This is now officially an Ann M. Martin stan podcast. Ok, maybe not since our loyalties are divided between the many great authors we've revisited, but we are firmly team Ann. This episode we embark on our long-awaited journey into The Baby-Sitters Club. We are beginning at the only possible starting point: Kristy Thomas. We are tackling Kristy's Great Idea and Kristy's Big Day. Are you a Claudia or a Mary Anne? Maybe we were all just Claudia all along. These books explore feminism, demonstrate the value of a solid business plan, and offer some really weird takes on juvenile diabetes. We learn how many adults it takes to make an appetizer, discuss deadbeat dads and decorum, and unexpectedly uncover a potential bombshell about the CEO of a hot cocoa conglomerate during our Person in the Stacks segments.
These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.
We mentioned a lot of topics in this episode. Here’s a brief list of some informative articles and videos about some of them if you want to do your own further research:
Feminism in the BSC: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-feminist-legacy-of-the-baby-sitters-club
Representation in the BSC: https://bookriot.com/queer-history-of-the-baby-sitters-club/
All those original covers: https://the-niche.blog/2020/09/09/all-131-baby-sitters-club-book-covers-ranked-by-gayness/
This is now officially an Ann M. Martin stan podcast. Ok, maybe not since our loyalties are divided between the many great authors we've revisited, but we are firmly team Ann. This episode we embark on our long-awaited journey into The Baby-Sitters Club. We are beginning at the only possible starting point: Kristy Thomas. We are tackling Kristy's Great Idea and Kristy's Big Day. Are you a Claudia or a Mary Anne? Maybe we were all just Claudia all along. These books explore feminism, demonstrate the value of a solid business plan, and offer some really weird takes on juvenile diabetes. We learn how many adults it takes to make an appetizer, discuss deadbeat dads and decorum, and unexpectedly uncover a potential bombshell about the CEO of a hot cocoa conglomerate during our Person in the Stacks segments.
These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.
We mentioned a lot of topics in this episode. Here’s a brief list of some informative articles and videos about some of them if you want to do your own further research:
Feminism in the BSC: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-feminist-legacy-of-the-baby-sitters-club
Representation in the BSC: https://bookriot.com/queer-history-of-the-baby-sitters-club/
All those original covers: https://the-niche.blog/2020/09/09/all-131-baby-sitters-club-book-covers-ranked-by-gayness/
Hi, I'm Haa.
Speaker 2:Oh, are you doing special guests or are you doing it
Speaker 3:With us? No, I'll do it just in know what order.
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Okay. Okay. That way I guess. Okay.
Speaker 4:Hi,
Speaker 1:I'm Haa.
Speaker 3:I'm Kelsey.
Speaker 2:I'm Heather.
Speaker 1:And this is our podcast, these books. Maybe today we're diving into Ann M. Martin series, the Babysitters Club. Much Luck, our American Girl episodes. There's simply too many books to tackle the whole series at once. So we'll be kicking things off with the first two Christie novels. Friendly warning. As always, this podcast contains spoilers. If you don't yet know who lives with a ghost, proceed with caution. We have a special guest today. Can you introduce yourself?
Speaker 5:Hello everyone. I'm Jessica Saint Sumay, librarian by Day and Entrepreneur by Trade. So was this everybody's first time reading these books?
Speaker 1:This was, I believe this was my first time reading these books. Like I remember seeing the books around a lot and I may have read some of them, but I don't know if it was these, so I'm gonna just say yeah, cuz I didn't remember anything.
Speaker 3:This was definitely not my first time reading them. I have been pushing for our podcast to cover the Babysitters Club since we started it. Also, by the way, I'm back. I'm so excited to be back. Yay.
Speaker 4:Yay.<laugh> mom.
Speaker 3:My brief and faded return. So yeah, so this was not my first time reading them. I was an avid babysitters club collector growing up. I loved them. My dad and I would go to thrift stores around Philadelphia and, you know, see how many 10 cent, I think there were a dime at the time. I don't know, inflation<laugh>, um, copies I could get. And, um, they're still being hoarded in my parents' basement, although I am buying a house right now and my dream is to create a babysitter's club wall with all my books. So that's exciting. Um, so yeah, not my first time.
Speaker 1:Why are you so cool?
Speaker 4:<laugh><laugh>,
Speaker 3:Thank y'all. Um, so yeah, not my first time, but it was really good to reread and for me, I really felt like they held up compared to some other trade paperback or like kid chapter books, I felt like they had a lot more depth and nuance to them than some of the other ones we've reread. So I, I really enjoyed my reread and I'm excited to talk about
Speaker 2:It. Also, not my first time reading these, like Kelsey. I read these all when I was small. My friends read them too. My friend Tessa and I made a lot of really terrible looking jewelry as like an homage to Claudia or I guess we were more like inspired by Claudia and her constantly painting on her clothes and<laugh> various things. So we made a lot of jewelry out of poster board and acrylic paints that we stuck to earring backs that, you know, was very geometric. So yeah, it, it inspired that. And then we sold them. So we, we did have some like entrepreneurship<laugh> uh, was also rubbing off on us from the books as well. So yeah, it, it was interesting to revisit. I do think that the characters mostly, at least the main girls I think were pretty well drawn. You can see why everybody identified with a specific babysitter in the club. Yeah. And, and really the things that didn't hold up as well, were more just product of the time. Like inflation, there's only one cause for inflation. Yeah. Other than that though, there's not a lot in them to like specifically date them in any way. It's, you know, very generic sort of experience of being that age. I think.
Speaker 5:I feel like the story really resonated and when I was reading the first chapter I was like, hold on seventh grade, that was around the time that I really got serious and into like entrepreneurship and things of that nature. So I really like related to the book, oh, this reminds me of when I was younger, had a little bit of responsibilities, didn't have much to think about. So I would definitely say I remembered it.
Speaker 3:We'll talk more in depth about the books, but first let's get a little bit of a history of the author. So Anne Matthews Martin, I always wondered what that middle m stood for.<laugh> was born in 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey. Her mother Edith taught preschool while her father worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for several prominent magazines. Martin credits her babysitting exploits with her childhood best friend Beth for the ideas and characters in the Babysitters Club. In her letters to young readers on Scholastic's website, she states Beth was the model for Christie. While she was the model for Maryanne, as she was a shy, quiet and conscientious girl, she was encouraged to write by an elementary school teacher, but initially decided to pursue work as a teacher due to her love of children, she attended Smith College studying education and child psychology graduating in 1977. Martin credits her time in the all women's environment of Smith for her formative years as a feminist. Her first job post-grad was at an elementary school in Connecticut teaching a mixed fourth and fifth grade special education class. She only spent one year in the classroom before shifting to the children's publishing world, finding work as an editor while working for Scholastic, another editor, Jean Fywell floated the idea for a series of children's books about babysitting. Martin took the idea and ran with it and the Babysitter's Club series was born Martin Penn the first 35 books of the series before Scholastic turned it over to ghost Writers. She's primarily focused on one-off novel since then, winning a Newberry honor for her book A Corner of the Universe in 2002. Martin has stayed busy outside of writing as well. Founding the Lisa Libraries in 1990, an organization that provides children's books and support to libraries and underserved communities. She also created an eponymous foundation that same year, which focuses on literacy and arts programs and the care of stray and abused animals. In 2000, the Babysitter's Club series ended with some 300 titles and almost 200 million copies in print. That same year she teamed up with Canadian author Laura Godwin, an illustrator Brian Selznick to write the four book Doll people series. Godwin was also Martin's longtime partner at the time they wrote the Doll People series. Although they have since Split Martin, a self-avowed shy person maintains a quiet private life with her many pets. She's has had multiple dogs and fostered hundreds of kittens. She currently resides in Shohan, a small town near Woodstock, New York, and recently wore a different hat as a producer for Netflix on their babysitters Club series. Didn't make
Speaker 2:Fun of me for basing it all on the Babysitters Club. We lead off with Christie's great idea book one of the absolutely massive series of babysitters club books. Christie Thomas is a tomboyish and impulsive 12 year old girl who is small for her age. She lives in Stony Brook, Connecticut with her two older brothers, Charlie and Sam. Her six-year-old brother David Michael and her mom. Christie's father divorced her mom left the state and remarried all while offering minimal child support and sporadic contact at best with these kids. Listener. We will learn literally nothing redeeming about Christie's dad in this book. He's awful.
