is then bestowed the title "Honorary Member," a title she also held when she couldn't attend meetings or sit because of mono.
[edit] Jessica Davis "Jessi" Ramsey
- Club position: Junior member
- First appearance: #14, Hello, Mallory
- Birthday: June 30
- Around the time Mallory is trying to get into The Baby-Sitters Club, sixth-grader Jessi moves into Stacey's old house from New Jersey. Mallory and Jessi share a love of reading (especially horse stories, and especially those by Marguerite Henry) and become best friends, ultimately joining the club at the same time. Jessi, who is black, lives with her parents, her eight-year-old sister Rebecca "Becca," and her infant brother Squirt (John Philip, Jr.). She is a talented ballet dancer and her efforts to learn sign language have helped her forge a special bond with Matt Braddock, a deaf client. She has "longish" hair (she keeps it long enough to put in a bun for ballet), "long, long legs," and dimples.
[edit] Logan Bruno
- Club position: Associate member
- First appearance: #10, Logan Likes Mary Anne!
- Birthday: January 10
- Logan moved from Louisville, Kentucky before eighth grade. He participates in many sports, including baseball and track, and works as a busboy at the Rosebud Café. He is Mary Anne's boyfriend in addition to being an associate member of the club (a member who does not come to meetings but takes jobs when no regular member is available). Logan lives with his mother, father Lyman, sister Kerry, and brother Hunter.
[edit] Shannon Louisa Kilbourne
- Club position: Associate member, Alternate Officer #68-82
- First appearance: #11, Kristy and the Snobs
- Shannon is an overachiever who is involved in many extracurricular activities, and is the only member who doesn't attend Stoneybrook Middle School; she instead goes to a private school. She has two sisters, Tiffany and Maria, and is Kristy's first friend in her new neighborhood, although the two do not initially get along. Shannon also gave Kristy one of her dog Astrid’s puppies, which Kristy's brother David Michael named after her.
[edit] Abigail "Abby" Stevenson
- Club position: Alternate Officer #90-
- First appearance: #89, Kristy and the Dirty Diapers (British English title: Kristy and the Nasty Nappies)
- Birthday: October 15
- Shortly after Dawn moves back to California to live with her father, Abby moves to Stoneybrook from Long Island with her mother and her twin sister, Anna (who turns down the invitation to join the club in the same book); her father died when she was 9. Abby's love for sports and bold personality often put her at odds with Kristy. She and Shannon Kilbourne are the only other Baby-Sitters Club members who live in Kristy's neighborhood. She is Jewish, with curly dark hair and brown eyes, and suffers from asthma and allergies.
[edit] Spin-offs
[edit] Related book series
The series’ popularity was spun off into 15 expanded Super Special books, each of which centers on a larger-scale plot involving multiple baby-sitters and clients and switches narrators on a chapter-by-chapter basis. (For example, one book is about the baby-sitters becoming counselors-in-training at a camp attended by many of their clients; in another, the club is enlisted to care for the Pikes’ eight children during a cruise trip.) Also part of the regular series are three Special Edition Readers’ Request books featuring associate members Logan and Shannon.
The Baby-sitters Club Mystery books, published between 1991 and 1998, are similar in style to the regular series in that each book features and is narrated by one character, although the stories focus more on a particular mystery the character is trying to solve. Thirty-six Mystery books were published, along with four Super Mysteries.
The Baby-sitters Little Sister series, which ran from 1988 to 1996, is geared toward younger readers, with a focus on Karen, the 7-year-old step-sister of Baby-Sitters Club president Kristy; it also included Super Special books. One hundred and twenty two Little Sister books and six Little Sister Super Special books were published.
The Portrait Collection — six books published between 1994 and 1997 — is in the format of autobiographies Kristy, Mary Anne, Dawn, Stacey, Abby and Claudia been assigned to write for a class project.
Baby-sitters Club Friends Forever, which ran from 1999 to 2000, comes after the original series, focusing more on the lives of the original four characters: Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne and Stacey. Twelve of these books were published, along with two Friends Forever Super Special books. The Friends Forever books were considerably less successful than their predecessor and lasted twelve books, as opposed to The Baby-sitters Club's 131.
California Diaries, about Dawn and her friends after her return to California. These are thought to have targeted a slightly older audience, with a darker feel. There are fifteen books that center around the characters of Dawn, Ducky, Amalia, Maggie, and Sunny. The subjects dealt with include anorexia and racism.
In 2006, Graphix, a division of Scholastic, released a graphic novel version of the first Baby-Sitter's Club book, Kristy's Great Idea. The novel is a contemporary yet faithful adaptation written by Raina Telgemeier, an Eisner Award nominee. The graphic novel versions will continue with the release of The Truth About Stacey, also by Telgemeier.
The other Ann M. Martin series is loosely related to the original Baby-sitters Club books: The Kids in Ms. Colman’s Class, about Karen’s second-grade classmates at Stoneybrook Academy.
[edit] TV show
In 1990, The Baby-sitters Club spawned a 13-episode TV series, which aired at various times on HBO, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon, and was later released to video.
- Main article at The Baby-Sitters Club (TV series)
[edit] Movie
A movie based on the Baby-Sitters Club books was released in 1995 which starred then virtual unknown actresses such as Rachel Leigh Cook.
- Main article at The Baby-Sitters Club (film)
[edit] Trivia
- Lisa Simpson became a babysitter after reading a few "Baby-Sitter Twins" books (an obvious spoof of The Baby-sitters Club series) on The Simpsons episode My Sister, My Sitter
[edit] External links
- Scholastic site
- Merrill's Companion to The Baby-Sitters Club, with information on the original series, spinoffs, memorabilia and the movie
