These Books Made Me
These Books Made Me
Baby-Sitters Club: Mary Anne Part 1
We are back with more Baby-Sitters Club books, y'all and one of these is all about banned books (and arson) so you know we couldn't keep it to just one episode. We're dissecting the poorly named Mary Anne Saves the Day, the aptly named Logan Likes Mary Anne, and the really burying the lede title, Mary Anne and the Library Mystery. We've got Kelsey back with us discussing everything from the OG covers to Mary Anne's creepy controlling father and yet again, Stacey's diabetes. There's really a lot going on in these three little books and we have feelings about all of them. We have questions too. Why does poor Logan have to audition for the BSC but Dawn doesn't? How many dances can one middle school have? Why oh why did the audiobook narrator make Logan sound like Foghorn Leghorn? Also, why is Mrs. Kishi so wound up about the We Love Book Banning group when she won't even stock Nancy Drews? We are desperately looking for answers to these questions and more in this trip down memory lane with Mary Anne Spier.
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/.
Hi, I'm Darlene. I'm Hannah. And I'm Heather. And this is our podcast, These Books Made Me. Today, we're going to be talking about several of the Marianne books from the Babysitters Club series. Friendly warning, as always, this podcast contains spoilers. If you don't yet know who yeets her shoe across the school gym, proceed with caution. We have a special returning guest with us today.
SPEAKER_08:Hello everyone, I'm Kelsey and I'm back. I am so happy that I am always called back to be your Babysitter's Club expert.
SPEAKER_05:All right, so what did this book mean to you? Was this everyone's first time reading? I mean, I was a Babysitter's Club fanatic.
SPEAKER_08:I brought, as a kid, I brought my original copies of the Marianne Saves the Day and Logan Likes Marianne from my personal collection. These definitely meant a lot to me. I didn't remember the plots at all. But, you know, I always kind of related to Marianne because I was a very shy kid. So I was glad we got
SPEAKER_04:the old school cover.
SPEAKER_08:Very
SPEAKER_04:old school. I much prefer those to these. But, you know, we were talking before you got here about this. These skewing a little younger than the ages of the girls in the book. And so I think the new covers that are like very comic book looking like actually they're not even comic book looking. They're not cool like that. They look like like Caillou or something.
SPEAKER_08:It's like kids
SPEAKER_04:animation.
SPEAKER_08:They're very young. Although I will say Marianne looks like she is at least like 16 on these covers. She does not look like she's 12. So
SPEAKER_07:I think the classic covers are nice.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Well, I know I read two of the ones we're covering today as a kid. I do not think I read The Library Mystery. I don't remember it at all. Yeah, I don't know. The reread compared favorably. I enjoyed them as a kid. I still think these are pretty great as a series. I think they're... They've got some cool stuff happening in them, especially like on the feminism front. I think they have some nice examples of how to handle conflict, how to run a business, how to navigate boys and friendships and dealing with adults when you're a kid. So I stand by these books. I think they're great. Mm-hmm. I thought
SPEAKER_05:they seemed really dated, I guess, when I was growing up. And so I just never gravitated toward them. But I've since really enjoyed all the books that we've read for The Babysitter's Club. And maybe at some point, I'll actually make my way through the series.
SPEAKER_07:But this was not a series I encountered. I heard of it. I remember hearing about The Babysitter's Club, sort of, in my mind, it was in the same category as Sweet Valley High of like, books that I knew were aimed at my age range, but not books that I ever picked up. Of course, now reading them both as an adult for this podcast, I realize that they're both kind of different beasts. So I guess what these books mean to me is me reading them and trying to imagine what it would have been like to read them had I actually read them at the age range that they were aimed at. Anne Matthews Martin was born on August 12th, 1955 and grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. Her mother, Edith, taught preschool while her father worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for several prominent magazines. She has a younger sister, Jane. Martin credits her babysitting exploits with her childhood best friend, Beth, for the ideas and characters in The Babysitter's Club. In her letters to young readers on Scholastic's website, She states Beth was the model for Christy, while she was the model for Mary Ann, as she was a, quote, 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-woman'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 Fiwell, floated the idea for a series of children's books about babysitting. Martin took that idea and ran with it, and the Babysitter's Club series was born. It was originally planned to be just four books, but Scholastic would publish 213 between 1986 and 2000. Sources differ as to how many of the books Martin wrote herself, ranging from 35 to 80, and how many were penned by ghost writers. She's primarily focused on one-off novels since then, winning a Newbery 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 and 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 has had multiple dogs and fostered hundreds of kittens. She currently resides in Shokan, a small town near Woodstock in New York, and recently wore a different hat as a producer for Netflix on their Babysitter's Club series. Chrissy's Great Idea made People Magazine's list of best books from the 80s at number 15 just after Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. At her author Facebook page, which is active at the time of this recording, Martin expressed how honored she was to be on this list with the other books recognized. Other items on her page include her and her sister wearing matching outfits, Martin's cat Danny looking furious at having to wear a bow tie, and of course, lots of Babysitter's Club content.
SPEAKER_04:Our first book for today is Mary Ann Saves the Day. We're back in Stony Brook, and our first Marianne book is something like the literary equivalent of a Capri Sun and a passive-aggressive group text. In book four of the Babysitter's Club saga, things are not well in Stony Brook. Our four adolescent entrepreneurs, Christy, Claudia, Stacy, and Marianne, have a full-on Cold War brewing after a petty squabble turns into a full-blown fallout.
SPEAKER_02:All right, let's tell each other a secret about ourselves. I'm going to go first. I hate you.
SPEAKER_04:This book has everything. Silent treatment, cafeteria table drama, new best friends, and strategic babysitting assignments. It's like Real Housewives, but with more glitter pins and less wine. Marianne Spear is our quiet, braid-wearing, curfew-loving heroine. Marianne is usually the shy and people-pleasing Switzerland
SPEAKER_07:of the group. If
SPEAKER_04:Switzerland had a super-controlling father in a pink bedroom with a dollhouse. Unfortunately, even Switzerland has lines that can't be crossed, and when Christy assigns herself a job without offering it to everyone first, tempers flare and the four girls are calling each other bossy, babies, snobs, and job hogs. The meeting, in chapter one, ends with slammed doors and hurt feelings. The girls all get super petty about trying to look like they don't care, and peel off and make some new friends. Enter stage right Dawn Schaefer. Dawn's a California girl who has just moved into a historic farmhouse. Marianne and Dawn quickly become besties. The club stops meeting due to their squabbling and just take turns assigning jobs. Marianne has a meltdown and tells her dad she's tired of being treated like a baby. Dawn and Marianne find an old Stony Brook High yearbook and find out their parents were high school sweethearts and lo and behold, they're both single now. When babysitting gig for the deeply weird preziosos goes sideways, cue high fever unreachable parents in a snowstorm, Marianne is forced to rise from the ashes of timidity and actually use the phone to call 911. 911, what's your emergency, please? That's right. She saves the day, calls for help, and suddenly she's not the shy one with the kitten posters anymore. She's the babysitter MVP. Actually, maybe Dawn is the MVP since she was the one who said to call 911 and kept a cool head, but it's Marianne's book. By the end, there are apologies, handmade cards, and emotional growth that would put most adults to shame. The girls reconcile, the club is stronger than ever, and Mary Ann earns herself a snazzy new pair of overalls in some overdue respect. For our second book, we're tackling Logan Likes Mary Ann, the BSC book where hormones finally crash the slumber party. In this middle-grade masterpiece of romantic tension and lots of talk about bras, Mary Ann, freshly empowered from her whole summer of discovering boys are cute, catches the eye of new boy Logan Bruno, straight out of Louisville, Kentucky. He's got 17, or 16, magazine hair, gentlemanly vibes, and a babysitting resume to rival Marianne's. He's basically a 12-year-old babysitting Zac Efron. Naturally, the babysitter's club is shook. The club invites Logan to audition for the club, and he nails it on the babysitting front, but weirds everyone out by being male and really putting a damper on the bra talk. Marianne is head over heels, but also still shy and generally risk averse. This throws our sweet, bashful heroine into a full-blown freakout. Marianne has been appointed as Logan's babysitting evaluator, and they share a joint job that goes kind of poorly, but Logan's smooth talking makes everything okay. Marianne's got an invitation to the dance from Logan, of course, a little more freedom from her dad, and a birthday coming up. Dance is a bit of a disaster when Marianne completely falls apart after her shoe falls off. The girls plan a surprise birthday party for Marianne, except they don't tell her because it's a surprise. So when Marianne walks into the party completely unprepared and sees balloon snacks and Logan, she's short-circuited. Total meltdown. She flees. The girls are stunned, Logan is confused, and Marianne is done with surprises, boys, and probably snacks too. Marianne decides she doesn't need boys or friends and commits to becoming a cat lady. Her dad is unexpectedly supportive of the cat lady plan and takes her to the shelter to get a gray kitty named Tigger. Eventually, feelings are sorted, apologies are exchanged, and Marianne and Logan talk things out like two very awkward but emotionally intelligent 13-year-olds. They decide to keep things casual, hand-holding optional, and Logan joins the club as an associate member, which is basically Christy's way of saying, you can work for us, but you can't come to meetings, which honestly sounds like the best job ever. Next, we're cracking open Marianne and the Library Mystery, also known as the book where Marianne gets to be Nancy Drew, even though that's actually Claudia's thing. We didn't write this installment of the BSC, but honestly, we could have. It involves three of our favorite things and our least favorite thing ever. Mysteries, public libraries, pyromaniacs, and people trying to ban books. Our story begins innocently enough. Marianne is volunteering at the local library because Claudia's mom needs help with the read-a-thon program. But this isn't just about overdue books and awkward silences. Suddenly, mysterious things start happening. Books are vanishing. A proto-Moms for Liberty group is challenging books they haven't read. The library's card catalog is tampered with, and Ms. Elway, the disgruntled librarian, is maybe bitter about the library being built on her family's land. Mary Ann naturally gets pulled into full investigative mode, but she's not alone. Her trusty Babysitter's Club friends are in tow, offering various levels of help and chaotic energy. Think less Sherlock Holmes, more Three Kids in a Trenchcoat. Claudia's focused on the fashion of potential suspects. Christy's demanding the library install security cameras. And Stacey is probably flirting with the guy who shelved Goosebumps. Meanwhile, Marianne is connecting the dots like a middle school mastermind, all while juggling babysitter jobs, algebra homework, and the lingering social trauma of that time Logan said hi to her in public. In classic BSC fashion, the mystery is solved not with police intervention, but with pluck, empathy, suspiciously convenient eavesdropping, and a stakeout full of fashion don'ts. Turns out our pyro is actually just Sean, who didn't want to participate in the readathon and whose parents can't be bothered to spend time with him. The readathon ends successfully with Marianne sobbing in pride because Nikki's a reader now. Some say the book banning group is still protesting at the library to this day. Okay,
SPEAKER_08:so let's start talking a little bit about the book. So I think first it would be nice to just think a little bit about the different types of girls, like the different presentations of femininity that we encounter in these books. I think what is kind of traditional in some ways about these books is like you have very clear like archetypes of people, but I also think there's a lot of nuance among them. So what do we think about the different kind of presentations of femininity and girlhood that we see represented in these books?
SPEAKER_07:Well, Christy's, I think, must be kind of the type A person. She comes up with the business idea. She's, I mean, I guess if she had a fatal flaw, you would say she's bossy, but she's entrepreneurial and authoritative. I don't know. I'm trying to think back to the Christie books we read now and I'm kind of blanking. She's a
SPEAKER_04:tomboy too. And I think that does come out a little bit with some of the, I mean, again, we see it a lot with all the fashion choices. Fashion's like a big deal in these books. They talk a lot about their clothes. You've got Christie who can't, I think one of the things is like, we couldn't talk her out of jeans
SPEAKER_08:for the dance. And also she says something like, Oh, if she, if she is the only reason she even wears clothes is because it's not, it's against the law to be naked, which I don't think is accurate.
SPEAKER_04:No, I don't get the sense that Christie wants to be nude. She doesn't care.
SPEAKER_07:I don't think Connecticut's warm enough that you would
SPEAKER_04:want to do that. She does really care about that visor though, man. She loves her visor. Yeah. Yeah. What's with the, I still don't get it because I in my head I am imagining like a poker player visor or like a didn't like they used to like stylize like newspapers where like the editor in chief would have like a visor or something. Is it like a I'm in charge visor? I feel like it's very directorial. Let me see if I can find that.
SPEAKER_07:Because they have her whole, like, director's chair thing for
SPEAKER_05:her that they
SPEAKER_07:mentioned at one
SPEAKER_05:point. I'm surprised she didn't just, like, Steve Jobs it and just have, like, a uniform that she wore. Well, she does love a turtleneck. She does love a turtleneck. The black turtlenecks and the jeans. But she changes it up in a way that Steve Jobs didn't, I guess. Well, he didn't
SPEAKER_07:bathe, so apparently he smelled really bad.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so lots of visors on newspapermen back in
SPEAKER_07:the day, so maybe it's that. Maybe it's the, yeah, maybe that's the vibe she's going for. But
SPEAKER_04:I definitely. I definitely picture that weird green visor. It's
SPEAKER_08:also just like a good time for visors like in the like late 80s, early 90s. I feel like visors are very hip then. Visors and vests. Yeah. So you have Christy. You've got Claudia. She's the artsy one. She also seems she's the we know from her books that she's like the most emotional kind of outwardly
SPEAKER_04:emotional. She's impulsive too. Like I think we said in the Claudia ones like Claudia is very id. You know, she is. She doesn't have a filter. She just kind of, she's a free spirit in a lot of ways. But I don't know, like, I'm not sure that like Claudia is styled as a particular like trope of femininity. Like where Christy, I think more is with like, she is the tomboy. She's the type A, the bossy girl.
SPEAKER_08:Yes. And you've got Stacey. She's the, she's very sophisticated. That's
SPEAKER_04:what she's from
SPEAKER_08:New York. She's from
SPEAKER_04:New York. Did you know she has diabetes? New York and diabetes are her whole personality. I feel
SPEAKER_08:like we did have more evolution of understanding of diabetes in these books. In the past ones, it's just like, yeah, she can't eat sugar and that's it. But
SPEAKER_07:now she can't eat anything. She can't eat pizza. She can't eat cheese. I'm just concerned that they're letting her eat any food off screen now.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I do feel like Stacey is sort of meant to be the fast girl in this group. Like she's into boys sooner than everybody she's a little bit more mature she's reading the like gossip mags for teenagers probably a little bit before because Marianne gets into it by the later books but we definitely see that that's a progression for Marianne who is very sheltered in the first few books yeah I feel bad for Marianne her dad's weird
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, I don't like her dad. Well, he changes really abruptly, too. Yeah. He's weird in the first couple books, and then he's fine.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, he does. Once he gets with Dawn's mom, he's fine. But, like, he's still kind of weird even in the Logan Likes Mary
SPEAKER_07:books. Yeah, his characterization goes from, like, ultra-controlling to kind of okay. Kind of controlling. But still controlling. But, like, I really don't. on the whole she has to get permission to take her hair out of braids thing. Yeah, that was wild. I'm like, I can understand the whole like you need to be home at a certain time because at least that's like I'd like you to be home enough time to get good sleep. At least there's like a rationale behind it, even if it's a little strict. But like there's no reason to say you can't take your hair out of braids and have your hair the way you want it.
SPEAKER_04:That's just nonsense. But it's like a milestone for her that he lets her wear her hair loose finally. Yeah. That's just so insanely controlling. I always wondered if that was just
SPEAKER_05:something she never thought to ask. The other ones I kind of can understand, because I think the main issue in that plot point is that she wants to be able to babysit later, or be out later. But... She ties all of these things in together that I wonder, like, had she just asked before, he would have been like, yeah, I'm not, like, too concerned with that. He seemed like he was,
SPEAKER_08:though. Like, it seemed like it was a step too far. Like, it was almost like, oh, 10 o'clock, I'll think about it. Take your hair out of braids. Absolutely
SPEAKER_07:not.
SPEAKER_08:their relationship in some way and that's what like really gave me like just icky vibes like the fact that as the 12 year old you're worried about repairing your relationship with your dad because you got upset about his controlling behavior like
SPEAKER_04:yeah the relationship is weird anyways because she talks about how like well, dad wants me to have dinner on the table by this time. Sometimes he cooks and sometimes I cook, but we eat at this time every day and we eat together and we don't talk basically. Like she says at some point that like I sit like across from him every night and I don't actually, like we don't know each other. And that's depressing because he's all she's had since she doesn't even remember her mom. Like she died when she was a baby. So it's just been her dad and- Golly, like it feels frosty the whole time, the relationship. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And I mean, I imagine it's probably hard to like raise a daughter as like a single parent in any circumstances. But like the choices, so many of the choices that he makes just seem indefensible to me. Yeah. I'm glad you brought up, Kelsey, that part about her room because, like, why would you care how she is decorating her room?
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, and, like, I wasn't... I mean, as a kid, I wasn't allowed to put up any posters on the wall at all because my parents had similar fears about, like, ruining the... Like, putting holes in the wall. The wall. Yeah, ruining the walls. But, like, I did, like, hang stuff on top of the art that was... And that was fine. It was just about, like, damaging the wall. So the fact that it's, like, also controlling what is in... Speaking
SPEAKER_04:of the posters, though, okay, this is really a tangent. But in, I think it's, okay, it might be the second book that we read. So Marianne gets really into this celebrity named Cam Geary. And she really wants to put his picture in her locker. But you're not allowed to do tape. So the solution is they all like partially chew some gum and use gum to stick it in their lockers. And it's like, why have none of these kids heard of like sticky putty? Like, why are you using chewed up gum? That's gross. Did that exist in the 80s? So disgusting.
SPEAKER_07:That's
SPEAKER_04:what I
SPEAKER_07:was wondering. I just don't understand that. I feel like that's going to be... harder to get off once it solidifies. But
SPEAKER_08:it's about the letter of the rule, not the spirit of the rule. It's like Stacey being like, oh yeah, my mom said I can only talk to Laney what's her name? Lane, Lane Matthews, Lane. For six, five minutes at a time. Yeah. Called back every five minutes. So I can talk to her for a half hour if I just keep calling. Yeah. And I was like, that's correct. That's what happens when you have arbitrary rules.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. That is such kid mentality. I love that. Not that, not the gum part, but like the fact that they were just like, yeah, so we use gum to stick our posters. And I'm like,
SPEAKER_07:oh my gosh, whoever has to clean up those lockers.
SPEAKER_04:I know. It's your own locker too. That's just like, your gross like chewed up gum in there I and like on the poster too like that's gross for the poster like also would it really work keep it
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, it would work. It would work. It would stick, but it's gross. Guys, I didn't know Cam Geary wasn't a real person. I was just wondering, was he a real person? Yeah, I was like, because I remember him so vividly because he comes up in a lot of these books and I just assumed he was real and we didn't have Google back then. So I just like, in my brain, Cam Geary was a real person. She made up a fake celebrity. Well, yeah, because he's in 16 Magazine also. Yeah, I know. I saw that in
SPEAKER_04:the plot summary too because it's like, Wow, you barely just took that one step off of the real thing. And I was like, I wonder who it was based on at the time. We
SPEAKER_07:should ask her. She has an active Facebook
SPEAKER_04:page. I'm sure it's somebody. Like I was thinking like it's probably like one of the new kids on the block or something that she had in her head. Yeah, because
SPEAKER_08:there's also, is it Matt Morrison or whatever? And I was thinking like Zach Morrison from Morris from Saved by the Bell.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:So...
SPEAKER_04:That would have been later, right? Saved by the Bell was like late
SPEAKER_08:80s?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, but I think these were like mid 80s. When was his first appearance, Cam
SPEAKER_08:Geary? I think this was the first appearance of Cam Geary in book
SPEAKER_04:10. And book 10 was published, let me see. 89 was the first Saved by the Bell. So I don't think it's a Zach reference. Okay. But yes, his look was very... Like what she described for Cam Geary.
SPEAKER_05:Going back to Marianne's controlling that, though, I thought it was really, really strange the way that they depicted their dinners together and the fact that there was like a point where Marianne is like, oh, he's talking about a case, but I can't remember. He must have told me and I feel really bad. Like, she's always like walking on eggshells with him. And I think that that was a really interesting dynamic to put in there because this is why part of me does want to continue on and read this. Because I wonder if they ever do anything with that. Like, do her and her dad ever have a much more mature conversation about kind of the way that she feels toward him? Or is this just kind of glossed over? Like, he just marries Dawn's mom. It's
SPEAKER_04:less weird, but I think it is a lot because Dawn's mom is in the picture. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Like she softens a little bit. Yeah, no, but I wish that that were a conversation or some plot point between Marianne and her dad.
SPEAKER_08:Well, it's also weird because she says he like makes them say grace before they eat. And he always says like and watch over Alma. And yeah, she's she was like, that's weird that he always like puts her in like he's doing too much, basically.
SPEAKER_04:Before I go to bed, isn't that enough? Like she mentions her in her prayers at night. Right. But yeah, it is a weird thing to bring up during grace.
SPEAKER_06:Mm hmm.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you for the food and also keep an eye on her dead mom. Is
SPEAKER_07:there a religious tradition that I mean, certainly
SPEAKER_04:like at holidays and stuff where you do like a more elaborate grace or like where people are gathering more, but for your everyday meal, it's a little bit weird. But
SPEAKER_07:not just
SPEAKER_08:like having dinner on a Tuesday night. part of things or like keep like to
SPEAKER_06:kind of
SPEAKER_08:not forget her or honor that Marianne like has had this loss but also like doesn't really know about the loss you know like to what extent does she need to be brought into it I think he just genuinely is like being a little weird about it by accident
SPEAKER_04:yeah it's interesting that you bring it up darling because I was thinking when I was reading it that like the setup is very similar to Nancy Drew with the dead mom and then the dad who's a lawyer and and trying to navigate it. But Carson Drew is like a good dad and he's very warm and they have a great relationship. They talk very freely. And then this is so like not that, where it's just like, I would feel really weird in that household. Like all of the rules, all of the, it's just frosty. There's no warmth there at all. And really there isn't until, I guess when he lets her get the cat, he's a little bit more, But even that feels very like weirdly rigid. He's like, well, I will have to think about this and make a decision.
SPEAKER_08:And then he like stares into space and then five minutes later he's like, I have considered. I have made a decision. Like he's an android.
SPEAKER_04:You may get a cat. You will be responsible for litter box and this I will be responsible for vet bills. Okay.
SPEAKER_07:No wonder poor Marianne is like shy and awkward and struggles with social situations.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I feel like she's honestly pretty well adjusted given the circumstances because
SPEAKER_07:he's
SPEAKER_04:deeply
SPEAKER_07:strained. How could she not be?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah. There are a lot of weird parents in this. We were talking about that too before you got here, Kelsey, because you've got Marianne's weird dad. You have Christy's deadbeat dad who gets, like he seriously, I think, catches astray the first page of this book. Yeah, we've got on page one of Marianne Saves the Day, Christy's parents got divorced a few years ago and her dad walked out. But my father has not been like a father to Christy. He's not warm and open like Mrs. Thomas. And
SPEAKER_08:yeah, it's like, okay. It came in really hot. It did. I was a little uncomfortable. Page one. Two, then I forget which of the other book it was, but he says, she says something about like, Oh, Dawn says like, oh, my dad sent me this. And Marion's like, don't tell Christy.
SPEAKER_04:Don't tell Christy your dad sent you something. Like they haven't spoken. Like he doesn't remember her birthday. Yeah, nothing. Not holidays, nothing. That was crazy. And then I think the McGills, that situation is weird because they end up splitting up, right? I don't think they have yet though. Well, I think they have by the library one, but not. Not in the first one, but it's like Stacy and her mom and he moved down, but then he moves back to New York. Yeah. And stays because there is that weird space where Stacy moves back to New York, but then she comes back. The dads don't come off too good.
SPEAKER_08:I was reflecting that there's a lot of moving in these books, like which like I think that's something I appreciate about these books is like they are very honest about like things that happen in life that are like both everyday but also can be hard like when your best friend who you have like literally a secret flashlight code with you who you share a window with now has moved across town you know families get divorced and things but it does seem like an excessive amount of movement like there's always a new person they're always moving houses like left and right like I don't know at least in my neighborhood growing up like we didn't move like that like that was a really big deal and here it seems like it's like just just people do it all the time. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, I guess she sets it up. Okay. As well. Cause Watson already had his own house. So they're kind of just moving to Watson's house. And then, um, with the split parents, you just have a character go back and live with the dad, but you're right. I was, I think what makes it more jarring a little bit to me, or like you have to suspend belief is at the end of, um, Marianne or sorry, Logan likes Marianne. Um, I want to say there's, like, an author note, and essentially Ann Martin is basically saying, like, this is one of the few times or only times that she really discusses a person's age or, like, a character having a birthday. And she said, because at some point, everyone, you know, I guess maybe, like, the publishers decided that they should keep them in middle school forever. Like, perpetually 13. Yeah, perpetually 12, 13. And so... then it just makes it weirder to think about like all of these things happening within the span of like one
SPEAKER_04:year. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. So I think that made me suspend belief. I was like, wait, cause I really thought that they grew up in the series. Like I, cause again, I've never read anything past any of the books that we've had to read for this podcast. So the fact that she's saying like, yeah, no, we kept them this age forever.
SPEAKER_04:That is interesting. Cause don't, I think Mallory and Jesse don't, do grow up more because when they start it's like they're like nine or something but I don't think they're nine once they're made associates of the club
SPEAKER_08:they definitely grow up enough to join and be junior babysitters but then I think they stop
SPEAKER_04:that's really weird that they age
SPEAKER_07:for a little bit and then everyone just they just stop but the older older characters don't
SPEAKER_04:yeah that's odd
SPEAKER_08:random stray things just as a side note from the first book actually speaking of her dad I don't know if this is just in the old book but there's on page 16 in my book she's talking about like weird things her dad doesn't let her do and sorry the first one saves the day and she has to say yes because her dad doesn't like her saying yeah but here's a list of the other words that she's not allowed to say in this book shut up, hey, gross and the r-word
SPEAKER_04:Oh, in mine, it is stupid.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah. They spell out the R word. Yes. Okay. Which is like kind of interesting that she's kind of complaining that her dad doesn't let her say that among the other ones, you know, like that's a big jump.
SPEAKER_04:But back then it would have been totally fine. I mean, because even when I was growing up, like people threw that word around like it was nothing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah. So I thought that was an interesting and I
SPEAKER_04:mean, you still you still hear it. I mean, black IPs have a whole song that they had to like
SPEAKER_08:retcon to get rid of that. You hear it less now, but people still use it. The other thing that I wanted to point out from this first book, her dad is trying to explain to her what a double standard is. Is this in your book? Yeah. And I didn't get it. I didn't
SPEAKER_05:get it either. Oh, wait, where is it? No, I thought it was the only one. I was like, maybe I'm just tired. So she says, where
SPEAKER_08:is it? Okay. So she says. What page are you on, Kelsey? Sorry, 138
SPEAKER_07:in my book. I regret listening to the book now because I can't flip to the page.
SPEAKER_08:Oh,
SPEAKER_07:I'm so sorry. No, it's okay.
SPEAKER_08:I'll read it. So she says, so he is surprised that she's growing up because she knew to call 911 immediately. And he says, you're growing up. And she says, well, I'm 12. And he says, 12 means different things for different people. And then she said, you mean some 12 year olds are ready today and other 12 year olds still need babysitters. And he says, exactly. And she said, but isn't that a double standard? And he says, and mind you, he is a lawyer. Yes, this is a very lawyerly conversation they're having. What? What? confused.
SPEAKER_07:That doesn't make sense. No, that's not what a double standard means. That's not what a double standard means. And
SPEAKER_08:interestingly, I think there is a true double standard in the next book because Dawn is allowed to join the club with no vetting And Logan has to have a babysitter for his babysitting. That is his audition. That's a double standard.
SPEAKER_05:Very good point. Well, is it just because she had the sense to call 911? Maybe,
SPEAKER_08:but they didn't really
SPEAKER_05:see her reaction. Yeah, but they didn't verbalize that at all. Like, oh my God, she did this great thing, so she should be allowed. But it's like, yeah, so she had sense to call 911. You still don't know what she's like with kids. I think it's because he's a boy. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:It's all about them not being able to say bra in front of him it has nothing to do because he actually has a very good babysitting resume yeah like he is experienced he knows what he's doing but you know it made the meeting weird
SPEAKER_08:yeah and he couldn't talk about a story that ended with a toddler I assume like
SPEAKER_04:in the bathroom
SPEAKER_07:yeah you feel like a bunch of experienced babysitters should have no problem discussing
SPEAKER_04:yes they all have changed diapers and like taking kids to the bathroom it's about talking about it in mixed company though yes But there's so much bra talk, y'all. There's a lot of bra talk. And this is bra talk on the street. There is a lot of bra talk in the Marianne books. There's talk about who has bras and who doesn't. One person's feelings are hurt because someone else got a bra but didn't tell them. Oh my God. Then there's the bra strap thing where Claudia's telling a story about somebody popping a bra strap and then she freezes before she gets to the word bra.
SPEAKER_06:A bra strap. Excuse me?
SPEAKER_04:And it gets all weird because Logan can't, I guess, handle the word bra and they can't handle saying the word bra in front of a boy. Bras are like really... a strange
SPEAKER_08:forbidden topic. It's so interesting because Logan is like kind of mature in a lot of ways, but then like, he just like literally refuses to join the babysitters club because they said bra.
SPEAKER_04:He's like, I don't think I won't be in your group anymore. No, the accent on. So we already made Darlene listen because the, the audible narrator for not the first book was, I listened to Logan Likes Marianne, which was a mistake. Her version. Well, yeah, maybe it was just really entertaining. Her version of Logan's accent is bananas. He does not sound like he is from Kentucky. He sounds like foghorn leghorn.
SPEAKER_00:Now what? I say, what's the big idea bashing me on the noggin with a roller? First thought was
SPEAKER_07:this is a Saturday Night Live skit where there's a character with a bananas accent. Southern accent. So I went and actually looked up a bunch and I couldn't quite find one. And then my spouse was like, he sounds like an 80 year old grandpa.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Like
SPEAKER_07:there's no like kid that would talk like that. But then you pointed that the accent kept changing.
SPEAKER_04:It morphs over time. It's inconsistent one sentence to the next. It's real bad.
SPEAKER_07:You said something like Benoit Bloch.
SPEAKER_01:My presence will be ornamental. You will find me a respectful, quiet person. Passive observer. Yeah,
SPEAKER_08:that's probably the closest, but it's... It's confusing because in the book, too, sometimes she writes it out phonetically, and
SPEAKER_04:then sometimes... That's what Darlene was saying. Oh, did she? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we played a thing where he's like, my pleasure, which nobody talks like that. But it is, I guess, written out in the text as my
SPEAKER_05:pleasure. And then it goes, come on, let's dance. That's written normally.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, because she slips in and out. And like, I don't want to, like the narrator does a great job of sounding like a- Like Marianne. Like a teenage girl. Because I was thinking like, well, why is she committing to the accent? And then you got further into the book and they kept saying, Marianne, like, oh, I love his Southern accent. I'm like, okay, the narrative makes her have to do the accent. And I'm thinking, oh, did they like not plan? Did they think she could do a better accent? Is she just doing the best she can? You got to check.