Speaker 6:It's the worst
Speaker 2:In the world anyways. Christie and her best friend, the shy and rather anxious Maryanne and they're across the street. Neighbor, quirky and artsy. Claudia frequently babysit for neighbors. Christie is a budding entrepreneur and forms the Babysitters Club. Hi
Speaker 7:the Babysitters
Speaker 2:Club with Maryanne, Claudia and the new girl from New York. Stacy, it's a quasi conglomerate Child Labor Union. We observe the girls' adventures and babysitting via their first person accounts in notebook entries and lengthier explanations. From Christie's point of view, everyone has different handwriting and Stacy makes hearts over her eyes. Christie's first clients turn out to be literal dogs. Claudia's inserted into a family view and Stacy falls for Christie's brother Sam Maryann does some undercover espionage at Christie's. Mother's millionaire boyfriend Watson's home by sitting for his two kids. She learns absolutely nothing nefarious nor anything to justify. Christie's pretty abominable treatment of the poor guy to Christie's Horror Watson proposes and she has to babysit his kids during an emergency and discovers she really likes them. The four girls have a big blowup, sort of vaguely related to secret. Stacy has been keeping shocker, she's diabetic diabetes and we find out that Stacy's mom made them relocate to Stony Brook because she didn't want people to know about Stacy's diabetes. Diabetes. But in another shocker, none of the girls shunned Stacy for being diabetic, which apparently happened at her old school. Christie's mom agrees to Mary Watson and Christie gets on board with the marriage because she's genuinely fond of Watson's kids now.
Speaker 8:And I even did your suggested reading of Christie's
Speaker 2:Big Day. The second book we are covering today is Christie's Big Day. Christie's Big Day picks up after new to Connecticut, California girl Dawn has joined the Babysitters club. Christie's mom and Watson are preparing for their upcoming nuptials. When life in an acrimonious divorce throw them a curve ball. The Thomas's home has sold lickety split instead of taking months to sell as anticipated. And Ms. Thomas's work is sending her to Europe during the Penton date for the fall wedding. Two adult divorcees with six kids between them couldn't possibly cohabitate before marriage. So looks like the weddings in two weeks. Kids Christie is initially pretty upset but mom asked her to be the bridesmaid. So she's on board with the Quickie Mansion. Backyard wedding. Of course throwing a wedding together in two weeks is stressful even for millionaires who will make the canape and hors d'oeuvres. What will they do with the 14 children of relatives that need watching the week before the wedding? So said relatives can make more db have no fear. The Babysitter's Club is here. Christie and list all five club members to host what essentially is a weeklong summer camp for 14 children under 10. Hey Austin Sues and is more or less managed though we learned that cousin Emma's kind of a problem. And Watson's daughter. Karen is the Fox molder of Stony Brook. Christie Fretz about what present to give her mom and stepdad and the club members make bank for their week of work. The wedding comes together mostly hitch free save for an interruption by a witch. And Karen biting her father Christie decides to gift her mom and Watson a handmade family treat showing the now combined families. You
Speaker 1:Write great plot summaries.<laugh>. Thanks
Speaker 3:<laugh>. Alright, so let's dive in on a little discussion. Um, we'll just, I think we will end up kind of talking about both of the books together cuz we're all bad at remembering how details break down<laugh>.
Speaker 1:Um,
Speaker 3:So we always like to start off with the question, how did it hold up? These books were written first in the eighties, so a lot has changed. Do we feel like they still read relevant for a modern audience?
Speaker 1:I think they do. If I didn't know that this was a book that was written in the eighties, I wouldn't have thought, oh this feels like super dated. I feel like books that are written before, like the technology that we have now have more of that advantage because there's no reference, there's not as many references to things that feel super outdated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the only like dated things would be that they choose Claudia's room to hold the meetings because she's the only one with a phone<laugh> and it's a landline. But yeah, most of this stuff holds up pretty well there. There are some issues where I wasn't sure if the version I was reading had maybe done an adjustment to make it not seem like a real problem for child labor, but when they host the camp they end up making$225 for the week each. That's like way, way more than what minimum wage would've been in the eighties. They really did make bank Yeah.<laugh>. So I'm not sure if that was actually how much they made in the original book or if that was adjusted. So it didn't seem like super off putting to readers for this addition cuz yeah I put it into the like inflation calculator. If you went by what they made according to the book, that would be like over$500 for the week now, which is pretty good money. So then I started thinking maybe they adjusted it so that it didn't sound like all of these rich people were scamming these little girls. I don't know<laugh>, I
Speaker 3:Mean maybe, but I think even when I was 12 I would've been been like$200. Oh my God. Like I like that would've felt like a lot of money
Speaker 2:To me.<laugh>. Well but it was, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Is like, I think that's more than they possibly could have made in the eighties when minimum wage was$3 and something an hour. Which
Speaker 1:Is wow. Cuz they were saying like, you know, after when they were trying to have the pizza party, one of the things they were saying was like, yeah I got$3 from my, my four hours of babysitting.
Speaker 2:Right. So like yeah the, the adjustment seemed like maybe that was a new addition. Like, oh we'll make this sound less horrible that like maybe the original had it as less, yeah they got paid really well, but then again Watson's a millionaire so.
Speaker 3:Okay. And what is Watson do? That's what I was wondering. Great
Speaker 2:Question.<laugh>, who knows?
Speaker 3:I really wanna know what his job is. Um, but yeah, I, I think the landline to me is the biggest thing that stands out cuz like the, the whole premise of the club that they have to meet at a certain time so people know how to call them. Like they would just have an email form now or something or like an online calendar where you could book a babysitter. So obviously that's a little dated but that's also the central theme of the
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Yeah,
Speaker 3:You have to keep that. And I feel like they should have been giving Claudia's parents money to subsidize the landline since they were using it for
Speaker 2:<laugh> business purpose.<laugh>, maybe Claudia's parents were like writing it off on their taxes though.<laugh>. Yeah, it's like a business expense.
Speaker 3:But in terms of like, uh, the things we talk about with some of our other books about different issues that we might talk about differently today. That's something I really appreciate and respect about this book is I feel like they were very unafraid to talk about difficult things and really honestly and really openly having divorced parents having, you know, difficult family dynamics when they think Chris uh, Stacy is dieting because she's anorexic, not because she's
Speaker 2:Diabetes. That does not hold up too well to me either because like I really am skeptical that a child was bullied out of a city for being diabetic diabetes, which is how the book presents it. Ye like was there a huge stigma about diabetes, juvenile diabetes at some point? Cuz I don't remember that when I was a kid. But how
Speaker 1:Would they, how would they know?
Speaker 3:She says that she faint
Speaker 1:Fainted. She fainted.
Speaker 3:Okay. And,
Speaker 2:But then she told them she was diabetic diabetes and then she got bullied so much that they moved and the like way she presented it was they were gonna keep it a, she and her mom are keeping it a secret here. So that doesn't happen again. I don't know if she was trying to like sync this to like what was going on with like the Ryan White aids
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 2:Moment of the time. But she was like afraid to touch that so she made it Diabetes, diabetes, diabetes. But then I feel like that doesn't really make sense because who bullies someone about being diabetic? Yeah.
Speaker 3:But even like the babysitters club kids say that, they're like, that's not a problem. Like why are you Right. So I, to me I it, I read it as like the way that kids will bully peers about anything that's different, right? Like they just decided she fainted and that was a big deal and everyone's gossiped and spread the story and so then it just became her thing and it would've been whatever it was but
Speaker 2:They left the city
Speaker 3:Over it. But, but yeah that was a dramatic response centered private school. Like you don't have<laugh> move move city
Speaker 5:Right now we have more, you know, information on health. People are more aware there are more kids who have diabetes. Diabetes. So it's like it kind of tells the times as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But I do think kids still bully each other. Like I think if if, if that happened today, like I think kids might pick on Stacy for that but
Speaker 2:More than for her being anorexic, like I, that just seemed like a really weird trade off is that she and her mom were going to hide this thing and conceal it to the point that people thought she was anorexic.
Speaker 3:It was poorly thought out.
Speaker 2:<laugh> that that doesn't seem like a better thing than diabetes. Diabetes in terms of people like giving you a hard time about it. But
Speaker 5:Yeah, I wonder if it was like a personal situation or somebody experienced and they kind of like wrote it in. Cuz that is kind of random in a sense.
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Yeah, maybe that's
Speaker 1:What I was thinking. Yeah, you don't know. But then also like I'm over here like trying to Google and trying to see what other people may think and see if anything comes up and the only thing that really kind of comes up, but this is more so in the, the Netflix series, it shows that, you know, she has a a continuous glucose monitor that she kind of blings out I guess in the series. So
Speaker 2:Cause that didn't exist then.
Speaker 1:Oh well.<laugh><laugh>. I knew you were gonna say that
Speaker 2:Too.<laugh>. Yeah, I mean she would've had to be leaving to check her blood sugar. She would've been going to the nurse probably quite frequently,
Speaker 3:Which would make her stand out from the other kid. Right.
Speaker 2:But then like they're not gonna tell them why she's doing that and they're just gonna let'em think she's leaving to go like vomit in the bathroom or something. Yeah, I don't know. It's a very odd, I don't know. I didn't think that was good parenting
Speaker 3:By not great parenting grandmother. Yeah. Which is a theme in these books I think<laugh><laugh>.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. True. She
Speaker 1:Starts off the first book like yeah my dad don't pay child support.<laugh>
Speaker 2:<laugh>. I know. So we've been told Christie's dad, how come you
Speaker 1:Don't want me man,
Speaker 2:Just nope outta there a across the country hasn't really been sending money who needs? And she's like, well I have to give him half the money from the house was mad. And it's like ma'am, please, if he has to keep paying child support, you're not giving him any money from this house. You won't even know the court is not going to do that in today's session of divorce court. Would they have done that in the eighties?
Speaker 3:I mean maybe. I don't know. Divorce is different back then I think. I
Speaker 2:Think it probably was too. But like that was shocking to me. It's like nah, he's on the hook for all this like unpaid child support. You aren't giving him a dime. I'm gonna
Speaker 9:Get through college without him. I'm gonna get a great job
Speaker 2:Without him. Use that house money for whatever you want. Yeah. Also she's marrying a millionaires. Right.
Speaker 1:And then you know, I thought it was interesting seeing Christie talk about how like what was she saying? She was saying something along the lines of like she didn't know what would be acceptable to ask Watson for. Like is it okay to ask him for a few bucks or like a big screen tv. She's like, those are two different things. You know, I can't expect them of him. I call this tuition. I'm just like, but and you know, it felt like a really like real conversation. It did.
Speaker 2:She would have it did with her brothers.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I found that really relatable for Christie to, to be so young and so aware of her family's finances and how decisions that she makes affects the finances. How her mom struggles to make ends meet and then not knowing how this new situation will impact that've felt very real to me as a kid who was also very stressed about that growing up and very aware of that. Sounds like we feel like that that generally it, it held up pretty well. Yes. Which is good. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think the range of parenting was really interesting. Like seeing all the different ways that the parents did or did not provide support and guidance. You have everything from the absent father to, you know, especially fatherhood I feel like has represented so many different ways. You have. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, all their different dads play a role in some capacity and and how they react to that and what they'd like and don't like about that support was really interesting.
Speaker 1:Which I think is pretty cool because I feel like a lot of the times in books you or just in media in general, you know a lot about the moms but you don't hear as much about like the dads. So it was kind of cool to hear about Watson as a dad and to hear like the roles that the dads played in parenting as well as the moms. I don't know if that was intentional on her part but I think she did a good job with
Speaker 2:That. Yeah. And the non roles because like yeah, Stacy's dad is absentee, right? Like we never hear anything about her dad and I think Don's status is dead. Is that right?
Speaker 1:I think da
Speaker 2:Someone's dead. Maryanne's mom is dead. Dawn's mom is divorced but she that's a lot of divorce. They get together. Yeah. Dawn's mom and Maryanne's dad end up like reuniting. They were like high school sweethearts or something.
Speaker 1:Oh see that I didn't know. That's cute. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sorry. Spoilers,<laugh>
Speaker 1:Spoilers for the 30 year old bugs. Yeah. At the beginning.
Speaker 3:<laugh>, I don't know, they're very involved in their parents' lives in a way that is kind of interesting. But
Speaker 2:I think that like you would be too. Yeah. Like especially and I think it's kind of brave of these books in the eighties. We have two books that like spend a lot of time on Christie's mom's dating life.<laugh>. Yeah. Which that's cool.
Speaker 1:How did she find the Millionaire? First of all Drop the,
Speaker 2:I know where did she turn up This man? She is a single mother of four kids working her butt off and somehow she finds some millionaire man
Speaker 1:Speaking of working her butt off. I don't know if this is jumping ahead too much but, and I even did your suggested reading of Christie's Big Day. That's crazy that the whole plot of the Christie's big day is basically based off of the fact they had to rush this wedding because her job was like, yeah you gotta take a two week trip. I would've been like, um, excuse me, I'm getting married.<laugh>. Well especially she's about to marry a millionaire, right? So like if you gotta be like, you know, forget that job.
Speaker 2:But like really the reason they're rushing it is because they don't wanna live together before they're married. Which again is just a really weird take to me because like you got six kids between you. Right. Maybe nobody thinks this is a white wedding.
Speaker 1:White wedding
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Right? I don't<laugh>
Speaker 3:It's a yellow wedding.
Speaker 1:<laugh> right hill.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, no I, that's actually like something else that's a little dated maybe and I think today that might not have been as relatable of a plot point.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I was wondering too if that played in with the divorce thing in the house sale, is that like she didn't want to move in with the dude because Christie's dad would like use that against during in court or something? Mm-hmm<affirmative>, I, I don't know how much of that was coming from a place of fear like that came through to me at least from reading it was that like Christie's mom was weirdly fearful of the dad messing things up somehow. Mm-hmm
Speaker 1:<affirmative> I think it's interesting just cuz like, you know, granted I could feel you if you were just like, yeah I don't wanna live together before we get married. But then like if something catastrophic happens that totally throws a wrench in our wedding plans, I would just be like, we are moving in for these a couple weeks until we get married. Like they
Speaker 2:Could look at a different wing of the mansion they're talking about like, oh well I have a bedroom on the second floor, the third floor on the like it's a massive house.
Speaker 1:I thought they were gonna say all those family members were gonna stay in the house for a second.<laugh>.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I was a little stressed about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.<laugh> or like he could just pay to like let them sublet somewhere or something. Yeah. That seemed odd to me. But again, probably just a product of the time. Like I, I don't think now people would be as freaked out about like two 40 something people with a gaggle of children cohabitating. But I don't know
Speaker 1:A gaggle
Speaker 5:<laugh>. I didn't kind of think about like the father in that instance I was thinking about like what example the mother wanted to, you know, set for the children. Especially since like the children are so involved in what their parents are doing and they're watching and they see everything. So I was kind of thinking like she was trying to set an example for the children in their lives
Speaker 2:But he had a mansion. They could have just stayed in separate bedrooms or something
Speaker 3:Like<laugh> maybe it's about like making them feel like a family when they move in together. Set them on the right foot. Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Speaking of family, am I jumping around if I mentioned this family tree? No, hit it. I don't know if y'all book head, I don't know if you're had it Kelsey, but like the book has like a picture of the family
Speaker 2:Tree. Mine didn't cuz I got an ebook for the second one. Me too. And I didn't get a tree.
Speaker 1:Her family tree didn't make no sense but<laugh>
Speaker 2:<laugh>, what does it say?
Speaker 1:Like where
Speaker 2:Is it? I also didn't quite understand why the two of them cutting the cake together made her think of a family tree. But you know, that was nice. Okay,
Speaker 1:So the family tree, I'm a describer for y'all that are listening. It has um, Karen Andrew. Oh okay. I lied. I was gonna say the kids are miss, the other siblings are missing from the family tree but they are on here but it still kind of don't really make a lot of sense. But I guess like the Watson and Elizabeth are the parents. They're like in the middle. Elizabeth's kids are underneath her and Karen's kids are over top of her. See my issue was gonna be that the ki the the, the step siblings were on there but I didn't see that at
Speaker 2:First. She made it more like a family hourglass than a tree. It's
Speaker 3:A family spider web
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. It's confusing when you look at it but the thought was there. Right. So the vision was there. My issue was more so that she, that she didn't put the other kids on there but they are on there. So I mean it's not like you would expect the parents who aren't in the house to be on there. So
Speaker 3:They're not part of the family. My
Speaker 1:Bad. Christie. Yeah.<laugh> you was doing something there. They'll appreciate it.<laugh>.
Speaker 3:Yeah I like that. Um, Christie got them a family tree and David Michael got them a goldfish. Was it? And I wanted to know was it goldfish crackers or was it a goldfish? That wasn't
Speaker 2:Clear to me either.
Speaker 1:Thought process behind that<laugh> like I was like, but you know, a lot of the things we mentioned in this book, they don't really give like further insight and you know, I'm kind of okay with that. Not everything need to be over explained. Like it was just a cute thought. You know, low seven year old and goldfish. I think the whole thought process of what do you give someone who has everything or can afford everything was kind of cute. Mm-hmm
Speaker 2:<affirmative>. I will say David, Michael is the same age as Karen, right? They're, yeah. So six-ish.
Speaker 1:Karen seems more
Speaker 2:Childish. She's a lot more advanced Really? I think. So she's out there naming the next door neighbor, morbid Destiny talking about the ghost of, of a man in their house talking about spells that the witch next door is doing. Talking about Martians Marsh landing. Well
Speaker 3:They said she is gonna skip a grade they think.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then David Michael's like, here's a goldfish<laugh>.
Speaker 3:I love Karen. She's,
Speaker 2:She's my favorite in
Speaker 3:The book Favorite. I read all of her little sister book series as well. They were so
Speaker 2:I need to read those. That's why I was just telling Haa earlier is I've gotta read those now because she was legit my favorite character. Yeah. Her and Mimi. I really like Mi Mimi a lot. And spoilers again. Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 3:Oh
Speaker 2:My god. No. When that like wrecked me when I was a kid.
