Ann M. Martin

Tutto per un cane (2009)

Everything For A Dog was written by Ann M. Martin. The book, published by Scholastics, is 211 pages long. The cover of the book is a dog, which looks like a Golden Retriever. By looking at the book cover I predicted that the dog was stray and that a person was trying to make him a pet, since he i...

Everything for a Dog (2009)

BONEBone and his sister, Squirrel are stray dogs born in a wheelbarrow in a shed. Their mother leaves them as puppies. They obediently wait for her, but she doesn't come back. They decide to set out, as the shed is no longer safe for them, the two young dogs survive for a while together but are s...

The Summer Before (2010)

This prequel to the beloved series brings back the characters from the original BSC books and shares the store of what happened before they formed the BSC. Kristy Thomas, Mary Anne Spier and Claudia Kishi have always been best friends. Now, the summer before 7th grade, they seem to be growing up ...

Ten Rules for Living with My Sister (2011)

Ten Rules for Living with My Sister is the story of two sisters named Lexie and Pearl. They are complete opposites. Lexie is popular and has many friends. Pearl has no friends and is very unpopular. Lexie makes a list of rules for Pearl to follow while they share a room, but Pearl doesn't follow ...

Family Tree #1: Better to Wish (2013)

This book is set in a rich period of history (The Depression), and I went into the book believing it was a fairly faithful retelling of the author's family history. Because of that, I gave it some leeway when many of the plot elements seemed extraneous or pointless. Upon reading the note at the...

The Babysitters Club (1993)

'twas my life between ages 6-11. Owned and read the entire collection, super specials, mysteries, little sister, etc. -- multiple, multiple times. Even a member of the fan club :) Kept collection on a special bookshelf in my room high above my desk so little sibs couldn't harm. They were recently...

Kristy's Mystery Admirer (1996)

the book opens with kristy's krushers winning their first ever game againast bart's bashers. they are elated, though kristy is concerned that bart will be upset that her ragtag collection of misfits beat his little league-caliber players. but bart's not upset, & even offers to walk kristy home. t...

Claudia and the Great Search (1990)

god, i love the claudia books! her narrative voice is so hilarious. this one opens with claudia counting down the minutes in science class until she can leave to head over to the high school for an awards ceremony. her older sister, janine the genius, is being given a very prestigious science awa...

Stacey and the Cheerleaders (1997)

stacey is walking to school one morning when she is beaned in the head by a snowball. she's ready to yell at the kid who threw it, but when that kid ends up being basketball hotshot RJ blaser, stacey forgets all about being mad. he apologizes & asks to walk her the rest of the way to school. she ...

Dawn: Diary 3 (1999)

Belle Teale (2004)

Belle Teal by Ann M. Martin is about a girl learning that the world can cruel place and you should stand up for what is right. Belle Teal learns that she needs to stand up for her friends when people are making fun of you because of your race. It was in the time where people were racist. Belle Te...

Good-bye Stacey, Good-bye (1990)

so not into this book. the plot: stacey gets a call from her mom right after a babysitters club meeting, requesting that she hurry home right away. she does, thinking that someone died or something. but in fact, mr. mcgill is being transferred back to new york. the whole family has to pack up & g...

Kristy's Great Idea (1995)

okay, so i have never babysat a day in my life. is it surprising that no one would entrust their little precious dumplings to my care??however - i loved these books. and lately, i have found my mind drifting back to this series, and i kind of want to read them again, is that bad?? they were such ...

Mary Anne and the Search for Tigger (1997)

ugh. mary anne spier at her worst.so, mary anne's dad used to be kind of over-protective because he's a single parent & was trying too hard to be both mom & dad to her. in book #4, they had a talk after mary anne saved jenny prezzioso from a high fever, & mr. spier has loosened up a bit. he even ...

Kristy and the Mother's Day Surprise (1997)

kristy books continue to not really be my favorites...though, as kristy books go, this one wasn't too objectionable. mother's day is approaching, & kristy & the other members of the babysitters club (save for half-orphan mary anne) are struggling to think of really good mother's day gifts. plus, ...

Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery (1988)

Once upon a time, I mentioned to my sister that this was one of my favorite Baby-Sitters Club books, and that it was a shame that the family copy had been lost. Very soon after--the next day, perhaps--she walked up to me and handed me a new copy, signed by Ann M. Martin herself, which she'd foun...

Beware, Dawn! (1991)

the book opens with dawn sitting for the younger hobart boys while mrs. hobart is running errands & ben is on a hot library date with mallory. she's helping johnny with some puzzles in "highlights for children" magazine while the older boys play soccer with mel tucker & zach wolfson, the bullies ...

