Tuesday, April 2, 2013

A-Z Challenge: B is for Baby-Sitter


The Baby-Sitters Club.  My favorite series growing up.  I read them all the time.  I re-read them.  I saw the movie.  I was in love with the series--the regular series,  Super Specials, Mysteries, Super Mysteries, Portrait Collection, Special Edition, Friends Forever, and the spin-offs: Little Sister and Kids in Ms. Coleman's Class.  Now, I have not read California Diaries, but I am hoping to find some used copies as I am looking for used copies of the books in the BSC that I am missing.  Yeah, unfortunately, my series is incomplete.  I have not read the final book where they graduate.  They graduate the 8th grade.  I need to get on the ball and search those used bookstores.  They have re-released the books in new editions, but I want the old ones not the new ones.  I have not checked out the graphic novels based on the series, but maybe I will.  I don't know.

I read my first BSC book when I was in second grade (1989).  It was #13 Goodbye, Stacey, Goodbye which is about Stacey's dad getting transferred back to New York City.  I was hooked after reading that book.  It didn't just get me into the BSC. It got me into reading. I was a reader before, but now I was reading chapter books.

I don't think I have a favorite baby-sitter.  Depending upon my mood, I will choose a different girl--Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, Mary-Anne, Jessi, or Mal.  Shannon, Logan, and Abby have never really been a favorite of mine, not to say I dislike them, because I don't!  I do find I relate to both Mallory (especially when I had braces) and Mary-Anne the most.  I don't have a favorite sitting charge.

Ten Facts About the Baby-Sitters Club:

  • First book, Kristy's Great Idea, was published in 1986. 
  • Last book, Friends Forever Super Special #2: Graduation Day was published in 2000. 
  • Including BiTs (Baby-Sitters in Training) and failed BSC members there have been 17 babysitters.  This does not include Abby's sister, Anna, who declined to join.  It does include the two Baby-Sitter Agency sitters who pranked the girls by pretending to be members.
  • Stoneybrook is a fictitious town in Connecticut created by Ann M. Martin.  The nearest city, Stamford, is real.
  • 1990, TV show was filmed.  It has aired on Disney, Nickelodeon (according to Wikipedia, but this I do not remember), and HBO.  Danny Tamborelli of Pete and Pete and All That fame starred as The Walking Disaster, Jackie Rodowsky.
  • 1995, The Baby-Sitters Club movie was released with Schuyler Fisk as Kristy Thomas; Rachel Leigh Cook as Mary-Anne Spier; Bre Blair as Stacey McGill, Larisa Oleynik as Dawn Schafer; Christian Oliver as Luca, a 17-year-old boy 13-year-old Stacey has a crush on; Ellen Burstyn as Mrs. Habersham, Mary-Anne and Dawn's next door neighbor; Austin O'Brien as Logan Bruno; Marla Sokoloff as Cokie Mason; Bruce Davison as Watson Brewer; Kyla Pratt as Becca Ramsey; and Scarlett Pomers as Suzi Barrett.
  • Not including the spinoffs there are 218 titles in the complete series.
  • Three spin-offs: Little Sister about Kristy's stepsister, Karen Brewer; Kids in Ms. Coleman's Class actually a spin-off of Little Sister about the kids in Karen's second grade class; and California Diaries stories about Dawn's friends in California.
  • Prequel: The Summer Before was published in 2010.  This is one month before the series was re-released with a new cover for a new audience. 
  • All the handwriting in the novels was created by one person in Scholastic's art department!

For a complete list of books (which I could post here, but it would be way too long) check out Wikipedia: List of the Baby-Sitters Club novels or Scholastic: The Baby-Sitters Club.

For more information on the series check out:

8 comments:

  1. Oh wow! Thanks for the stroll down memory lane. I want to dig my old books out from the basement and reread them. I loved these books!

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    1. What are they doing sitting in your basement?

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  2. OK, I did not know about all those spinoffs, and I never saw the movie. I guess by 1995 I had already aged out of the books, which really have a narrow age readership (like 9-12 maybe?). Loved the series though, and it inspired me to babysit more and put together one of those kits :) lol

    Hope you're having fun with the A to Z Challenge! Here's mine for today: A Girl and her Diary

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    1. I'll check out your blog and yes, I'm having fun.

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  3. My education wasn't complete! I never heard about the Baby-sitters Club :-( Better put that right straight away - thanks for the heads up.

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    1. What? How can you not have heard about them?!

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  4. I liked the Babysitters Club...I also like the Boxcar Children. Never knew they made TV and movies out of the series. Yay A-Z Rebecca from Moxiewriters.blogspot

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    1. The TV series was more a VHS series, but I know Disney aired it for a while.

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