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bibliotequeish's review against another edition
As a kid my best friends sister had the whole BSC series on a book shelf in her room. I thought she was so grown up. And I envied this bookshelf. And would often poke my head into that room just to look at it.
And when I read BSC, I felt like such a grown up.
And while I might have still been a little too young to understand some of the issues dealt with in these books, I do appreciated that Ann M. Martin tackled age appropriate issues, some being deeper than others, but still important.
And when I read BSC, I felt like such a grown up.
And while I might have still been a little too young to understand some of the issues dealt with in these books, I do appreciated that Ann M. Martin tackled age appropriate issues, some being deeper than others, but still important.
kelseywaters's review against another edition
3.0
Funny to read this book again as a teacher who has chaperoned overnight field trips several times, for kids who are the same age as the members of the babysitters club. What a flip in perspectives!
I didn’t feel the same nostalgia reading this one as I did reading the Little Sister Super Special.
2021 notes for the book written in 1989:
-Guy’s handling of Claudia’s crush on him is disturbing. He’s a grown man with a wife and child, yet has a skiing student who is infatuated with him. He responds by slow dancing with her and then writing her a postcard. The book treats it as normal.
-there’s a brief anecdote of fat-shaming with the boys in the back of the bus on the way home. What makes it worse is that Mary Anne snidely narrates that the taunting of the boys didn’t stop the girl they made fun of from eating three snickers bars. Shut up Mary Anne.
-I believe that, if written today, Ms Halliday would be gay and not crying in the bathroom, missing her fiancé bc she was away from home for five days.
-Jessi’s story line involves her wondering if Pinky is mistreating her out of “prejudice”. Jessi learns at the end that she was mistaken and feels ashamed for thinking that, wondering if maybe SHE Has maybe been racist for wondering such a thing. That she needs to go home and think through that with her parents. This…felt weird.
-Mallory’s story line was underdeveloped. She was terrified of going to the dance. She ended up going and Stacey mentions off hand that Mallory was dancing with a boy! Well who was it?! It never comes up again.
Anyways, criticism aside, I still remember being swept away by this story the first time I read it and thought of all the BSC members as adults away on a skiing trip.
I didn’t feel the same nostalgia reading this one as I did reading the Little Sister Super Special.
2021 notes for the book written in 1989:
-Guy’s handling of Claudia’s crush on him is disturbing. He’s a grown man with a wife and child, yet has a skiing student who is infatuated with him. He responds by slow dancing with her and then writing her a postcard. The book treats it as normal.
-there’s a brief anecdote of fat-shaming with the boys in the back of the bus on the way home. What makes it worse is that Mary Anne snidely narrates that the taunting of the boys didn’t stop the girl they made fun of from eating three snickers bars. Shut up Mary Anne.
-I believe that, if written today, Ms Halliday would be gay and not crying in the bathroom, missing her fiancé bc she was away from home for five days.
-Jessi’s story line involves her wondering if Pinky is mistreating her out of “prejudice”. Jessi learns at the end that she was mistaken and feels ashamed for thinking that, wondering if maybe SHE Has maybe been racist for wondering such a thing. That she needs to go home and think through that with her parents. This…felt weird.
-Mallory’s story line was underdeveloped. She was terrified of going to the dance. She ended up going and Stacey mentions off hand that Mallory was dancing with a boy! Well who was it?! It never comes up again.
Anyways, criticism aside, I still remember being swept away by this story the first time I read it and thought of all the BSC members as adults away on a skiing trip.
leedigesu's review against another edition
4.0
I will always have a special place in my heart for the BSC.
jamietherebelliousreader's review against another edition
2.0
2 stars. My least favorite BSC book. A lot of the girls felt out of character. And then Claudia was crushing on an older guy which was super freakin’ weird. But what really pissed me off was Jessi’s storyline. She gets stuck with a kid, Pinky, who is shitty towards her and Jessi thinks the girls is racist. Turns out the kid is just a little shit and then Jessi feels bad about thinking she was racist. Martin does not handle Jessi being Black well at all and she tends to always brush off Jessi’s problems with other people when it comes to her race. She minimizes it into “Well, everyone has problems and is judged for something.” I hate it. Pinky very much could have some bias towards her because of her race but Martin dropped the ball completely. It just was handled so terribly and did not sit right with me at all.
wiredwytch's review against another edition
3.0
Reread september 15th 2016 and amended my rating for 4 to 3 stars. I skipped a lot of the chapters this time.
sean67's review against another edition
3.0
Despite the fact that the main characters never age there are events that happen and even though you try to follow the order of books, occasionally they tell you a book goes here and you come across a whole bunch of spoilers, well anyway this was BSC to the rescue with normal carrying on and Kristy being a jackass. I wish that people who run things that tell you the order of books actually would do it correctly, I'm looking g at you not so Fantastic Fiction.
choirqueer's review against another edition
1.0
I never did like this one as much as I liked many of the other Super Specials. Obviously a lot of things in the BSC-universe are stretching the bounds of plausibility, but this one felt like a stretch too far, I guess. Revisiting it as an adult, I was annoyed to find this one includes outright racism (Jessi, who is Black, experiences a child's negative behavior toward her as racist; her white best friend Mallory is like "nah, that's not racist"; Jessi ultimately concludes that not only was she wrong about this child's behavior being motivated by racism but also that she and her family should consider that maybe they've been wrong all along about the racism they experience as the only Black family in town...?!?!!) and a scene where children sing a fat-antagonist song directed AT a specific other child, on a school bus full of adults, and no one intervenes...at all...ever.
finesilkflower's review against another edition
1.0
A public middle school takes every student on an annual ski trip. Sure.
The yearly Stoneybrook Middle School trip to a ski resort in Vermont includes: a baby-sitting emergency (a bus accident leaves a set of school children with injured chaperones); a winter sports contest; a talent show; a dance; and an unresolved ghost mystery. All of the baby-sitters have different storylines, and basically it is just too much stuff and none of it is at all satisfying.
Timing: Winter.
Revised Timeline: This is where I figure out how old the BSC would be if they aged in every book. December of ninth grade. This makes both more and less sense than the original timeline; while it makes more sense that a high school than a middle school would go on a ski trip, and the girls’ freshman status resolves the question of why we’ve never heard about such an event before, Mallory and Jessi create a problem, as all of the baby-sitters are supposed to be in the same school for this.
The yearly Stoneybrook Middle School trip to a ski resort in Vermont includes: a baby-sitting emergency (a bus accident leaves a set of school children with injured chaperones); a winter sports contest; a talent show; a dance; and an unresolved ghost mystery. All of the baby-sitters have different storylines, and basically it is just too much stuff and none of it is at all satisfying.
Timing: Winter.
Revised Timeline: This is where I figure out how old the BSC would be if they aged in every book. December of ninth grade. This makes both more and less sense than the original timeline; while it makes more sense that a high school than a middle school would go on a ski trip, and the girls’ freshman status resolves the question of why we’ve never heard about such an event before, Mallory and Jessi create a problem, as all of the baby-sitters are supposed to be in the same school for this.
amyacowan's review against another edition
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
cbg84's review
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes