#1: Kristy's Great Idea
#2: Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls

I wonder how long this'll last. The Saddle Club got through twelve books, and SVH only reissued six.

Discuss.

x-posted to babysittersclub

Scholastic Customer Service finally got back to me, and the release date that they have for the prequel is actually earlier than the one on Amazon.

Thank you for contacting Scholastic Classroom Books and Libraries regarding information on the Prequel Summer Before Babysitters Club book.

We show only that it is hardcover book which is due to be released March 12, 2010.
We do not yet have a price.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

If we may be of further assistance, please call our Customer Service representatives Monday-Friday 6:00 AM - 11:00 PM of on Saturday, 8:00 AM - 5:00 Pm Central Standard Time. We would be happy to assist you.

Have a great day!

Sincerely,
Carol Y
Scholastic Customer Service
1-800-724-6527

babysittersclub

I am not making this up.

The Summer Before by Ann M. Martin
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Inc. (April 1, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0545160936
ISBN-13: 978-0545160933

Before there was the Baby-Sitters Club, there were four girls named Kristy Thomas, Mary Anne Spier, Claudia Kishi, and Stacey McGill. As they start the summer before seventh grade (also before they start the BSC), each of them is on the cusp of a big change. Kristy is still hung up on hoping that her father will return to her family. Mary Anne has to prove to her father that she's no longer a little girl who needs hundreds of rules. Claudia is navigating her first major crush on a boy. And Stacey is leaving her entire New York City life behind...

...in order to find new friends in Stoneybrook, Connecticut.

The Summer Before . . . is a sweet, moving novel about four girls on the edge of something big - not just the Club that will change their lives, but also all the joys and tribulations of being twelve and thirteen.

babysittersclub

The second cake in this post on Cake Wrecks would have been perfect to have at one of Dawn's good-bye parties.

( On to the most appropriate cake ever! )

x-posted to

1. Put your iTunes (or any other media player you may have) on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
We Got the Beat

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Silent All These Years

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Ruby Tuesday

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Crush

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
100 Years

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
It's a Heartache

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Footloose

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Fireworks

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Head Over Heels

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Crazy Train [okay, so this one is perfectly right]

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Stick 'Em Up

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Learn to Fly

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
It's Not Unusual [this one isn't accurate at all]

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Afternoon Delight

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Cornflake Girl

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Jump

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
After the Rain

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Satisfaction

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Vindicated

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Whip It [this might be the funniest thing ever]

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
What's Love Got to Do With It?

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Strange Little Girl

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
We All Sing With the Same Voice

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Joyride

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
True Colors

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Mr. Roboto

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Won't Back Down

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Man on the Moon

I've been trying to complete my Camp Sunnyside Friends collection, and I think I have all of the books now except for #17, Camp Spaghetti. Recently, I found a used copy of #16, Happily Ever After, which I never read when I was a kid.

The plot: Sarah's widowed father marries Trina's divorced mother, and the friends are thrilled to become stepsisters. Sarah and Trina want to prove that their new family will be perfect and that everybody will get along all the time, so they decide to share a bedroom, even though their house is big enough for them to have separate rooms. But it turns out they hate sharing a room, because they're just too different. For example, Sarah likes to listen to music while she does her homework, and Trina can't concentrate that way at all! Oh noes!

Does this book remind anybody of anything? ;-)

x-posted to babysittersclub

I was at a used bookstore today and I was looking at It's Great to Be Eight, which I'd seen before. It has a bunch of stories about, well, being eight. There's a series of books — It's Heaven Being Seven, It's Fine to Be Nine, etc. I knew Ann M. Martin had a story in it, but since almost all of the "stories" in these are excerpts from books, I'd assumed Ann's story was something that had been previously published in a longer work that I'd already read. But I actually bothered opening the book today, and the Ann M. Martin story is something that hadn't been published elsewhere... and it's BSC-related!

It's called "8 x 2 = Sweet Sixteen" and it's also not much of a "story," just a long internal monologue. It takes place three weeks before Karen Brewer's eighth birthday, and since Karen Two-Two is of course having two eighth birthday parties, she thinks that it's sort of like turning sixteen, and she's thinking about all the things she would want if she really were turning sixteen. Obviously, it's very classic Karen! There's an inconsistency in it that irks me, though. Karen talks about Charlie being sixteen "last year," but if she were turning eight, he should already be eighteen. On the other hand, it's not as if I'm not used to time warps in BSC-land.

x-posted to babysittersclub

I read this article in the Globe and Mail today and it made me think of the BSC:

Someone to Watch Over Them

Oddly enough, it doesn't mention that the people you bring on vacation to watch your children should be thirteen years old.

x-posted to babysittersclub

Topps trading cards/stickers that parody consumer products, usually in a gross way? I don't know if anyone in the community has mentioned it before, but apparently card 53 in the 1991 series was a Baby-sitters Club parody, and you can see it here. I think I love it.

x-posted to babysittersclub

I now have every Baby-sitters Club book!

My boyfriend and I were in Fredericton today, and we went to a huge used bookstore. They had tons of BSC books there, although it was mostly because there were multiple copies of earlier books and very few after about #80. There also weren't many Super Specials or other books outside of the regular series, but for some reason I had a feeling that I'd find what I was looking for there, and I did. There was a copy of Mystery #35: Abby and the Notorious Neighbor, which was the last book left that I needed.

So I've got all the regular series, Super Specials, Mysteries, Super Mysteries, Friends Forevers, Friends Forever special editions, Portrait Collections, Special Edition Readers' Requests, California Diaries, Chain Letter, Secret Santa, the Complete Guide, the Postcard Book, the Notebook, the Guide to Baby-sitting, the movie novelization, and the Ann M. Martin biography. This feels like Stage 1 of a "complete BSC book collection."

Now I can focus more on LS (I also got two of those today), The Kids in Ms. Colman's Class, new-style covers, replacing some of the more worn books in my collection with ones in better condition, foreign editions, and non-book materials. Whee!

Oh, and I'm also still looking for another copy of #89 Kristy and the Dirty Diapers because my copy is somewhere in my parents' house and it's bugging me to still have one book missing from my apartment even though I actually own them all.

x-posted to babysittersclub