Speaker 1:Can you just say what it is? Cause I mean
Speaker 2:Mimi dies and Oh
Speaker 3:It's, and she has really bad dementia before she dies. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Aw. It's a very upsetting everything, the whole arc because she does get established as this like really wonderful kind presence. Mm-hmm<affirmative> and Claudia's life but the other girls as well and it's like, oh yeah that was a tough one when I was a kid. Oh yeah. Especially cuz I was definitely like Claudia was my favorite and
Speaker 3:It that that book also gave me a lot of food poisoning anxiety that I haven't overcome. Cuz Claudia spends a lot of time angsting over like whether or not um, Mimi took the food out of the fridge at the right time and defrosted it appropriately and whether or not they'll all get salmon
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Speaking of anxiety, um, I was anxious in the beginning of the book when, um, in the beginning of Christie's big day when they were um, giving all the instructions for all the 50 million thousand kids and she's like, yeah these are the pills for this and yeah these are the pills for that and this one has this allergy. And I honestly thought that was like gonna be some kind of like foreshadowing to like someone eating something they shouldn't have or like
Speaker 2:They put a whole lot on these
Speaker 3:Girls, 12 year olds.
Speaker 2:I was thinking, you know, at that age I certainly babysat there were adults though that were more involved babysitting us. Us like these folks really did just, what
Speaker 10:Were they doing before a week? Ditch
Speaker 2:Their kids for a week to make some hors d'oeuvres
Speaker 3:And they not only ditched them, but they made like more complicated tasks. Like take six of them to the barber when they're all really anxious about
Speaker 1:It.<laugh> because the barber's only open from nine to five. Like y'all couldn't take off like a hour or too early to take her kiss to the
Speaker 2:Barbershop. And also I felt like it was really stressful for her Christie's grandmother who's like the chauffeur for 14 kids
Speaker 10:Kids Pink, the pink, what was it called?
Speaker 2:A pink cricketer Quicker.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like this poor woman, she probably just wanted to make some like center pieces or something and they're like, no, drive'em here. No cram all these people into your car and get them to the barber shop, the movies, the,
Speaker 3:Not only was is she the chauffeur and the flower ranger, but she had to make two
Speaker 2:Dresses. She made dresses in like two weeks.
Speaker 3:<laugh>. Yeah. No big deal. And apparently knit a sweater for a handmade item for each of the 14 children.
Speaker 2:No, that grandma was killing it. She was, she was getting everything done. And I'm like, why is it taking like all of these 10 adults to do just, yeah.
Speaker 3:What were they doing?
Speaker 11:Handcrafted appetizers are now endless.
Speaker 3:What what were they doing? That's
Speaker 2:What I wanna say. Doing appetizers.
Speaker 3:<laugh>. Yeah, there were a lot of like plot points that were set up that were not actually realized. Like also at the very beginning of the book, um, Stacy was like, oh what usually happens at the end of the year and Marion's like, oh it's the spring fling. And I was like, oh my god are we gonna have a dance and then a wedding and no they just like moved
Speaker 2:Off. You get like one paragraph about it. It's like I went with so-and-so Claudia went with this guy so you know, I don't even
Speaker 3:Remember it. The
Speaker 1:Two of us and then the other two didn't go cuz their parents uh, just the two whose parents were dating, they just ended up having like a family event
Speaker 2:Or something. Yeah. Because Christie goes with a boy that she was like, I like him 50% and the other 50% he's annoying<laugh>. And that was like all we got from the dance.
Speaker 3:It went by so fast. I didn't even notice it. Yeah. Was
Speaker 2:Like literally two. It was the
Speaker 1:Beginning of that chapter
Speaker 10:<laugh>.
Speaker 3:So. Okay, so let's talk a little bit, we, we've gone kind of deep into the plot
Speaker 10:<laugh>, I'm sorry. Which
Speaker 3:Is fine. It's great. Um, there is a lot to talk about there, but I do wanna kind of back up a little bit and talk about this as like a feminist work. So obviously like our main characters are all girls and I think we've already talked that we feel like they're pretty well developed. And I'm curious kind of as you look at it through a feminist lens, do we feel like this is a feminist book? Are they feminist characters?
Speaker 2:I mean I would say heck yeah and I think at least in the research I did on Anne Martin, she identifies as a feminist and really attributed that to her time at Smith, which is an all women's school and developed her ideas about education and about how you teach children from her time there. And I think she really made that come through in the books. Like I really liked how, how Christie's mom is depicted. It's like, yeah you got the short end of the stick with your deadbeat e ex-husband, but she's making it work. She has got a good job. She is trusted by her company to be sent to Europe to do these like high profile things. She's doing a great job by her four kids. She doesn't need a man, but she found a good one. I like that. And I think especially for the eighties, that was a pretty progressive take on what a 40 year old woman would look like and, and I think that's cool. And then it's girls that form a conglomerate and like work very well in terms of setting up sort of ground rules for their business and like business practices, it's profitable for all of them but it also like distributes the labor very equitably. Like I think it's a really good sort of example of like the girls doing this thing, they're running it better than the adults would. Right. The wedding's kind of a mess but like<laugh> they're getting it done. You know? I, I think that's really, I think that's progressive. I think that's inherently very feminist and even like Claudia and, and Stacy being a little bit more into boys than like Maryanne and Christie are, it's just an acknowledgement of where they are with their like maturity level and hormones. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, it's not ever like viewed as like one is better or one is less good. It's just this very frank sort of,
Speaker 3:These are all different ways of being.
Speaker 2:Yeah. They're a little bit more mature and they're already like into thinking about boys a bit more and Christie and Maryanne just aren't there yet and that's all fine. Everyone's still friends and everybody is, you know, a valid individual and it's not judged at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like it's a mention like boys are a mention in the book like a very, like we, we joked about how the dance was like a very small paragraph but like it was just a small mention in the book and it didn't really take away from any of like the other plot points of the story nor did it like, you know, feel like it was running their lives. Which I mean I feel like is also kind of very realistic cuz considering that they're like 12 mm-hmm<affirmative>. So you know, some girls are boy crazy and some are just like Yeah.
Speaker 5:<laugh> because it's like no one is the same. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, everybody has their own individuality. Especially like Claudia. It's like she stood out, she wasn't within like the norm of what you would see and then also even just like take their uh, business for example, they were very supportive of each other. They, you know, empowered each other. They kind of like talked about things, talked things out and it was like more unified. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think um, there's the fight that they had have at the end of the first book where Christie has called out Stacy, uh, for not telling them the truth about her situation and they have this kind of like reckoning at their next club meeting<laugh>. Mm-hmm
Speaker 5:<affirmative><laugh>. And
Speaker 3:I feel like that really stood out to me as a moment of feminism cuz in a lesser book or in another book they would all be like, I, I messed up and I'm a bad friend. Mm-hmm<affirmative> and I feel like they, it'd be a very like peaceful resolution but in this book, in that conversation like Christie still was like, I probably shouldn't have approached it the way I did, but I don't like being lied to. Yeah. And that's something that's a core value for me. So like, I'm sorry that you were offended but like I still don't wish you hadn't done that and Stacy took ownership for her behavior as well and I feel like it was a lot more like nuanced of a conversation. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And I think that is very feminist to me to like say we're all coming at this from with our own values and ideas and this is how we like find harmony in our shared friendship.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think another thing in there, and it was kind of subtle but I, I think I'm correctly interpreting it, Christie gets in trouble early in the book with her teacher because she's so excited to be done with class for the day, which is totally understandable. Like
Speaker 3:She has no decorum. She
Speaker 2:And he
Speaker 1:Makes her Yeah.
Speaker 2:<laugh>, he makes her go home and like write a punishment essay on decorum. And to me that felt very targeted at her being a girl. He was upset that she jumped up and had energy and was,
Speaker 1:I felt like decorum was something that's expected of young
Speaker 2:Ladies. Exactly. Mm-hmm<affirmative> like she wasn't ladylike enough for his taste so he like punished her for it. But the way that the book presents it, I'm pretty sure we were supposed to feel like that was a really thing to do by the teacher. Right. Like yeah. We're not supposed to think like, oh Christie should have had more decorum. We're supposed to think like Yeah adults get it wrong. Yeah. And the adult men in these books get it wrong a lot.<laugh>.
Speaker 1:Right.<laugh>.
Speaker 3:Well because Christie tells her mom about it, her mom's like, well whatever. Do your essay<laugh>.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Like she's kinda like, her essay is too short and she's like, mom do you think this is okay? Because I used like the end as part of my word count was her mom. Like Yeah. Whatever mood
Speaker 1:She thinks
Speaker 2:It's a ridiculous thing too that she's getting punished for being excited that the school day's over. Yeah. She didn't even do anything that rude. She just got up from her seat with a fight
Speaker 1:Man. I mean he was wasn't crush was he not happy to be honest?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:And the air conditioner was broken or something too, so it's like obviously it's not a pleasant place to be and
Speaker 2:She explained that to him and he still was just like, no, you're gonna write this essay and learn your place. She didn't learn a place at all. She went and started a business.
