Series: The Baby-sitters Club
by Author Ann M. Martin
Jessi's Wish (1996)
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Poor Mallory! (1996)
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Stacey's Emergency (1996)
it was a relief to finally get to this book because they have been foreshadowing it for at least twnty books--seriously. it's not unusual in the babysitters club series to shadow maybe four or five books in advance, but stacey has been looking thin, pale, & sickly pretty much since her parents go...
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...
Mary Anne and the Great Romance (1997)
Mary Anne's dad and Dawn's mom announce they are getting married.Mary Anne and Dawn immediately begin planning an elaborate ceremony, but Richard and Sharon disappoint them by wanting to keep it simple. Mary Anne’s excitement gives way to impotent rage when she is the last to find out that she an...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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'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 ...
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...
The Truth About Stacey (1995)
Stacey moved to Stoneybrook, Connecticut from New York City. Her friends in New York abandoned her when she discovered that she had diabetes, and until she met Claudia, she didn't have any friends in Stoneybrook, either. But, she was invited to the Baby-Sitters Club, and now she's friends with Kr...
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 ...
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...
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...