Dawn and the Impossible Three (1995)

this is the first dawn book of the series, in which she becomes the regular sitter for the barrett family. buddy, suzi, & marnie are being raised by a single mom who recently went through a pretty acrimonious divorce. the kids seem to be coping well enough, but their mom is struggling to find ste...

Logan Likes Mary Anne! (1988)

Claudia and Mean Janine (1987)

i wasn't crazy about this book when i was a kid, & i think i like it even less as an adult.first, our A plot: claudia has nothing in common with her older sister, janine. claudia dresses in wild outfits, janine wears kilts & button-downs. claudia hates school, while janine is studying to be a phy...

Claudia and the New Girl (1996)

Dawn's Wicked Stepsister (1996)

Jessi's Secret Language (1996)

Mallory and the Trouble With Twins (1997)

man, i was so into this book when i was a kid. i think a lot of kids that are not twins harbor a little fantasy of having a twin, & this book tapped into that desire for me. plus, my parents had led me to believe that everyone in the world DID have a twin floating around out there somewhere, & it...

Mary Anne and Too Many Boys (1996)

the awesome thing about this book is that there's so much plot, all the introductory character/club descriptions are shoehorned into the very first chapter, & mixed with tolerable (if stilted) meeting banter. thank god! i wasn't relishing the idea of reading 200 books that all contained variation...

Mary Anne Saves the Day (1995)

I've always been relatively disinterested in Mary Anne, one of the more boring members of The BSC... or so I thought. I don't recall reading any of her books when I was younger. I didn't realize Mary Anne had such an attitude. I guess this is the first book where she really comes around and gains...

Welcome Back, Stacey (1997)

Stacey and the Mystery at the Mall (1994)

Stacey and the Mystery of Stoneybrook (1990)

dr. johannsen calls the babysitters club to see if charlotte can stay with stacey for a week while dr. & mr. J are off looking after charlotte's grandfather, who is having surgery. stacey is really excited about having charlotte stay with her. she's always wanted a little sister, & this will be l...

Baby-Sitters on Board! (1990)

this is the first of the super specials. i remember being so psyched about this book's release when i was a kid. it was extra thick & had chapters from the points of view of every club member, plus byron, mallory, & karen. the premise: mr. pike won a contest at work, & the prize was an all-expens...

Boy-Crazy Stacey (1995)

Amalia: Diary 1 (1997)

Amalia: Diary 3 (2000)

Amalia is hate crimed.Amid various party-related plotlines (Amalia and Isabel are planning a party for their family, Sunny and Ducky are planning a going-away party for Dawn as she prepares to spend another summer in Stonybrook), Amalia is assaulted by some drunk girls who call her racist names a...

Ducky: Diary 2 (1998)

Dawn: Diary 1 (1997)

This isn't your big sister's goody-goody baby-sitters club. This is REAL. This is RAW. This is CALIFORNIA.I was so confused when I learned, at age 24 or so, that California Diaries existed--confused and delighted. You mean there is a BSC spinoff series where they are in high school? And they're d...

Sunny: Diary 3 (1999)

The Ghost at Dawn's House (1996)

this was one of my faves when i was a kid. i was so jealous of people who lived in new england because their houses were wicked old & maybe had secret passages! then i moved to new england (when i was 22) &...yeah, a lot of the houses are pre-fab 60s era suburban knock-offs completely devoid of s...

Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls (1995)

The baby-sitters choose to fear a jewel thief.The babysitters are spooked by a news story about a jewel thief who calls homes and then hangs up without saying anything to make sure no one is there before he comes to rob them, especially after Claudia and Kristy receive “phantom phone calls” at th...

Mary Anne vs. Logan (1996)

Mary Anne breaks up with Logan.Mary Anne, feeling smothered by Logan, asks to "cool [their] relationship," which Logan takes as a breakup. Mary Anne misses him and is sad, but when Logan makes a grand romantic gesture and unilaterally declares their relationship no longer cool, Mary Anne realizes...

Claudia and the Bad Joke (1996)

i was never crazy about this one. apparently practical joke fever has swept over the youth of stoneybrook, perhaps inspired by a slapstick film festival at the town library. i really enjoy the idea that every child in stoneybrook is anxiously anticipating a free film at the public library. how qu...

Kristy and the Walking Disaster (1996)

hated this book as a kid, hate it as an adult. this is the one where kristy starts her ragtag softball team, kristy's krushers (although obnoxious brat karen brewer insists on spelling it, "kristy's crushers," because she is all about proper spelling). her team consists of kids too young or uncoo...