SPEAKER_08:If that's going to be a central feature of the book, you got to
SPEAKER_07:check. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I couldn't. do any better so I'm not trying to make fun of her because her voicing
SPEAKER_04:of Marianne's dad is weird too though I also found that odd like it's just like when she's playing a man she just does very odd like the cadence is so strange like with him and Logan it is not a normal human cadence and I think that was why Peanut was like it's a weird transatlantic thing because it's this very like halting Ah, you see, we're going to the pictures. An
SPEAKER_07:old-timey
SPEAKER_04:radio voice? Yes. It's like a weird no-one-talks-like-that sort of cadence. And she does it for all of the male voices in the
SPEAKER_07:book. And then the dame walked into my private detective. It was a sassy broad. And then she shot him. Okay. So, no, it's very odd. Yeah. A narrator. Yeah. Narration is tough. I want to acknowledge that.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:She did a great job for all of like the teenage girl voices. Well, voice aside, I really love Logan.
SPEAKER_08:Logan's lovely. He's so sweet. He's very patient with Marianne. He's very respectful. He's very respectful. He seems to like really
SPEAKER_04:get her. He cares a lot about consent. Yeah. You know, like he wants to make sure she's okay with like everything. Yep.
SPEAKER_05:Sometimes the way that he's written, though... is kind of like definitely like an older person writing a responsible boy so that it's like this is what you should aim for because there's like one where he says like that was he's basically saying like that he appreciates that she reached out to him first oh yeah that was very like
SPEAKER_08:I forgot how he phrased it I'm always calling you and you're never calling me Yeah. I know that was hard for you or something like that.
SPEAKER_05:One boy talks like
SPEAKER_07:that. I liked him most of the time. There were times, I think, when it felt a little bit like you felt the adult shaping the character.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_07:And I also felt a little bit odd at her party when he was– saying, I didn't think it would work out because you're a little too sensitive sometimes. I've had some feelings about
SPEAKER_05:that. I have to admit. And then I didn't like when she asked him why he likes her and he said because you're different from other girls. And I get what he's trying to say, but I was like, barf. She's not like
SPEAKER_04:other girls. I don't know if the I'm not like other girls thing became a thing until later than this. I feel like that reads weird now, but maybe it wouldn't have at the time.
SPEAKER_07:I'll maybe give them a little bit of a pass on that for the time, but it definitely doesn't work for us now. Read well
SPEAKER_08:now. He says, hey, I'm really glad you called. You never call me. I always call you. I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to call. i'm glad you felt i'm glad
SPEAKER_04:you felt comfortable enough to call
SPEAKER_08:so yeah i like him a lot i think he's i think he's very sweet and and um like i said i really feel like he gets her like you know the fact that they were silly at the dance and then she got embarrassed and rather than him being like oh well screw you like i'm over it he kept checking back on her and the bleachers and like oh no one's thinking about that anymore like I
SPEAKER_05:did appreciate his babysitting as well and sort of the different dynamic between how he babysits versus how someone like Marianne or any of the other girls would, because he's just very understanding that boys are just going to be rambunctious because he is a boy and he and obviously like he's babysat before as well. But yeah, it was really interesting because she's like, is he not going to say don't do that again? And he doesn't. He just kind of like just like. talked about something else um with who is the boy that they jamie yeah i
SPEAKER_08:thought that was good though because he first of all he he told a story about when he did it and he cut his chin opening in stitches like that suddenly tells the child don't hey you know you've learned your lesson i learned mine let's not do it again and like obviously the kid fell down and broke the bar i feel like even like a more chaotic child would be like, hmm, that was not the thing to do. Like this probably won't work again. You know, you don't need to like then scold him.
SPEAKER_07:But it also, it also, yeah, it lets them know like, hey, you know, I made a mistake too. It was a gentler way of saying maybe we shouldn't do chin-ups on the
SPEAKER_05:shower. But I also understand Marianne's wanting to be like, no, some things need to be said because sometimes the kid's not going to know. Please do not do this. I know that she was on edge when he let Jamie pour his own... Like, was it lemonade or some grape juice? Yeah, and then it, like, was overflowing, and then he, like, was trying to carry it, and it fell on the rug.
SPEAKER_00:Oh,
SPEAKER_07:no. When kids take a sip, their drink cup slips, flips, and
SPEAKER_05:drips. And I was like, you're just lucky that rug was a
SPEAKER_07:dark-colored rug. I think Logan ended up pouring the juice. I could be wrong. I think he poured the juice, and then Jamie got up and ran with the juice and instantly went face down on– With the juice on the carpet. I have to go back and double check, but I'm pretty sure. I think he tried to intervene at different points. And then there was running with the juice instantly. I feel like the parents know this. The parents must know this.
SPEAKER_08:Well, them being like, just keep an eye on
SPEAKER_07:him. They didn't have a white
SPEAKER_08:carpet, which is probably for a reason. So Logan is obviously like a pretty all around, like pretty good kid, but he's pretty much the only child. boy who seems to be good in these
SPEAKER_04:books. Trevor seems okay in these ones. He seems harmless. Alan is a disaster. What is wrong with him?
SPEAKER_08:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I hate that he's like Christy's counterpart. Yeah. It's understood that she'll maybe date at some point. And she's
SPEAKER_04:not like him. Yeah. Like he is messed up. So Alan is back after he stalked the girls in Claudia and the Phantom phone calls. And he's still like being really weird. I don't know. Alan is a problem in these two.
SPEAKER_08:What does he do? I don't remember. Oh,
SPEAKER_05:I thought it was hilarious how Christy invites him to the boy-girl party that Stacey throws for Marianne. For her birthday. For her birthday. And then apparently like one of the girls glared at Christy for inviting him because he was being annoying.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah. And then they also get another kid prank calling them because he was upset he didn't get invited. Oh, was it the pig farm? Yeah. Also, was that a thing like you would just have like your friends answer your house phone for you like that seemed weird that she was like Marianne you answer the phone and then Logan answered she was like
SPEAKER_07:such and
SPEAKER_08:such residence yeah that was I mean like I could see it maybe if you were like hanging out and your hands were full but like it's not like Like, her parents were there. They can answer the phone.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, Alan put the M&Ms on his eyes and said that it's his Annie eyes, which is really weird. What does that mean? I don't even know what that means. Like Raggedy Ann? No, like Little Orphan Annie, he said. I was trying to figure out what that meant. I didn't know either. Like, does she have, like, just weird dots for eyes or something? I don't think
SPEAKER_08:so. Because, like, Little Orphan... Like, that's... And then all, I mean, all the boys who are like, oh, Logan's getting in the babysitter's club because he, you know, oh, you got an in. Like, that was kind of weird.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, the problematic boys in this. So in the library mystery, can we talk about Sean? I mean, yes. I want to start by saying that Sean's home life is poor because we learned a lot about his family. He is Corey's older brother, right? And we learned a lot about Corey in the Claudia books because that was the girl that the parents would drop off super early, pick up super late, like because they were going to cocktail parties or the country club. Like they couldn't be bothered with her. They
SPEAKER_03:did the art camp. Yeah. And like
SPEAKER_04:they weren't even paying attention to like she hasn't brought home any art this week. Like, yeah, they just did not care about her. She was like an accessory. So yeah. Presumably Sean has had the same issues and he does say at the end of the library book, oh, my parents don't pay attention to me kind of thing. But his solution to this is to start fires.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, and like intense fires too. It's not like, I mean, like there is an age at which like you get very obsessed with fire. Sure. All teenagers at some point or teens have like played with matches. Like he's got lighter flu Yeah. He's like very...
