Thoughts before reading:
I remember reading this as a kid and liking it, but not much else. Obviously it's about a pageant, something I've never really been interested in, so it's not really one I'm excited to revisit. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. This seems like a weird topic for a Dawn book too. She seems more likely to be protesting a pageant than helping at one.
I was trying to figure out who the kids on the cover are. My best guess is Charlotte, Myriah, and Karen.
The basics:
Mallory and Jessi are officially inducted into the club, with a ceremony and everything. Dawn's jealous because Kristy never did that for her, because she was always jealous of her relationship with Mary Anne. Then when Dawn gets home that night, her brother Jeff is in another of his moods, being really rude and mean. He also got in trouble at school again. He asks their mom desperately if he can go live with their dad in California. She relents, not seeing another solution anymore. Dawn's upset, even though everyone agrees it's for the best.
The BSC girls see an ad for the Little Miss Stoneybrook contest in the newspaper. They mostly agree pageants are sexist and ridiculous. Not long after though, Mrs. Pike calls to offer Dawn a job helping Claire and Margo prepare, and she reluctantly agrees. Claudia also gets offered a special job sitting for Charlotte, because Charlotte specifically requested Stacey's best friend. This makes everyone feel competitive suddenly, like Claudia was chosen as a better sitter.
Pageant fever spreads to Karen, who asks Kristy to help her prepare. Not to be outdone, Mary Anne coaxes Myriah Perkins into joining, and Claudia does the same to Charlotte. Myriah has quite a few talents, unlike the Pike girls, who Dawn is struggling with, and Charlotte, who's very reluctant to even enter. The BSC also starts to get petty, spying on each other and refusing to give details about their charges acts.
It's decided that Jeff will go to California to live with their dad for six months, as a trial. Dawn's heartbroken and thinks he's being selfish, mainly because she secretly wants to go back to CA too but won't leave their mom.
The night before the pageant is Jeff's flight back to CA (talk about bad timing...). He's ecstatic, more cheerful than he's been in months. Dawn has a hard time saying goodbye and feels like Jeff won't even miss her or their mom.
Then the pageant day arrives, and the BSC girls rally together and root for all their charges, like they should have done all along. Charlotte forgets the passage she's reciting for talent and runs off stage crying. Claire goofs up a few things, and then she, Margo, and Karen all blow their Q&A portion. Myriah does well, winning first runner up. A career pageant girl named Sabrina Bouvier wins.
At the very end Dawn gets a call from Jeff. He's happy and thriving in CA.
Timeline:
Winter of 8th grade
My thoughts:
This book wasn't terrible, even though I had no interest in the plot at all. It was pleasantly progressive to have everyone complaining about the sexism of beauty pageants after all the racism in the last book. Plus the point of this whole storyline seemed to be the unfairness/problematic nature of these contests. Seems like a weird lesson for little kids, but I know I've always hated pageants, so maybe this book started it? Also made me wonder if Ann M. Martin had a stage mother.
The kids involved in the pageant were way more into it for the right reasons (fun) than the older BSC girls, which was sad. They totally forgot that winning isn't important at all, and instead of helping teach this to the younger girls, they bizarrely think winning will prove they are the best babysitter? I wasn't following the logic of this at all. They themselves said at the beginning that pageants were sexist and exploitive. Plus this obsession with being the best sitter all stemmed from one little kid requesting a sitter, for reasons that had nothing to do with ability. The poor girl just missed Stacey, who actually was her favorite sitter, and everyone always understood that. Feels like the whole plot of this book was built around something that makes no sense, and all of those feelings immediately vanish the day of the contest anyway.
It's really sad that Dawn secretly wanted to go back to California this early on, but feels unable to ever admit it because she feels she has to stay with her mom. At this point, nothing but a job and her parents is tying Ms. Schafer to Stoneybrook, so she should move back to California when Jeff does. Then she can get joint custody with their father and actually raise her own kids. Really big parenting fail, this is a terrible situation for everyone involved.
I had a random thought while reading this about Kristy, even though she isn't a big part of this book. What if part of the reason she's so bossy and often a bully is due to her secretly questioning her sexuality? That could cause her to have an obsessive need to control things that she feels actually able to control.
Misc:
*Kristy's parents went to an auction to buy a bird bath..? These people clearly have too much time and money on their hands. Spend some time with your kids, people!
*Claire's talent? Singing a song about Popeye the sailor man. Margo's is even better: she peels a banana with her feet, then eats it while reciting The House That Jack Built. Uhm okay...
*I would really have thought some of these little girls' mothers would have wanted to help them prepare for the pageant, but not in Stoneybrook!
*Mary Anne gets Myriah all excited about the pageant before asking her mom about it, which really could have backfired.
*There's a nice scene where Claudia and Charlotte call Stacey, and it's super cute how excited Charlotte is.
*Mallory and Jessi are making necklaces out of gum wrappers at one of the BSC meetings...I thought in just the last book they desperately wanted to impress the older girls?
*I actually teared up when Dawn said goodbye to Jeff. There was a really sad passage that got me:
"How could we let him go? Hadn't Jeff and I huddled together in my room in California during Mom and Dad's noisy fights? Hadn't I protected him from bullies and nightmares and imaginary monsters? Hadn't he taught me how to climb ropes when my gym teacher said I was hopeless? How could I grow up the rest of the way without him?" (pg 111)
Sniff. Poor kids.
Books mentioned:
*Claudia and Charlotte are reading Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater together.
*Charlotte's supposed to recite from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl.
*The Wizard of Oz, by Frank Baum
My rating:
3 stars, quick, mostly fun read.
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