#35 - Stacey and the Mystery of Stoneybrook

Timeline: 
Well the last book was summer time, but they are already back in school. There was no talk about the first day of school, so I guess they are just back in 8th grade again. That was a fast summer.

Plot:

There is an old house in Stoneybrook that is being torn down. Everyone thinks it's the biggest deal in the entire world, except Stacey who thinks everyone is lame for caring so much.

The club gets a call from the Johansen's, and they need someone to take Charlotte for an entire week when they go to help Charlotte's grandpa recover after surgery. Stacey takes the job (it was only offered to Stacey or Jessi, and Jessi is mysteriously gone for this entire book).

So Charlotte gets to Stacey and she's a giant baby about her parents leaving her (I mean, she's only 8, so I guess that's about right. She seems much older than 8, though. All the kids in these books seem much older than they really are. I mean, Gabbi Perkins is only 2.5 but she can memorize songs from musicals? Okay.) To distract her, Stacey takes her to the old house so they can look around it. They both get the creeps and see a bunch of weird shit - fire, faces, a swarm of flies. They both have nightmares that night. They become obsessed with the house, and get the rest of the club obsessed too. Kristy and Claudia do some research and discover the house (and most of that neighborhood) was built on a cemetery. Then they find the previous owner, who is now in the nursing home, and they go talk to him. He tells them all kinds of stories about how haunted the house is.

The day the house is officially being torn down finally arrives, and everyone from Stoneybrook goes to watch. While Stacey is standing there, she sees fire. For some reason, she just has to go back to the nursing home to talk to the guy. She literally just dumps Charlotte off with Claudia and sprints to the nursing home, only to find the guy has died. He left her a letter, though, telling her everything he said was bullshit and the house isn't haunted at all.

Charlotte goes back home, and they never speak of the house again. The end.

Takeaways:

This book was SO WEIRD. At the end, all of the weird things were explained - the "fire" they saw was a guy using a blow torch, the faces were said guy, the "flies" were actually bees.

Kristy, Charlotte, Claudia and Stacey all go to the nursing home to talk to the guy. But when Stacey goes back, the letter is only addressed to her. Why did she get the letter?

Charlotte stays with Stacey for a week, and she gets sick. Stacey plays a ton of games with her, including teaching her how to play War (worst card game ever, there were so many other games she should have taught her) and the board game Clue. Two people playing Clue? That would suck. I don't even know if it's possible?

Claudia goes to the library and gets the name of the guy who used to live in the house. She then asks her mom "how can i find out if someone who used to live in Stoneybrook still does live here?" and her mom was like um the phone book? Duh, Claudia.

The girls call an EMERGENCY meeting to discuss the house. WTF. A weird haunted house that none of them can do anything about is important enough to cause for an EMERGENCY meeting to be called?

Best character: 
I honestly don't know. This book is weird. None of the other babysitters are really in it except Kristy and Claudia. Like MaryAnne is pretty non-existent, I guess because she is scared of everything anyway. And Jessi is literally out of town for the whole book.

So I guess best character would be....the old guy who used to live in the house. He completely lies to the girls, then dies, but leaves a note saying JK. That's hilarious.

Worst character:
Again, I don't really know. I guess Stacey was kind of a snot about the house, and then she was the one who got the most obsessed with it.  I guess Jessi is the worst because she's not even around for anything?

#34 - Mary Anne and Too Many Boys

Timeline: 
Finally SUMMER! So this is the summer between after 8th grade for the older girls, after 6th grade for the younger girls.

Plot:

It's finally summer, after the longest spring ever. Mary Anne and Stacey have been asked to be mothers-helpers for the Pike family again. Mallory is a baby-sitter now too, so she's like a back up, but her parents mostly want her to just have a good vacation so they still bring along both girls to work.

Everything is going swimmingly (ha!) until Alex and Toby, the cute boys from last summer, show up. They are mothers helpers again too, so they immediately set up dates with the girls. Mary Anne is a bit hesitant, since she has Logan at home, but Stacey pretty much throws herself at Alex.

The Pikes tell the girls they can have one night off per week, but ask them not to take them together. Neither of them check with each other, and they set up dates with the boys for the same night. Mary Anne cancels her date and agrees to go out with Alex the next night instead. But then the next night, Stacey starts getting ready for another date! She thinks Mary Anne won't mind, but MA actually stands up for herself and tells Stacey to get bent.

Vanessa falls in love with this older guy who works at the ice cream stand and starts sending him secret admirer love poems. But the guy thinks Mallory is the one sending them, so he asks Vanessa to ask Mallory out for him. Vanessa actually handles it okay, and writes him a final poem, acting as Mallory, turning him down gently. It was way, way too mature for a nine year old.

The next week, Stacey goes out with Alex again and he dumps her - even though they have only been "together" for a week? He tells her he's not interested in doing anything serious with her, and she loses her mind. Mary Anne goes out with Alex again, and tells him about Logan, and then Alex tells her about his girlfriend. So MA decides that Alex is a great friend, but Logan is her boo.

Takeaways:

MaryAnne essentially cheats on Logan, but just trusts none of the Pikes or Stacey to say anything to him about it. Hmm.

Stacey is a total bitch when Alex "dumps" her. She screams at Mary Anne about using her towel (which she wasn't) and makes fun of her. Give me a break, Stacey. You barely know this guy who just dumped you, and if you were that awesome he would have at least tried to stay friendly with you across the miles.