Speaker 1:<laugh> shows that for decorum. Yep. And then on top of that she was like, she was super rude to Mr. Watson like a couple hours later.
Speaker 2:She was pretty awful too. Him
Speaker 3:That was pretty bad. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that there was really no reason for that because he is presented as very nice and thoughtful and approaches the kids well I think. And yeah.
Speaker 3:But something I like about that though is that when she like she knows that her behavior can get into her into trouble and she has a very clear understanding of when it is and is not appropriate. So like the jumping up at the end of the day cause you're excited to go home, that was not appropriate time to scold her. But like telling Watson he's a bad dad mm-hmm<affirmative> and like storming off like that was not appropriate and she knew that and she apologized. She wrote her mom a very nice apology letter and
Speaker 2:I she did and I thought mom accepted that really well. Yeah. Like there was no lingering where she was, was still upset with her after the fact. It was just a okay, we're done. It's fine. I love you too. Yeah. Which I thought was also a really nicely drawn bit of parenting.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you know, Watson didn't seem like he took any like super offense to it, which I mean he's the adult in the situation. So I'm glad that it was like kind of presented that way. Like, you know, it's almost kinda like, okay, it's okay to have your emotions and your feelings and you know, just take some time to think about it and then, you know, let's move on.
Speaker 3:I do wanna jump back to talk about their business practices because I think for 12 year olds to do a really good job mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but they never address the fact that that Claudia's been taking jobs on the side when the phone rings outside of club hours. And that bothered me when
Speaker 12:The, when the money started rolling in, I got out of control. I guess you could just say that I, I kind of became a a money
Speaker 3:Holick and also all the girls are starting some side hustles where they develop relationships with people and I feel like they need to get some solidarity going<laugh> and address that<laugh>
Speaker 1:<laugh>
Speaker 3:And also like they never talked about like are they all charging the same rate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think probably not because it would be different for different numbers of kids. Right.
Speaker 3:But they could have the same like math, the same pricing structure,
Speaker 2:Like a per head kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3:The only other thing I think I had that we wanted to talk about, and this kind of goes back to the feminism conversation is like Christie as a tomboy mm-hmm<affirmative> and the tomboy archetype.
Speaker 1:I actually didn't necessarily pick up on that. The only thing that I picked up on that kind of hinted it towards that she was a tomboy maybe cuz I read it kind of fast was that, you know, the whole thing was like, yeah the bridesmaids dress is different than her style. But she was super excited about it and I was like, honestly Yeah, same<laugh>.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think it comes out a lot more in her like overall character arc, the way that they develop the character in later books and in some of the books that are not focused on Christie, it comes out a little bit more.
Speaker 3:I do think that the cool thing about her is that she's Tom boyish without being like a full fledged trope. Like she, she generally wears more like athletic clothes but she still can get excited about like dressing up or getting some of those like adult girl privileges of the heels or whatever
Speaker 1:The heels. That was so cute.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:She was
Speaker 3:Very low tasteful heel<laugh><laugh>. Um, and I think that that's cool too. Again like adds to the kind of layering of her, she's not just like, oh ew, I only wear boy clothes, I'm a tomboy, I do sports. It's just more like I lean more masculine. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, but that doesn't mean I don't have many sides to myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think actually all of the girls have pretty nuanced depictions of what their interests are or what they gravitate towards or like their personality traits. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> because they feel fully formed.
Speaker 3:Well I think the journal entries of their babysitting stories helped with that. Yes. That was so cute. You get their first person and I think that's what makes these books so strong too, is that it is a first person story and it changes the perspective. Mm-hmm<affirmative> based on who the book is, like the main character. Because when it's third person, even the best written story you feel a remove. And I think you get to really relate to each of the different personalities by being in their head.
Speaker 2:One of the articles that I read when I was doing some research on the author was actually a male reader of the series when he was young, is saying that these books in the series really taught him most of what he understood about fiction point of view. How do you draw a character? What a like, long character arc looked like. Mm. And it's very easy in serialized books to not do any of that<laugh>, you know,<laugh> like it's very easy to go cookie cutter and where it's like, okay here's the character. You always get the same front matter to establish the character so somebody can pick it up at any point. Here's the plot element, here's the resolution and that's like all you get. Yeah. But this is doing something more sophisticated than that.
Speaker 3:Well I was gonna say the front matter part of it was so artfully done. Like you're still catching up on what's happened before, like well into the book mm-hmm.<affirmative> because you, she gives you the information when you need it and doesn't try to just Yeah. Slam it all into the first
Speaker 2:Couple video. No, there's no info dump at the beginning. Yeah.
Speaker 5:And I would add that it was interesting to me that they made this book into a Netflix series just because the way that Netflix does like their characters where you have like different characters that a lot of people can, you know, fall in love with and follow and relate to. It's almost like the book is a little bit before its time in a sense because a lot of the shows that's on Netflix and series, they kind of have that same structure of oh this is a character that I identify with and it was like very seamless bringing that series to Netflix.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Very well done by that team and Anne<laugh>. Well
Speaker 2:Yeah and you certainly, you see some of those devices. I mean if you consider this as a series rather than as a lot of separate books, you see some of those devices in much more sophisticated storytelling. Like Jessica's saying, game of Thrones is basically doing this by chapter. Right. You're changing, you're inverting the point of view. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. So rather than standalone books, you're changing who the narrator is for that chunk of things. And so what are you learning by seeing the same events through everyone's lenses over time? Yeah. That's pretty complex for a book that's like mostly read by like eight year olds I think. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Also, just to add that like her, she's very funny<laugh> writing like, like I was genuinely amused when they're doing the fake wedding before the real wedding and the, the kid that they've, they've gotten to be the rabbi or the the mc for the wedding. Um, and he says we are gathered here today to join these two guys in holy moly<laugh><laugh>. And then he says, Karen, do you promise to love your husband and help him out and not hug the television? And David, Michael do you promise to love your wife and help her out and show her how to ride a two-wheeler And they do
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Yeah. There are a lot of funny little lines in it. Like and then
Speaker 5:When they run off cuz they have to kiss<laugh>.
Speaker 2:Yeah. They freak out and leave. The whole argument about the Martian landing I thought was really well yes written where you have the older character is freaking out because the little ones are scaring other children to death with their whole like conspiracy theory about like, oh well when the aliens come we're gonna be screwed. Like you better have a gun, you better, you know they're gonna come and pew pew you and all that.
Speaker 3:You got somewhere to hide cuz I motels
Speaker 2:Not gonna cut it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Fran, Fran on the playground was very upset also. What is this? They just randomly have someone working at the playground in case kids come by and like
Speaker 2:Yeah, she was like the, the playground monitor<laugh>. It was very odd.
Speaker 1:And when school was out like
Speaker 3:How can you be someone whose main job is to supervise and create activities for children who can't handle children who are like causing trouble, like the first sign of trouble you're like, actually Karen can never come back to
Speaker 2:Come
Speaker 3:Again. Like what? Same thing with, I was really mad about the movies too when they get kicked outta the movie. I'm like, take all of them out. This is a children's movie and you're mad that children are being children at the
Speaker 2:Movie. It's, it's Mary Poppins and they throw them out of the theater for laughing
Speaker 1:And it's almost over. Like, just let them finish the movie.
Speaker 3:Ridiculous.
Speaker 2:There's some nice detail in there. They didn't
Speaker 3:Get any warning
Speaker 2:Sticky Junior Mints hand was like, oh, I feel that. Like I've been there
Speaker 1:As someone who's worked at a movie theater before the Junior mints mention was very like key like<laugh>
Speaker 3:You smelled that
Speaker 1:Smell. Yeah, I smelled that. You know, I saw the white box with the green with the green words Junior mints.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I feel like there was a lot of good candy references throughout like all the candy is named brand Snickers<laugh>. That is, that is like such a visceral detail from these books is Claudia's little like hiding places of her candy, her junk
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 3:Stash
Speaker 2:That
Speaker 3:Like came back to me instantly while, while I was reading it.
Speaker 1:And they're sure to mention that, um, Stacy can't have any<laugh> Yeah. Diabetes and then who who, who was it Dawn that likes healthy food.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Which was nice. It was good for Stacy to have an ally. It wasn't just her turning on the candy by herself. Yeah. Yeah. Any str anything else? Any stray thoughts? Did we talk about the covers? Oh no, let's talk about the covers<laugh>. So, um, just for some context, these books have, even though they stopped writing them in two, in 2000 continued on and actually I have had a revival in recent years. They re-released a lot of them with new covers but also have been turning them into graphic novels which are currently coming out. Um, most of them are drawn by Rena TGA Mere who like could just draw her backyard and kids would buy it and like repetition shreds and love it so much.<laugh>. So it's having a really interesting revival right now. And so we noticed an interesting evolution as we were looking over past covers.