Hello, Mallory (1996)

i was really distracted when i started reading this because about three-quarters of the first chapter is written in present tense, & the rest is mostly in past tense (with occasional forays into present). what the eff, ann m. martin/scholastic editors? it's that kind of crap that gives kids such ...

Little Miss Stoneybrook... and Dawn (1993)

tragically, this book is nowhere near as awesome as pretty much any given episode of "toddlers & tiaras". i don't know if children's beauty pageants weren't as freaky in 1988, or if this is just another thing that ann m. martin doesn't really know much about. or maybe this is how regular pageants...

Jessi and the Superbrat (1989)

jessi's little sister is obsessed with a TV show called "p.s. 163". in fact, a bunch of kids in stoneybrook watch it. jessi is surprised to learn that the kid who plays waldo, the science nerd, is originally from stoneybrook. she intends to bring it up at the next BSC meeting, but is even more su...

Amalia: Diary 2 (1998)

Mallory and the Ghost Cat (1992)

Ducky: Diary 3 (2000)

Sunny up and kisses Ducky. Hoo boy. Here we are. Spoilers ahead, I'm not going to use tags.I think it's important to note that, while I'd read some of the early California Diaries several years ago, I was reading everyone's Diary 2 and 3 fresh right before reviewing, so I had not read ahead to th...

Mallory and the Dream Horse (1992)

My 13-year-old self actually wrote a letter to Ann M. Martin about this book. I was so irritated with Mallory. Who falls off a horse and (barring serious injury) does not get back on? That is the first lesson you learn in horseback riding. You have to get back on the horse. Instead, Mallory ...

On Christmas Eve (2006)

On Christmas Eve by Ann M. Martin is a holiday novel revealing the true effects of what Christmas magic can do for someone. The novel starts out with eight-year-old Tess who has decided that this year she is actually going to meet Santa this year. Tess is determined to meet Santa for two reason...

Here Today (2006)

Everything that I love most about reading is embodied in the novels of Ann M. Martin. She has become the master of the simple story, the type of tale made beautiful not by flashy language and shocking twists, but by the way it mimics the rhythms of real life with such haunting and undeniable trut...

Stacey and the Missing Ring (1991)

after several well-received "mysteries" speckled the regular series babysitters club books, apparently scholastic decided to really capitalize on their cash cow & launch a new babysitters club mystery series. they are exactly like regular series books in every way, except that each one involves s...

Claudia and the Genius of Elm Street (1991)

A Dog's Life: The Autobiography of a Stray (2007)

A Dog’s LifeBy: Ann M. MartinBook Review by MindytBorn in a wheelbarrow and ending up in a cozy house with Susan, I’ve had my share of adventures. Going from Mother and Bone to Bone to Moon to Susan, I’ve had my share of losses too. In my autobiography, I tell the reader all about my adventures a...

Kristy and the Snobs (1996)

definitely not my fave--not when i was a kid & not now. kristy has moved to her fancy new neighborhood, where everyone is rich. one day she's taking louie (the family collie) for a walk when she meets shannon kilbourne walking her purebred bernese mountain dog, astrid of grenville, & amanda delan...

A Corner of the Universe (2005)

I enjoyed “A Corner of the Universe” by Ann M. Martin. Ann Martin has written a courageous tale involving mental illness. I instantly fell in love with the plot and the true heart of this short novel. "A Corner of the Universe" follows twelve-year-old Hattie Owen and the summer that would change...

Stacey's Ex-Best Friend (1992)

this one opens with laine calling stacey from new york & gusuing about how much she's looking forward to her winter vacation. she gets a whole week off school & she doesn't know if she should go to florida or europe or hang around new york city or what. she is being really fucking obnoxious, call...

Claudia and the Terrible Truth (1998)

Ducky: Diary 1 (1998)

Claudia Kishi, Live From WSTO! (1995)

Mallory and the Mystery Diary (1995)

Mallory finda diary full of hard to read handwriting and, as a result, I don't read half this book.Mallory and Stacey find an old diary in a trunk in the attic of Stacey’s new house. The diary belonged to Sophie, a 12-year-old from 1894, who tells the ups and downs of her life, ending with a crim...

Claudia and the Middle School Mystery (1991)

this book opens with janine the genius helping claudia study for her upcoming remedial math test. claudia has to figure out how much chocolate is in each of eight cookies if gertrude is using 2/3 cup of chocolate altogether. i tried to figure it out myself & remembered why i failed every math tes...