SPEAKER_04:He's full on arson at the library.
SPEAKER_06:Intentionally
SPEAKER_07:arsoning. Like this, I feel like this is at a higher level than just most experimenting with matches that kids...
SPEAKER_04:And he's not doing it out of curiosity. He's doing it because he's angry. Like he's mad that his family's making him do the read-a-thon, which... I mean, it doesn't even seem like he ends up doing the readathon. So I don't even see how the fires connect because unless you burn the whole library down, the readathon is still happening. He's burning like a book at a time. So he weirdly chooses to pick books off of the banned book list from the Moms for Liberty
SPEAKER_06:people.
UNKNOWN:I don't know what they're called.
SPEAKER_04:But they have a pamphlet with like all of the books that they want taken out of the library and So I guess Sean just decided that they would either be a convenient scapegoat for his fires or he agreed that those were bad books. So he decided to light only books from the pamphlet on fire. But he starts multiple fires in a public place and, yes, uses lighter fluid for whatever. Like this is not playing with matches. This is like pretty organized arson. Right. That's extremely disturbing.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And it was like cross-reference with fifth grade, like recommended reading too. Because I think then they brought up that that's the list. that most, like it must be a fifth grader or something. But yeah, it seems very like intentional. And then in that case, it just feels, yeah, it's more alarming and they don't treat it as alarming as it is. They're just like, oh, like, oh man, we feel really bad for him. Yeah, poor old Sean
SPEAKER_04:with his terrible
SPEAKER_05:parents. And
SPEAKER_04:it's like, yeah, so he, of the books that he burns, he burns Deenie, By Judy Blume, A Wyatt in the Attic by Shel Silverstein, which I was like, why is that one on the banned book list? I totally don't remember anything in that that was, I'm sure it was just disorderly kids or, you know, it's encouraging bad behavior or something. Tom Sawyer. Not
SPEAKER_07:edifying enough. And then
SPEAKER_04:Lincoln. Which also, why is that on the banned book list? But whatever.
SPEAKER_08:Banned book books never make sense. That's, you're trying to put logic where there is none.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah. I also want to say like, I'm used to... I didn't have this mystery. I did have to buy this one. I did not write this as a child. But the mysteries that I did own and read were all very scary and usually had a paranormal aspect to them of some sort. Or were creepy. We need to do some of those. They reminded me a lot of Claudia and the Phantom phone calls. I felt like that's where it spurred off. You genuinely felt endangered. Whereas this, obviously, they're playing it up to be very stressful but like ultimately it is just like it was a case it wasn't scary and so I don't know it was kind of an interesting it felt like a non sequitur to me but maybe I just only happen to read the scary ones and also I was like I have always been a scaredy cat so maybe I just was more scared by them as again um But yeah, I don't know. I do want to say I appreciated the banned book subplot. Same. Finally. For real. It's like this just never goes away. 40 years later and it still
SPEAKER_07:is
SPEAKER_08:relevant.
SPEAKER_07:Did you read the note Ann Martin put at the end of the book? No. Should we read it? Well, it was on. I did the Kindle version. Oh,
SPEAKER_05:I did too. Let me see. It's like an ALA thing.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, by note to readers, various groups have banned or tried to ban the books mentioned in this story from school and public libraries. For more information about book banning, visit the American Library Association online at www.ala.org slash advocacy slash band. I appreciate that you did that. That's great.
SPEAKER_07:That's not in my book. Okay, yeah, it must have been something that they did with a later publication.
SPEAKER_08:She does have a call to action in general to join the Babysitter's Club Get Involved Challenge with Scholastic, but you could have any issue. She mentions recycling. I do love her notes at the end. Just as a side note, the very first, and Marian saves the day, the note at the end encourages teens to find out if 9-1-1 is an option for them in their neighborhood because it was not a thing. It was a new thing then. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I appreciate the banned books. I also just feel like there's a lot of justice for librarians in this one because historically we've only seen Miss Kishi as a librarian. Who doesn't stalk Nancy Drews for a reason. She sucks, yeah. Well, she's Does she stalk them and she doesn't let Claudia read them or
SPEAKER_04:she doesn't stalk them at all? No, because Claudia in the Claudia books, remember, we were trying to figure out why there are no Nancy Drews in the public library. Yeah. She's
SPEAKER_08:against them. And she's not even the children's librarian. So she
SPEAKER_04:shouldn't have a say there. Let Miss Frizzle, whatever her name was. Miss Feld?
SPEAKER_07:Yes. Well, after we record that episode, I spoke with a colleague of ours who was working in a public library around the time. She said that it used to be a lot harder to have like popular reading material like that. four kids in the public
SPEAKER_04:library. Oh, that's wild. So they had a book about a robot mowing the lawn. Yeah. And like certainly when I was growing up, which wasn't that much later than this, I mean, 10 years or something.
SPEAKER_07:It might maybe
SPEAKER_03:varied by the
SPEAKER_07:library.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Well, I was out in the sticks. I mean, no
SPEAKER_03:knock on the
SPEAKER_04:skeet public library in Texas, but we weren't like big city kind of thing. And we had Nancy Drews and Yeah. Maybe we need to do some research and some
SPEAKER_07:polling and talk to Monica more because I'm curious to see kind of like what the landscape looked like at the time that these were out, where you could check them out, what libraries had them, how widespread, what the discourse was. Like
SPEAKER_04:back then too, like I guess I would almost understand it more if it wasn't the like, at the time, the current Nancy Drews, the ones that were still being released, which were a little bit more racy for Nancy Drew, but the yellow... yeah the yellow spine ones I thought those would have been like they were in my school library they were yeah those were
SPEAKER_08:classics
SPEAKER_04:yeah
SPEAKER_08:yeah no I don't know I so we have Mrs. Feld who's the children's librarian she's Amazing. Love her so much. She is so supportive of Marianne. She kind of like has a wink wink nudge nudge with Miss Elway about like, yeah, she sucks. But like, you know, we can play along with her. But then I will say the ratio is still off because you have Miss Kishi, who seems very nice, but doesn't like Nancy Drew. And then you have Miss Elway, who's just mean. I'm like, what's up with her? And she's an heiress. Or not an heiress? Her family's destitute?