Speaker 2:There's been a lot of changes. So the earliest covers, so the ones originally done in the eighties have a very, i I keep calling it a Judy Bloom look. It's these sort of realistic looking tableaus of the girls in various scenes. They then updated those and the like nineties releases often used the same images but they like, I don't know, zed up the borders and stuff and made it look
Speaker 3:Very like lot of denim
Speaker 2:Saved by the belly or something.
Speaker 1:<laugh>. I love that.
Speaker 2:And the current covers that have come out in the post Netflix series, uh, re-release, I feel like they're really trying to mimic the graphic novel covers even though this is not the same auth or not the same illustrator that did this cover art. These are not tga mere drawings, but they definitely seem to be trying to evoke similar vibes. One of the things that we had kind of discussed was whether the cover art is trending younger with these newer versions and that they're like kind of targeting a different age range. Certainly I read these when I was more in the like eight year old age. I mean I think my friend and I were in like fourth grade when we started our jewelry business. Um,<laugh> that was based off these so
Speaker 1:Because these girls were like 12, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. But like I don't, at least in my childhood, the people that were reading Babysitters Club were not middle schoolers. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> like it was definitely more a middle grades book, not a middle school book. And I feel like the current covers definitely seem to be targeting that like it's a cartoon. Right. The old covers seem to be trying to evoke Judy Bloom, which maybe is targeting a slightly higher age. So I'm kind of curious about if the cover design, like what the marketing strategy was with that.
Speaker 1:One thing that you had mentioned when we talked about it before we got on the mics was um, that 12 year olds nowadays are reading more like YA type stuff, which I don't think ya was really as fleshed out back then as it is now. So it makes sense that may they, they may have been gearing these towards them back then, but now they realize that maybe the eight year old range was reading them. So let's just go all out and get these cute cartoon covers that'll really draw them in. Cause I don't know if those old older covers would've nec have necessarily drawn in the age range that really does end up reading them. Well
Speaker 3:It's, it's, it's something we've talked about before where usually for a children's book, the age of the character is the age that of the target audience. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And so it may be that when they initially publish them they were thinking 12 and then as we've talked about the, they just kind of skew younger by design. Yeah. I happen to have my copy which has these cute little like activity books in the ba in the back. And so I had filled it out when I read it, which I read them in no particular order cuz I just read them as I was able to buy them at thrift stores. So this was not necessarily the first I read, but according to this, I was seven years old. It was June, 2001. My sweet sweet pre nine 11 self<laugh>.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So, uh, yeah, I think, I think it's pretty true that historically, I mean Heather, you and I were that age at different times when we both kind of read them then. So I think, I think these do tend to skew younger than, than
Speaker 2:Intended. Yeah. And like Scholastic lists it with eight to 12 as the range, but I, I wouldn't now recommend this to a 12 year old. Yeah. Not that there's anything wrong with the book. I just feel like for most 12 year olds this is gonna feel a little juvenile to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think what I liked about this, these books, um, I like Kelsey that you mentioned that you didn't necessarily read them in order. Is that like, even if you just picked up one and you weren't necessarily started from the beginning, they do kind of give a, okay, well this is who this is and this is who this is. And so like they give up a quick recap without feeling like, okay, I already know all this. So I thought that was cute.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Since you didn't read them before. How uh, I mean the Jessica and Kelsey and I did read them more seriously I think. Mm-hmm<affirmative> H how was it for you skipping? Cuz we did skip what, four four in between books.
Speaker 1:See for me, um, it kind of felt like, like I know you were saying that you felt like the characters, you know, even though these were their central, the ones who weren't, it wasn't their central book, you felt like you got to know a bit more more about them? I didn't necessarily feel that way. And maybe it's because I didn't have like any other context of like what I remembered them as. But I think maybe more so in the f the Christie's great idea, we got to see more about their characters as opposed to Christie's big day because it really did just feel like, like Christie's great idea felt like, okay, this is the introduction to the whole series. Like this is where the idea comes from and these are the girls that are making up the club. Christie's big day really just did feel like it was about Christie, her mom's wedding and all these GAA kids. I used your word, all these GAA kids that pull up to her mom's house for the week. And you do get to see a little bit of them here and there when they go break off into their like, respective groups and stuff like that. But I mean, also these books aren't that long, so it's not like I was really expecting a lot. And I see why every girl kind of gets their own books to kind of like flush that out
Speaker 3:More. Well you know what I think is interesting? How was, I know that you, you listened to the cassette tape version of Christie's Big Idea.
Speaker 1:Uh, I listened to the cassette tape for Christie's. Yeah, great idea. Yes. Sorry. Great idea.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, great idea. Big day. I don't
Speaker 1:Know if you were gonna say Big day. I blinded.
Speaker 3:Um, because the, that one is all they, they converted the story to be all dialogue. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, they got rid of like the interesting, the and and the dialogue I think is really true to form. And they have voice actors, which I think adds some layers that you don't get in the book. But then obviously you lose some of the context and it kind of goes through the story more quickly. But what's interesting about that too is that the graphic novel version is all dialogue as well. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And, and I think from when I was just looking at it, it, it seems pretty similar to the audiobook version in so now it makes me wonder what kids who read just the graphic novels might like lose or interpret differently. Yeah. If they're not getting the kind of full inner monologue of Christie's head when she's doing those things. Well I,
Speaker 1:But you know, it's funny cuz the great idea was the one where I, I, I like the au the audiobook cuz I guess the audiobook that I listened to, um, that you sent was like, um, it was like a link to the cassette Uhhuh<affirmative>. So like from 1978 or whatever. So I thought that was really cool cuz like everybody had like a different voice actor and even though you kind of missed on, on some of her little internal things, like, I don't know, just the way some things were said, it just kind of felt like, yeah. Like you were watching it almost. I don't know.
Speaker 2:<laugh> Well I do wonder then too about the book design cuz one thing that I felt like I lost between, I read a hard copy of book one and then I read an ebook of Christie's Big Day. And in book one I thought it was really great and very like, informative about the characters that their entries are in their own handwriting.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. I had no idea.
Speaker 2:And their script is all different. I don't know, to me it tells you a lot about Stacy that she puts hearts over all of her eyes. Right. That's similar. Cute. And like it tells you a lot that like Maryanne has the most like grown up looking handwriting and that Christie's is very like, rigid. Like her, you know, it's straight up and down and it's, that wasn't present in the e-book and I felt like I lost a lot from that. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So then, you know, also with the covers it's like I, I am curious about just sort of these general book design choices that they're making and what they're trying to convey with those things. And like you would lose the handwriting in a, in audio for sure. Mm-hmm
Speaker 1:<affirmative> also my issue with Christie's big day cover, if that's supposed to be Karen on the front. Isn't her dress supposed to be yellow also?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were, their
Speaker 1:Dress supposed to be yellow.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They were supposed to match.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Especially
Speaker 3:They like salmon.
Speaker 1:She didn't want Exactly.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Very salmon.
Speaker 1:What's that? What's salmon? A fish. Ew.
Speaker 3:<laugh>.
Speaker 2:<laugh>.
Speaker 1:My other one thing that um, I noticed that they, they don't have and the these books that Kelsey, I noticed your version I think from the nineties had was like the stuff in the back that you mentioned. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, like, I mean I guess that's not as maybe as much of a thing in books now, but I thought it was kind of cute that they had a thing where you could fill it out and be like, like when did I read this book and where did I read it? And stuff like
Speaker 2:That. No, that was great. And like Kelsey is another person that was always getting used books from used bookstores and thrift stores and stuff. As a kid it was always such a like goldmine find if you got one where someone hadn't filled out the stuff in the back already<laugh>.
Speaker 3:I
Speaker 2:Know. Like, oh I got a good one. Felt more like your book.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There's a lot of good back matter here. Actually something that's interesting too is it has a list of just Christie's books and what number it is too. So if you just love Christie it says, read all the books about Christie in the Babysitters Club series. Um, it also mentions the Mysteries, which I just wanna throw out. There's one, I forget which mystery it is. I wanna say it's Maryanne has a mystery that scared the crap outta me. I have never been so afraid as I was reading this book,<laugh> book, they were very well done.
Speaker 2:Was it Maryanne in the library? Mystery
Speaker 3:<laugh>? I don't think so. Halloween
Speaker 1:Episode
Speaker 3:<laugh> Body and the Phantom phone calls was also kind of scary. Although that was not, that was in
Speaker 2:Series first audio<laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Do you remember what exactly it was that freaked you out? Ah, I don't remember. I just remember, I mean I've always been a wimp. So there's that Maryanne
Speaker 2:And the Haunted bookstore. Maryanne's spending a lot of time with like lot of bookies and
Speaker 3:Places.<laugh>. I don't know, I'll have to go back to find it. Well maybe we'll have to do a special episode where we read a mystery. Yeah. Scare ourselves.