Claudia's Big Party (1998)

Dawn on the Coast (1989)

Sunny: Diary 1 (1997)

Jessi's Baby-sitter (1990)

this is the one where mr. & mrs. ramsey invite aunt cecelia to come live with them & help out now that mrs. ramsey is going back to work (at an advertising firm, like 92% of all working mothers in stoneybrook). cecelia is mr. ramsey's older sister--much older, as far as i can tell, if jessi's par...

Stacey's Mistake (1996)

this probably isn't really a two-star book, but i am marking it down due to the conceit of the premise: stacey is living on the upper west side of new york city with her parents. they live in a fancy apartment building with a doorman. a homeless woman lives on the street outside their building. h...

Dawn and the Big Sleepover (1991)

this book is preposterous. the premise is that second- through fifth-graders at stoneybrook elementary school are participating in the pens across america program, & have been assigned pen pals. their pen pals all attend an elementary school on the zuni indian reservation. the book opens with the...

Needle and Thread (2007)

Needle and Thread picks up right where Welcome to Camden Falls ends. School has started and three of the girls are about to begins 6th grade, with Ruby starting 4th. The girls were so excited to have Mrs. Mandel, an incredibly popular teach and are devastated when she announces she is retiring ...

Kristy and the Baby Parade (1991)

ugh. a baby-heavy kristy book. what could be worse? there is a shit ton of babysitting in this one. it opens with kristy at home, sitting for david michael & emily michelle. what the hell is up with the thomas/brewer clan & their obsession with middle name inclusion? the kids are bored & kristy s...

Claudia Kishi, Middle School Dropout (1996)

Dawn: Diary 2 (1998)

Snowbound (1996)

this super special has a place in my heart, probably because there's really not much plot to it. a snowstorm is predicted for stonybrook, but the weathercasters have been predicting snow for weeks & not a flake has descended on our fair town, where parents permit 13-year-olds to raise their child...

Poor Mallory! (1996)

Welcome to Camden Falls (2007)

i think this book was realy intresting. overall this book kept you real hooked while reading it. the author had wroten a lot of books ,so she had a lot of expierence writing this other book.reading this book got me to have a lot of connections. my first connection w...

Kristy and the Missing Child (1992)

this one starts low, because it starts a softball game between kristy's krushers & bart's bashers. i wonder if there's anyone who has ever read a babysitters club books that actually found the softball plots remotely compelling. it's a gray, rainy day, & kristy lets jake kuhn (whom she has been t...

Mallory on Strike (1991)

Mallory enters a gradewide fiction writing contest as part of a Young Authors Day which will culminate in a visit from a real author (evidently a different event from the one in the previous book, but who knows), but she can never find time to work on her magnum opus; besides her usual baby-sitti...

Mary Anne Misses Logan (1991)

Fear not: Mary Anne and Logan's long estrangement is at an end.Mary Anne is assigned to a group author research project with Pete Black and Logan. Cokie Mason, Mary Anne’s rival, worms her way into the group as a way of getting close to Logan, which actually seems to work; he agrees to go on date...

Maggie: Diary #2 (1998)

Maggie: Diary 1 (1997)

Because she writes the babysitter's club series, I figured this may be an easy read for some of my 7th grade girls. I couldn't get into it, and I'm 3/4 finished. The protagonist is really into singing, is an over-achiever, goal-oriented, and totally rich. She writes and revises her own songs t...

Here Come the Bridesmaids! (1994)

every babysitters club super special has an obnoxious conceit. each one documents some kind of event in the babysitters' lives, & one sitter is anointed the documentarian of the group. she has the others keep a diary of their adventures, & the result is ostensibly the super special. in this book,...

Claudia and the Sad Good-bye (1997)

Jessi and the Dance School Phantom (1991)

jessi lands the lead role of princess aurora in her dance school's production of "sleeping beauty". of course she does. because she's just that good. even though she's eleven years old. at the first rehearsal (which seems to be just jessi's regular dance class, with all her regular classmates, bu...

The Mystery at Claudia's House (1992)

Kristy for President (1992)

Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic (1992)

Dawn's Big Date (1992)

this book opens with dawn & mary anne getting ready for their new year's eve party. mary anne wants to make english muffin pizzas & pigs-in-a-blanket. dawn suggests soybean pie & some other weirdo health food snack. while they make their grocery lists, dawn gets to thinking about how no boy has e...

Dawn and the Older Boy (1997)

This is a re-review for the books that made me love reading challenge. Rating I gave this series as a child, 5. Rating I give it as an adult, 3. Allow me to explain.If I had to pick a single person to credit for my love of reading, it would be Anne M. Martin. I remember coming home from second gr...

Stacey and the Haunted Masquerade (1995)

Jessi's Wish (1996)

Kristy's Big Day (1988)

Kristy and the Secret of Susan (1996)