SPEAKER_04:She was an heiress, but then her land got sold to the town to build the public library or
SPEAKER_08:something. So she's... destined to work there against
SPEAKER_04:her will. Yeah, that didn't really make much sense. The whole subplot about Miss Elway maybe being the like book burner never really made a lot of sense to me. It's like, she must be doing it because she's bitter about having to give up her family land for the library. It's like, but she chose to work at the library. Right. She just seemed like a cranky lady who
SPEAKER_07:wasn't a bad person. Didn't like kids,
SPEAKER_04:but was pro-library.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. I mean, it feels very like, it reminds me just of Scooby-Doo they always have like one character that they first like like that's the person they think it is and it's like very like it just doesn't make sense that it would be that person and then like slowly they get to like the
SPEAKER_04:actual culprit you're expecting Sean to pull off a rubber missile way back and be like I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for meddling
SPEAKER_05:kids yeah it's never the first person that they suspect so
SPEAKER_08:um I forgot to say this earlier, but something that did jump out to me is how many dances they have at this middle school. It's a lot.
SPEAKER_04:They're having
SPEAKER_08:at least
SPEAKER_04:once a month. And
SPEAKER_08:for middle school, like what? Also, I like what is remember September because I Googled it because I was like, oh, this must be just a thing I'm not familiar with. And it's only like all the things that came up were Babysitter's Club. So Anne Martin made up a whole thing just so they could go to a dance.
SPEAKER_04:I guess it's just their end of September
SPEAKER_08:dance. And then they have a 50s fling.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:It's too much. And it was weird. I mean, also speaking of Marianne's controlling father, that like this is before he met Don's mom. And he's just like, oh, yeah, go take my charge card. Go to the mall. Buy yourself a hot outfit so that you can look cute for your new boyfriend who I'm going to allow so you can go to the dance. Like what has happened? That seems out
SPEAKER_03:of character. And he was there. I can't stay out. Yeah, right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and I'm surprised he didn't ask to go with her so that he can, like, okay the outfit. Yeah, measure how
SPEAKER_07:long her skirt is or something. Her city skirt.
SPEAKER_08:And it was funny. So Christy, speaking of their, like, tropes, right? So Christy wanted to go to sportswear. Yep. Stacey
SPEAKER_04:wanted to go to underwear. Stacey's like, we're getting lingerie. And it's like, okay, Stacey. She's
SPEAKER_07:going to a dance. The clothes are going to stay on. Yeah, what was
SPEAKER_04:Stacey's angle there? Yeah,
SPEAKER_07:that was weird. You don't want lines. Like, the most we're going to do is hold hands. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that was a really weird. It was
SPEAKER_06:confusing.
SPEAKER_04:Like, especially from, like, the book where we had just been, like, not everyone has a bra yet to, like, we need to go lingerie
SPEAKER_03:shopping. They are 12.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, no, Stacey's funny or, like, just weird in many ways. Like, I feel like I flagged, like, There's one where she says, like, don't forget where I'm from. Like, she makes New York her personality. And then I thought it was so funny that at the end of Marianne Saves the Day, she's like, I guess I can be less snobby about being from New York. Like, that's your, like, bad characteristic. No, it's just New York and diabetes that
SPEAKER_07:make these whole identities. I got my two personality traits, one in each hand. New York and diabetes.
SPEAKER_00:Diabetes.
SPEAKER_04:Never did resolve the thing with Sean's pyromania, though.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, like, what
SPEAKER_04:did, so what did his parents do? Well, she says, so Miss Kishi calls and talks to the parents, and they say the parents come to get him, and there's a lot of, like, crying and hugging and whatnot, but Marianne says he was a kid who needed a lot of help more than we could give him. But we never get any indication that he's actually getting that
SPEAKER_05:help. Yeah. But the thing is, is that that just probably doesn't have a good resolution because it doesn't seem like the parents have learned anything from because the book where the Claudia book where it was about a sister that, you know, In theory, like, you would think that the parents are like, okay, maybe we should pay more attention to our kids. But then it's...
SPEAKER_04:No, they're still doing the same thing. They're still doing the same thing. Where they're just like, oh, they make us go to all these activities. And that's fine for Corey. She likes that. What's going to change? Because we're 40-something books in or something. And she's still being weird. I wish it
SPEAKER_05:were just... I mean, well, then it wouldn't have high stakes. But I, like... I'd be less concerned if it was just that he was hiding the books.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Like if he was just
SPEAKER_04:hiding the books. Or if he was throwing them away. Like nobody's going to get hurt by that. If he was just like, I'm getting rid of everything on the fifth grade reading list so I don't have to do the read-a-thon. But instead he's starting fires that he's not like hanging around for. He's not like looking to make sure that it's going to control the fire. People could potentially die in that scenario. It's very unsafe. Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:How old is this child?
SPEAKER_08:That's what I was wondering because like it does bring up like a logic of a younger child. Maybe that is less concerning. But if he's older. But
SPEAKER_05:they were all on the fifth grade. Oh, yeah. So he's like 11, 10, 11. So he's
SPEAKER_04:really young.
SPEAKER_07:It's it's young, but it's
SPEAKER_04:It's too old to be doing that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And then just like resorting to crying the minute that you're like caught. Well, and also he brought lighter fluid. This
SPEAKER_04:again is not just like he grabbed matches from home and is not thinking this out. Like this is organized.
SPEAKER_07:It's a planned crime. It's very
SPEAKER_04:premeditated. I think Sean's going to grow up to be a bad one, y'all. It's like he's already dabbling in the, like, serial killer triad with his
SPEAKER_07:fire starting. I mean, unfortunately, I think what happens to Sean now is either his parents underreact to this and continue to ignore him and not respond to this thing that he's done, or he... Or he maybe gets a bunch of really traumatizing psychiatric care. I
SPEAKER_03:feel like these are the two scenarios. He finally
SPEAKER_04:gets attention and the take home is if I do bad things, I get the attention I'm craving. I guess that's the
SPEAKER_07:third scenario. It's hard to imagine a scenario where he kind of gets the right sort of attention. That's the moral, really. Arson
SPEAKER_08:is not the solution to your problems.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you. Thank you.