Speaker 2:Oh, Abby and the Mystery Baby. That sounds really scandalous.<laugh>. Right? Awesome.
Speaker 3:I'm also seeing their summer vacation one, which I always thought was like always my dream is to get hired as a nanny and go on someone's beach trip with them. I thought that sounded really cool.<laugh>. Um, just to mention while we're talking about books, I, I told everyone before we started recording, but when I was uh, we mentioned in the author bio that Ann M. Martin won a newberry honor for her book, A Corner of the Universe, which I read as a kid and I won a copy of it in 2004 for getting 171.2 accelerated reader points, which I know cuz they wrote it inside the book. And I've had this on my signed bookshelf forever because it was signed by my librarian. Uh, and then today when I went to grab it, I found out it's also signed by Anna Martin and I had no idea. So I have for 19 years owned a signed copy of a corner of the Universe. Highly recommend that book. Well I have not read it since 2004, so maybe I don't recommend it.
Speaker 2:But<laugh> it was good at
Speaker 3:The time. It won a, it won a Newberry medal and like, or a newberry honor and I I, it made me cry a lot and I read it multiple times when I was a kid. So I feel like that's that's a good sign. This book made me cry. Yeah.
Speaker 2:<laugh>.
Speaker 5:Each episode we are heading into the library and talking to you. Well not you, but people like you right here in the stacks today. We wanna know, have you ever tried to start a business when you were in grade school or middle school?
Speaker 13:I tried to make a lemonade stand that also sold like Geils. So I didn't actually get it off the ground. None of my friends wanted to
Speaker 14:Help me. I made business with hangry. That fool over there. We sold hot cocoa. I mean like how much did we make? Like 160. 250. 150. Oh y'all made bank? Yeah, but then we had to close it down because uh, some incident happened.
Speaker 2:Wait, what was the incident?
Speaker 14:<laugh>? I don't think he wants me. Told me. Tell you. Cause it was very bad. He got in trouble. Oh. And Ron doesn't want him to do anymore.
Speaker 15:I have tried making a job. Me and my brother were selling hats. Like we, we made like$120 a day when we were selling it and then we just got bored of it cuz none of my people were coming. We're
Speaker 2:Not lying. What kind of hats
Speaker 15:Were they? Like knitted hats. Oh,
Speaker 2:That's cool. Did you make them or did you buy them and then flip them?
Speaker 15:No, our grandma made it.
Speaker 2:That's pretty cool. Yes. Family business.
Speaker 16:Yes. Um, I made, uh, lemonade. I made around 50 bucks each day. I probably made 10. I only did five days cuz it was kind of boring. But yeah, I still did. Yeah, it was on me. Oh,
Speaker 17:Hi. Uh, I worked on a hot cocoa business with Henry too and I was, I didn't like sell hot cocoa. I like told them what to buy for like Yeah, I was a treasurer. Okay. And I told'em like what to buy to like, get sales and
Speaker 18:Stuff. This is very organized. So you guys had someone doing production, someone doing accounting. Were there other jobs?
Speaker 19:Uh, yeah,
Speaker 17:Tristan was the planner. He liked playing like when and where we
Speaker 18:Would go. So the CEO if you will? No,
Speaker 17:He was a CEO cause he was all at his house.
Speaker 18:Henry was the ceo? Yeah,
Speaker 17:It was all at his house.
Speaker 18:All right. Yeah.
Speaker 20:I actually have with my brother, uh, we were making hats, making 150 bucks a day I guess. Yeah. We live on a busy street and they were just a lot of cars and a lot of people that walked by and it was very cold. Yeah. Our grandmother had knitted them. I'm
Speaker 19:Henry, I was the CEO of my hot cocoa company. I, I hired people to sell hot cocoa and organize events and I made$150 in like two weeks.
Speaker 18:So I've heard there was an incident.
Speaker 19:Yeah. I got in trouble with my parents and they said I couldn't do it anymore. I don't really wanna disclose what happened. They, they know what happened. Do
Speaker 18:You have any future plans to recover from the incident?
Speaker 19:Maybe if my parents let me do open up again. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. I'll have to talk to them. I'll have to beg.
Speaker 1:Hey y'all. So for this part of the episode we're gonna do a little quiz. Shout out to girls live for this quiz. So the quiz that we're gonna do today is which member of the babysitters club are you?
Speaker 2:Who? The
Speaker 1:Babysitters club. So for the first question it asks, it's your turn to choose the Friday night activity. You suggest hitting the bleachers to cheer on the home team. A low-key evening watching your favorite romcoms. Pinning your own pottery together at the local studio shopping. Duh. Nothing beats browsing the racks with your girls grabbing MAA lattes and checking out an up and coming indie band.
Speaker 3:I don't think I would get matcha lattes.
Speaker 2:<laugh>. I don't either, but I would. I mean, but
Speaker 3:I would go see a band.
Speaker 18:I knew you were gonna
Speaker 2:Say that<laugh>. That's what I would go with as well. But I would, I get a
Speaker 3:Maa latte at 8:00 PM Like that's setting me up for a bad night. We
Speaker 18:Have Malos and estrogen.<laugh>.
Speaker 2:Well honestly, I guess when I was like, well maybe not 12, but like when I was in a, a freshman, like I probably got like a latte when I went<laugh>. Oh
Speaker 3:I did you get like a frappuccino? Yeah.
Speaker 2:With a, cause I thought it was like, I don't know, sophisticated or something. Cause
Speaker 1:<laugh>, I think for me I'd probably pick um, painting your own pottery together at the local studio. Just cuz like I, to me it's the closest thing to like, I guess like a paint and sip, which I'm always trying to get people to do. So I'm gonna go with that.
Speaker 3:Okay. Claudia.
Speaker 1:Also, anybody ever remember the place called, there was a place in color?
Speaker 3:Me Mine. Color? Me Mine. Yes. That's
Speaker 1:What I was gonna say. Color me twice.
Speaker 2:Wait question. Supposed to be us now or us at 12?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. Oh, I guess we could say, I mean if you wanna know which member of the babysitters club you are now, then I guess you would be answering now.
Speaker 2:Okay,
Speaker 3:I'm doing now. Now
Speaker 2:I'll do now too then I
Speaker 1:Feel like I kind of picked now too. And I also selected
Speaker 5:The painting in your own pottery together at the local studio.
Speaker 1:Nice. Let's go sometime. Girl
Speaker 3:<laugh> choice.
Speaker 1:Field trip.
Speaker 3:Add it to the uh, podcast tour.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.<laugh>. Your friends always come to you for the honest truth. You tell it like it is advice. You're amazed. Listener di iy, inspo, euro, Pinterest. Pro style tips. You know every trend. Recipes. Your smoothies are delicious.<laugh>, I love reading these.
Speaker 2:Wow.<laugh>
Speaker 5:<laugh>. I would definitely say advice like usually my friends don't ask me for advice and then afterwards they're like, I feel so much better. Jessica. I
Speaker 3:Was gonna say advice too but I've gotten a lot of feedback recently that I'm, I seem to be someone who's very honest and values honesty. So I think it might actually be the first one and I've been lying to myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was. Which ironic, I feel like mine is a combination of those as well. Like I think people always come to me for advice because I tell the honest truth.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 5:They go they definitely go hand in hand,
Speaker 1:Huh? Yeah, I feel like, I think I'm gonna go with the honest truth just because<laugh>, I do feel like people come to me for advice sometimes. But
Speaker 3:I was gonna say style tips for you. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>
Speaker 1:Styles for me.<laugh>? Yes. Yes. No, y'all are funny. No. Um, I'd probably, yeah, no<laugh> the honest truth just because like I don't think I'm a great listener. Like sometimes people like when people come to me for like advice I have to be like, okay, so do you really want, do you really want somebody to listen or like, do you want me to tell you how I feel and I had to learn to be that type of person. That's
Speaker 2:A good line.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I would be like, so you are not going like what I'm about to have to say
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Yeah. Are you here for a solution or are you here for to vent? Yes. Yeah, I'll go with honest truth too,
Speaker 1:But thanks Kelsey.<laugh>, when you and your squad are at a party, you decide what time you all get there and what time you all leave, you're in charge, follow wherever they go. Being alone at a party equals the your worst nightmare. Hope your crush notices you, you didn't spend so much time picking out your outfit for nothing. Get everyone on the dance floor stat or introduce your girls to some of your other friends. You know, pretty much everyone.
Speaker 3:It really depends on the kind of party. If it's a wedding, I get everyone on the dance floor. Yeah. But any other kind of party I follow wherever they come.
Speaker 1:<laugh> just the same
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Yeah. My friends and I don't really go to parties anymore. Yeah. We just are like, we'll do something together. Like we're not going to someone else's thing. That's
Speaker 3:Why my first thought was wedding
Speaker 1:Party.
