Kristy's Great Idea

Set after 'The Summer Before', 'Kristy's Great Idea' follows pre-teens Kristy (tom boy), Claudia (artist), Mary Anne (quiet and studious), and Stacey (fashion/boy expert) as they decide to start a club based around baby-sitting-- The Baby-Sitters Club.

REVIEW AT BROOKE'S BOX OF BOOKS:
http://brookesboxofbooks.blogspot.com/2010/04/review-kristys-great-idea-by-ann-m.html ( )

Lord almighty, I had every single book in this series growing up, including the vacation specials. I was obsessed - couldn't wait to be thirteen and start my own babysitting club. I always fancied myself a "Claudia", but I was a "Dawn" at heart. My only regret now is that they are out of print! (well, anything past 1-4) ( )

It all began with a great idea...Kristy Thomas' brilliant business plan to form a club of friends who will babysit for neighbours gets off to a flying start wit the help of Claudia Kishi (vice-president), Mary Anne Spier (secretary), and Stacey McGill (treasurer). Friendships are forged, adventures begun and life lessons learned in the first book of the series that took the world by storm.

You know, I read almost every one of the Babysitter's club books when I was a pre-teen a million years ago and recently I found copies of a lot of them, including ones I've not read yet. I still love them just as much as I did when I was young. It's strange how I was transported back to laying in the grass in my yard, reading a book when I read it.The books are still relevant, still fresh, still address things teens and pre-teens are facing. I think a lot more young girls should read them even if the series is over 20 years old. ( )

Ah nostalgia. I devoured these books when I was a young girl, and decided to reread them as part of my read-as-many-kids'-books-as-I-can mission that I just started. I still find them to be fun and sweet, and more importantly, packed with memories of my own childhood. I can see why they especially appealed to me as kid. The main characters are very different, so that each child is sure to find someone to relate to (Mary Anne was me when I was younger). The characters present different family structures, too, including parents that are divorced and get remarried. As a child of a very mixed family myself, it was comforting to read about other kids living through such situations. Not only living through them, but finding joy and happiness in their new families.

Another factor in my old addiction to this series was the main theme of the books - babysitting. The girls form a babysitter's club, where they work together to gather clients and keep records of their babysitting appointments, and generally get to hang out and promote an activity that they all love. This first book is the gathering of the club, along with a few relationship tensions that arise and are diffused by the end of the story. Everything in that idea appealed to me: the club (my sisters and I were forever making new clubs that lasted about a month), the babysitting (I had dreams of grandeur of being a world-class babysitter, even though I hardly ever had a job), the notebook (I loved the journal that recorded their various experiences), the best friends (I would have given a lot to actually be friends with the four girls), and even the food (Claudia always had junk food hidden around her room, which made me wish I could look in my pillowcase and find a Hershey bar). The stories created a a fantasy that I happily pulled around me like a warm and fuzzy blanket.

As an adult returning to these stories, I can appreciate why I loved them as a kid, and I can still say that they are quick and enjoyable reads, even as I now notice issues that bother me or throw me out of the story. For instance, the writing. Martin uses a lot of exposition, rather than showing us - like using several paragraphs to summarize a family dynamic, instead of letting us gradually meet and get to know characters. Or describing why Kristy feels distant from Claudia, instead of letting that tension unfold. Her style, too, would catch me and make me think, huh, that could be written better. Not that it was ungrammatical or incorrect, but there were places where I felt like I could see the bones of the writing itself shining through the story, where it was clear the author felt the need to push the plot forward here, or explain the character's motivations there. I think a lot of children's literature used to be written like this. Books were plot-driven, with no need for figurative language or narrative excellence. Now, with the proliferation of children's literature that displays a writing quality equaling the excellence that can be found for older readers, I really notice that type of quick and sloppy writing.

Despite these drawbacks, I still spent a pleasant couple of hours revisiting old friends. The story is compelling, very uplifting, and the characters are well rounded. The action skips along at a quick pace. I am certainly going to read more of this series as I continue my child book bonanza. ( )