omg did you HEAR about this?! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/books/31babysitters.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp
in honor of the greatest revival to come about... well, ever... ive taken the opportunity to embark on a little jaunt down memory lane if you will...
i believe that my personal obsession began at the ripe old age of five, when i read my very first babysitters club book, #11 kristy and the snobs. the tomboy of the club, picking up and moving across town to her new millionaire stepfather's house (no, correction: mansion, as is explicitly pointed out in each... and every... book's introduction of the characters, usually in chapter two of each... and every... book) and having to deal with, well, snobs. without this book, the babysitters club (fondly referred to as the bsc) would be sans associate member shannon kilbourne, with her perfect little ski-jump nose (again, duly noted from the chapter twos of every book), as she was one of the biggest snobs that kristy first encountered (but obv befriended by the end of the book)... and i cant reference associate members without recalling the hotness that can only be logan bruno... the stoneybrook transplant from louisville, kentucky (he was introduced in book #10, mary anne likes logan... awww) who is the key heartthrob of all the girls at SMS (stoneybrook middle school, where all members of the bsc go to school) when he first moves to the town, because, apparently, this was all of their first encounters with someone remotely from the south (chapter two description often included a reference to how logan pronounces louisville as "lue-ville"... meltable southern twang, blah blah blah). doesnt take much for a little heartthrob action, apparently. i guess that makes sense- they WERE in eighth grade, after all (well, except for the sixth-grade bsc junior members... but more about that later). but whatever. as you can guess from book #10's title, it didnt take long upon logan's grand arrival on the grounds of SMS to befriend miss mary anne spier (or mousy mary anne, as her nemesis cokie mason, whose real name is ACTUALLY marguerite, in case you were wondering, often refers to her, primarily because cokie ALSO had her claws out for logan bruno's love and affection upon his grand arrival...ha, please.) and, sigh, fall in love with her. or fall in like at least- again, it's eighth grade, keep in mind. well, that love/like lasted a good portion of the series until #41, mary anne vs logan where... you guessed it... things slightly fall apart. sigh. teenage heartbreak. but good for mary anne for standing her ground and not letting logan push her around any longer (i mean, does anyone ELSE remember that scene on the ice rink where poor mary anne is freezing her little toes off and logan just will NOT let go of the fact that he wants to continue to play away outside in the snow... argh. dumb boys)... i dont think she wouldve gotten through such emotional turmoil (mary anne, after all, was the most sensitive of all the bsc members and did "cry at the drop of a hat"... again, chapter two reference) without her lovely stepsister and one (of two... her other bff being the aforementioned founder and president of the bsc, kristy thomas) best friends... dawn schaefer... primarily described with her waist-length blond hair and her often disgusting sounding healthy eating habits (ie: sprouts on cracked wheatberry bread or something)... dawn was actually the first "external" member to join the club outside of the founding four members. i remember dawn's grand entrance, in #5 dawn and the impossible three, where she's got a regular job (through the bsc, after befriending mary anne spier in #4, mary anne takes charge, when dawn first moves to stoneybrook from palo alto, ca, after her parents' divorce, with her mom, sharon, and her brother, jeff) in charge of taking care of the barrett kids whose mom was super disorganized and still trying to recuperate from a recent divorce... good thing dawn had recently experienced her own parents' divorce and was dealing with her own scatterbrained (i learned this word from these books!!) mother so she was able to relate to the barrett kids on a whole new level... i guess stacey mcgill would've also done a fair job relating to those kids... that is, if she encountered them after book #28, welcome home stacey! where stacey returns back to stoneybrook after her parents' divorce (man, i still remember their fights at the beginning of #28.. i was frightened!!) after having moved to stoneybrook in #1, kristy's great idea, and then moving BACK to new york, where she was born and bred (for her dad's job transfer) in #13 goodbye stacey goodbye. turns out that daddy mcgill was a slight workaholic whose wife got more than a little fed up and finally just picked up and moved her (and stace, the bsc member's creative nickname for her) back to stoneybrook (in #28, as referenced above)... of course, while everyone was rather pleased with the return of stacey, no one could've been more pleased than her own (stoneybrook) bff, claudia kishi... i believe claudia's chapter two description was never without the terms "almond shaped eyes" (she was japanese-american), "genius" (referring to her sister, janine... to detail the contrast between claud and her sister because, quite frankly, claud can't spell or do anything else academically-oriented for sh*t), "art" (claud was obsessed with all things art-related), "mimi" (claudia's grandmother with whom she was super close but who sadly died in #26, claudia's sad goodbye... mimi'd had a stroke a few books ago and hadnt been the same since...), and "junk food" (claud was obsessed with this as well and had it hidden ALL over her room as her parents otherwise disapproved of such unhealthy eating habits). hey, remember how claud was deemed vp of the bsc because she had her own personal phone line? ha. so her only role involved holding the meetings in her room and supplying the club with snacks. nice. oh and i cant forget about those junior officers (junior officers, just an FYI, meant that they couldnt babysit at night, unless it was for their own siblings, as they were younger... god forbid, they were only 11 years old... SO much less mature than those big bad 13-year-olds, right? trust me, it was also extensively referenced) mallory pike and jessica ramsey (jessi for short, as EVERYone called her... well, except for her aunt cecilia, but she didnt arrive until #36 jessi's babysitter)... mallory was, well. let's just say she was one of the most unfortunate looking sixth graders alive... curly out of control red hair, glasses, braces, the works. id love to meet a ben hobart (her boyfriend later in the series) because, quite frankly, mal sounded like a train. f'ing. WRECK at the age of 11. jessi, on the other hand, was a graceful ballerina who always set her alarm for 5:30 am (but always woke up at 5:29 am) to do some plies and crap for a half hour before beginning to get ready for school. she was always stretching and bending and stuff during the bsc meetings (her and mal would sit on the floor, at the foot of claud's bed... they were, after all, mere junior members...)... oh yeah, while mal and jessi were totally bff, they were as different as can be (ie: mal wanted to write children's novels while jessi's passion was ballet dancing... mal came from a ginormous family of 10 while jessi came from a normal family of 5..jessi was black and mal was white - again, extensively referenced to point out that this last fact didnt matter at ALL to the other bsc members, but apparently, it did matter to the rest of stoneybrook, connecticut when jessi's family first moved to town... i mean, hello- how much more ignorant of a community was this place? it was already the 1980s!)
and there you have it. a (VERY) brief introduction to each and every one of the characters of this series that i was (clearly, more than) slightly obsessed with for over twenty years (that's right, even now, when i go home to cincinnati, i'll pick up a bsc book every now and then for a little walk down memory lane... i mean, it's a pretty darn deliciously easy read as each book was exactly 15 chapters... well, except, #4, mary anne saves the day, where ann m martin threw a curveball and tossed in a sixteenth chapter... remember THAT?!)
NOW can you see why im so DARN excited about the revival of this series?!!! fsdlksajfdlksjafsdlkjl!!!! i think im even going to rewatch my dvd of the babysitters club movie in celebration of it!! no worries, ill keep you posted on (every f'ing) detail of how this revival pans out... SO EXCITED!!!! edge of my seat!! laksfdj!
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