r/babysittersclub

The Baby-sitters Club Fan Edition: Baby-sitter Summer releases this Tuesday 7/7. Its almost 300 pages. just pre-ordered on amazon.

The main characters and even certain side characters, I mean.

If this has already been noted forgive me. But y'all have always been so great at tipping me off at BSC stuff- for the Canadians in this orbit. I was looking for something on Tubi and discovered that the 1990 version of the BSC tv shows is there! I may have spent this hot Saturday rewatching it.. Its such a fun series of nostalgia. I just need to find Breaker High now haha

But in case you didn't know- its there for your enjoyment

I owned many of the books as a kid and reread a lot of them several times. I know there's certain pieces of lore that either emerged over time (like Dawn going from 'preferring health food and not eating a lot of red meat' to being a 'semi-vegetarian' to being more adamantly a vegetarian) or that get contradicted at times (like Jessi addressing her father as 'Alex' in one of the super specials even though in most books his name is John) - and all this in addition to the typical time loop stuff of the 'summer after 7th grade' happening over and over.

It got me curious about other little pieces of lore that either pop up in the background so I started a reread where I took notes on the series as I went. I'm ashamed to say that my notes document is now 41 pages long which makes me wonder what the hell I'm doing with my life. But I wanted to share some things that emerged during my read-through!

- Mary Anne and her father are portrayed as more religious in Mary Anne Saves the Day than I can recall them ever being again; they say grace before meals and Mary Anne prays before bed. That doesn't come up again in the first 12, and I didn't remember it being a particular feature of Mary Anne's character at all.

- Over the course of the first five books, Watson's house goes from being large (Kristy's Great Idea) to "practically a mansion" (Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls) and then to "a real mansion" (Dawn and the Impossible Three) where it remains, to my memory, for the rest of the series.

- Within the first 12 books, Kristy skips two meetings of the Babysitters Club and cancels a third. I have strong memories of later books saying that she has never skipped a meeting ever, so interesting to note how frequently this happened, proportionately, in the early books.

- I cried more during this reread of Kristy and the Snobs than I think I ever cried over the book before in my life.

- I have no concept of the size of Stoneybrook as a town. Kristy moves to the Brewer house which is 3 miles away and is described as being unbearably far, but also Stoneybrook has two public elementary schools, two public middle schools, one public high school and two private schools (not clear what age range the private schools are for). This sounds like a lot to me but I'm mindful as well that I live in Australia; our population density is way lower so my idea of a normal population of a town of any given size is probably really askew by American standards.

So should I expect to find the book in store this weekend? All the websites are saying it releases July 7, but I see so many people here have it already.

Did anyone else ever think the way some of these younger kids talk is so unrealistic? Gabby Perkins at 2 years old is a big one.

But even 4 year old Andrew in the SS#1 says “Tell me again where our suitcases went.” What four your old talks like that.? Im sure there’s more but that one always catches/caught my attention.

I know Mallory has gotten dumped on, plot-wise, in a lot of books, but this one was just awful. Most of your friends are going to Hawaii together, you can’t because your family can’t afford it, and the only other one who isn’t going is going with her own family the next month. I get that it’s realistic that there will be someone in a friend group who can’t afford things like this, but damn. In this book and in the beginning of Aloha, Baby-Sitters, they’re practically rubbing it in her face. I know that wasn’t the intent, and that they were just excited, but you’d think Mallory would’ve finally gotten angry about it. Which I think would’ve been reasonable. Even a mature eleven-year-old in real life wouldn’t have handled that as well as she did.

They could’ve at least given a cool reason for why she couldn’t go. I legit felt so sad for her in these books.

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This question randomly popped up in my head today and I just had to ask. I'll throw in some ideas as well.

*First of all, the series would obviously be a lot shorter. I'm thinking 30-40 books. Perhaps the ending would be Richard and Sharon getting married.

*Dawn obviously wouldn't move back to California and Mallory wouldn't go to Riverbend

*No California Diaries or Mysteries, unfortunately

*I think Kristy and Bart would have become official.

Dawn on the Coast was the first ghostwritten book, and the next one is Jessi and the Superbrat. So ghosties were in the plans pretty early on. It's very possible a ton of earlier books would have been different or not happened at all if ghosties weren't a thing.

Tbh we probably also wouldn't have this sub or the ProBoards forum if the series was much shorter. It would be one of those hidden gem type of things.

I'm probably missing something obvious, but I would love to see what other people think.

Like have Dawn stay in Stoneybrook for the Hawaii trip, but have Mallory go.

Claudia goes to Europe but Jessi couldn’t.

And so forth.

There’s some trips that all the girls go on together like Disney world or camp, but the ones where they are divided.

It’s hard to imagine many people now putting as much trust into kids aged 11-13 to babysit as the parents did in the books. I’m rereading some of the books and am currently reading #23 - “Dawn on the Coast.” Two sitters are sitting for eight kids in one chapter, and two of the kids are babies. Six of the kids are under age six, and the oldest seems to have some issues with rudeness and things like that. I have been babysitting for a long time and have noticed that many people now prefer adult sitters, especially with babies.

I’ll still get the occasional notification from my old post - so if you got an opinion that’s unpopular or you think is unpopular, please share!

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