Sea City seriously sounds like the best place on earth, and their house sounds amazing. I wish I could go there for real.

They did some weird side stories about the other girls baby-sitting in Stoneybrook and it took all of my energy not to skip those chapters. Who the fuck cares about babysitting jobs in Stoneybrook when you are in Sea City?!

Best character: 
Vanessa, due to her maturity of handling her first heart break.

Worst character:
Stacey. COME ON.

#33 - Claudia and the Great Search

Timeline: 
Still the end of the school year, 8th grade for the big girls, 6th grade for the little girls. The book opens with an award ceremony for Janine, so I assume that's an "end of the school year" type thing.

Plot:

Janine gets an award for being the smartest person to ever walk the halls of Stoneybrook High, so Claudia is jealous and bitter. She can't believe how different she is from everyone in her family. She looks for baby pictures so she can see if her and Janine looked alike when they were babies and can't find any of herself. So she decides she's adopted and launches a full investigation.

The sub plot is that Emily Brewer (Kristy's adopted sister) isn't progressing as quickly as everyone thinks she should, so one afternoon when Claudia is baby-sitting she starts working with her on colors and matching. Mrs. Brewer is very impressed and hires Claudia to tutor Emily.

After all of Claudia's investigating - she goes to the bank to try to get her birth certificate (can't, she didn't have a key to their lock box), she checks in with her old pediatrician (who wasn't her doctor from birth), she looks in old newspapers for birth announcements (she can't find hers, so she calls the other parents who had babies that week to see if maybe they were her real parents and had put her up for adoption). None of the searching is that smart. In the end, she finally just asks her parents and they tell her she wasn't adopted. The end.

Also, she tutors Emily so well that Emily passes the preschool entrance exam. The end. 

Takeaways:
At the beginning of the book, Claudia is talking about her science class and how they have to do "experiments". But the teacher has been doing the same "experiments" with his classes for years. So at that point, are they still "experiments" if you know what is going to happen? I don't know why, but I loved this line of thought. Claudia is so much smarter than she lets on.

WHY doesn't Claudia just ask her parents right off the bat if she is adopted? She seems to have a pretty good relationship with them, but she is absolutely convinced they would just lie to her.

This book is where I learned that second (or third, or fourth, or tenth) children don't have as many baby pictures taken of them because they aren't the first born.

Best character: 
Stacey wins. Claudia confides all of this adopted nonsense to her, and not only does she not tell anyone, but she is the one who finally convinces Claudia to just talk to her parents.

Worst character:
Janine's science teacher says something to Claudia like "I can't believe your sisters" about her and Janine. It was just kind of rude, because Janine dresses like a 70 year old librarian and Claudia dresses like a four year old who is given free reign of a department store.

Really there were no bad characters in this book, so that is a stretch.  

#32 - Kristy and the Secret of Susan

Timeline: 
Still end of their 8th grade year. I am sure Ann M. Martin just assumed that at this point, everyone would forget where they were at in the school year, but I'm tracking your ass, Ann.

Plot: 
The BSC gets a new client, the Felder's. They have one daughter, Susan, who is autistic. She normally is away at a special school, but she is home for a few weeks and Mrs. Felder knows she is going to need a break from her, so she hires Kristy to come three days a week and sit with Susan for a few hours.

Kristy meets the family and is immediately judgmental, thinking they are terrible for sending Susan away. She decides to spend her weeks with them "fixing" Susan, having her make friends, and showing the Felder's the don't need to send her away anymore. There is a new family in town, the Hobart's, from Australia, and Kristy seems especially obsessed about making them friends with Susan. One of them, James, does kind of take a liking to her and protects her from people making fun of her. And there are plenty of them...

So the Hobart's are Australian, so people make fun of their accents. Susan is autistic, and not only do those same people make fun of her, they then pretend to be her friend so they can charge people to watch the "retard". Susan has a few amazing qualities - she is an expert piano player and very good singer, and also she has a calendar in her head where she can name the day of the week any date falls on, past or future. So these bully kids charge other kids to see Susan's amazing talents - like she's in the circus or something.

Okay, so despite all of that, Kristy's plan doesn't work and she realizes the Felder's are right for sending Susan away. Then she learns they are going to have another baby, and she is downright ecstatic.

Oh, and Mallory starts dating the oldest Australian boy, Ben. 

Takeaways:

I am just weirded out by this whole book. First of all, I hated it as a kid. I don't know why. 

Second of all, there is no "secret" of Susan. Everything about her is very laid out, very clear. At no point is there a secret about her, except maybe that she is going to be a big sister, which isn't revealed until the end of the book. 

Third of all, Susan is only home for a month. Why does her mom need a break from her? Can't she just wait until her husband gets home from work? And why does her mom not work, when they don't have any kids at home most of them time?

Kristy was so Kristy in this book - thinking she was right about Susan and the Felder's did not need to send Susan away. Thank God she realized how wrong she was. 

The word "retard" was used an uncomfortable amount of times in this book. 

Best character: 
I honestly don't know. I guess I will go with Mr. Felder, who doesn't make an appearance until the end of the book, but he just sounded like a fun dude who was pretty cute. But no one else really did anything worth awarding in this book.

Worst character:
There were two kids who were charging people to see Susan perform. Not cool, bratty Stoneybrook kids. You are the worst.