Speaker 2:A wedding like we're gonna dance.
Speaker 1:Or if it's like someone's like for a show milestone birthday or something. But even then usually I know most of the people at those type of things. Yeah
Speaker 2:Man,
Speaker 5:I picked the decide what time you get there and what time you leave. Not necessarily cuz I'm always in charge but the last party I went to, I was more of the organizer so I was like the transportation. So I was like, hey, we're getting here at this time and um, some people have to work so let's see what time are we gonna work.<laugh>
Speaker 1:I'm knowing what time we're planning to leave before I get there so I can, I know how much time I have to vibe and enjoy and just be out.
Speaker 3:Right. If we don't Ha ha if we haven't planned an exit time, I at least need to know our exit strategy. Like how do we decide,
Speaker 1:Like do I say something specific to you? Are we gonna go after they cut the cake?
Speaker 10:Like
Speaker 2:Are we Irish buying then<laugh> dance floor I guess.
Speaker 1:Ooh, Heather got moves.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean cuz again with Kelsey, like if I'm actually going to a party now, it's probably a wedding.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I feel that for your BFF's birthday you get her a picture frame with your favorite selfie. The perfect planner to get organized homemade friendship bracelets.
Speaker 10:<laugh>. Yes.
Speaker 1:A pretty palette from se Sephora or a new yoga mat and tank. Tank
Speaker 2:Tank top.
Speaker 1:Oh ha ha duh.
Speaker 3:<laugh>. Just a, just a simple tank.<laugh>.
Speaker 2:It's a fish tank
Speaker 10:Fish
Speaker 2:That David Michael bought.
Speaker 3:I was thinking like a tank, like a weapon, like a,
Speaker 1:I was like why do those two go hand in hand?
Speaker 3:Just a little tank to roll over your yoga
Speaker 2:<laugh>.
Speaker 1:Mine is probably a picture frame with your favorite selfie because I feel like at some point um, I've gotten like my friends some kind of variation of like either like, oh we took this picture together and I got it like animated for us or we took a selfie and I made it into a photo book or something. So I
Speaker 3:Mean I always get someone something they like not something. Right.
Speaker 10:You<laugh><laugh>.
Speaker 1:That made me sound so
Speaker 10:<laugh>.
Speaker 2:Here's a portrait of me
Speaker 3:That wasn't in
Speaker 1:Response
Speaker 10:To the question.
Speaker 3:So I'm gonna say the perfect planner though, cuz like often I will get someone a book that I think they'd like. Yeah. So that's closest to that. I guess
Speaker 10:<laugh>,<laugh>,
Speaker 2:Uh, I dunno what to say here.
Speaker 1:These options. Also,
Speaker 2:My best friend is a guy. So like, I honestly you gotta think
Speaker 10:The friendship.
Speaker 2:I'd probably get him the palette from Sephora. Just a joke. He doesn't want any of this stuff.
Speaker 3:That's an expensive joke.
Speaker 1:I'm just that you're not saying the bracelets.
Speaker 2:You just gotta go with the cheap brand during the sales.
Speaker 1:I'm disappointed that you're not going with the bracelets cuz you, you, you know, you had your whole business based. Well this is you now, not you guys.
Speaker 2:That's true. That's, that's true. And actually I, well maybe I should go with that because it wasn't homemade but I did at one point get somebody like a paracord bracelet that's like for emergencies. Oh yeah. If you're camping. So, okay. Homemade friendship bracelets. It is.
Speaker 5:And then I would go with the pretty palette from Sephora cuz my best friend is a makeup artist. So I was like,
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's easy for you.
Speaker 3:<laugh>. As I've gotten older, I've gotten really into frame photos of myself. Well not of myself.
Speaker 5:<laugh> the truth
Speaker 3:Comes up. People in
Speaker 10:My life.<laugh>.
Speaker 3:I feel like as I started like settling into my home more, I started being more into photos. So I feel
Speaker 1:That you and your friend had an argument over the weekend. What's your next move? You meet at her locker. First thing Monday morning to talk. You're not leaving until, until it's settled. Send her a text with a simple sorry and tear face emoji. Make her cute apology card with a handwritten, nice handwritten note inside. Crack a jokes to break the tension, laugh about it and hug it out. Just forget it about it and move on. No use bringing it up again. Um, for me, I feel like I'm the kind of person that probably just try to crack a joke to break the tension, laugh about it and hug it out. But also at the same time I don't like when things aren't discussed depending on how bad the argument was. Um, so sometimes the cracking of the joke will be like, okay we cool. But also sometimes we may have to talk about it, but I'm gonna pick the crack the joke cause I'm not a handwritten note person and that's the closest
Speaker 2:I feel like it depends on whose fault the argument is too. Mm-hmm
Speaker 1:<affirmative> that as well.<laugh>
Speaker 2:Like and how good of a friend. It's definitely me then I need to apologize. But if it was them and I'm just kind of over it now, like then cracking the joke is what I'm gonna do. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think the locker thing is just not really relatable because
Speaker 2:We're we don't have lockers. Right? We don't have lockers. I mean we do technically have lockers at some of the branches but like nobody hangs out at the lockers.
Speaker 1:Right. And when I was in school we didn't really use our lockers there either.<laugh> really? Yeah, no. Um, when I was in high school, um, we were assigned lockers at the beginning of the school year and then we ne we had to g bring our own lockers and we never really have enough time in between schools, in between classes to kind of use it. So instead you had the people who never used their lockers at all. And then you had people who had multiple lockers around the school using lockers near all their classes.
Speaker 2:<laugh>,<laugh>.
Speaker 5:That sound like real estate.
Speaker 1:No,
Speaker 2:For real<laugh>.
Speaker 3:Um, I said me at her locker first thing Monday morning to talk because I do not like to leave things hanging. Especially if someone has said something to me, we're gonna talk about it so I will not be leaving until it's settled.
Speaker 5:I definitely feel like they just forget about it and move on. Definitely wouldn't work just cuz I feel like it's gonna be hard to pick back up where you left off if it's something like a elephant in the room. So I went with the, make a cute apology card with a nice handwritten note inside and that kind of reminded me of like my best friend, like the last time we got into it, talked about it, but the card kind of helped solidify things. It helped us moved on in a better way. Did
Speaker 1:You say yours already,
Speaker 2:Heather? Yeah. I, I I went with crack a joke.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you did say that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. All right. Okay, so I'm gonna click click for results. Okay. So, um, it says you're Claudia artsy and outgoing. You definitely have an eye for design and you totally own it. Like Claudia, not only are you a crafting queen, but you're a problem solving pro a k a you can handle anything and your nacra mixing nuances can make you a better bestie too. The next time one of your friends is struggling, offer to brainstorm solutions with them, then come up with a plan of action to tackle their trouble work. Trouble your creativity plus killer, killer confidence equals B FFLs.
Speaker 2:I was also Claudia.
Speaker 3:Me too.
Speaker 5:Dang. Me too<laugh>.
Speaker 2:Wait a second.
Speaker 5:That's weird cuz we all picked different questions.
Speaker 2:Answer those. You gonna try to get a different answer? Claudia?
Speaker 3:Only Maybe it's only one answer.
Speaker 2:<laugh> all roads leads. Claudia. Maybe it's just supposed to like be an inoffensive quiz because they think everyone wants to be Claudia.
Speaker 3:I will say like, I do wanna be Claudia. I
Speaker 2:All of us want it to be Claudia. When I was a kid and we read these,
Speaker 1:Take this quiz again.
Speaker 2:Claudia was goals.
Speaker 3:I'm taking it again. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1:Go with what my second beck answers would've been real quick. And just like
Speaker 3:I'm trying to get Stacy, I wasn't expecting those Claudias
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Claudia's the only Claudia,
Speaker 3:It's the default. I love that. For us,
Speaker 2:Each episode we ask whether our book passes the Bechtel test. The Bechtel test asks whether a work features two female characters who talk to each other about something that doesn't involve men or boys. Does it pass?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And I was trying to keep from mentioning when we talked about like, is this a feminist work earlier? Because honestly the mention of boys in this book is very minimal and I kind of like that. You know, like they, you know, like it's just like a okay once the Nans blah blah, whatever. Okay, so here's what's really going on in their lives. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They're talking about their business. Yeah. That's the ultimate passing of the Beckel test. That's all they talk about. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:<affirmative>. Well that's it for this episode of these books. Made me join us next time and we'll discuss a book about a search for a missing Father, if you think you know which book we're tackling next, drop us a tweet. We're at pgc mls on Twitter and hashtag these books made me. You can also send us your questions at these books made me pgc mls.info for historical deep dives and read likes. Check out our blog, which is linked in the episode notes.
Speaker 3:Yay.
Speaker 1:We done this podcast for three scenes and that no one's ever emailed us.