Never read this one before, but I'm looking forward to it. This is clearly the book where Emily Michelle is adopted, which is another big event I missed the first time around. I'm very interested to see how all of that unfolds. Honestly though, I'm not sure Watson and Elizabeth should be adopting a baby. They already have their hands full and they hardly spend time with the kids they already have. Kristy or another BSC member is always watching the little kids on Watson's weekends with them, which are the only times he has with them to begin with. She's even the one who took them trick or treating.
Speaking of, I had a random thought. Does Karen and Andrew's mother use a different babysitter of her own? Or does she just actually take care of her own kids and spend time with them? The BSC only sits for Karen and Andrew when they are with Watson. I wonder how she feels about her kids being in the care of their stepsister so often.
The basics:
It's spring and Mother's Day is in a few weeks. All the BSC members (minus Mary Anne) are discussing gift ideas for their moms. Things get awkward when Mary Anne comments that she never has that problem, and the subject is dropped for the time being. Later that night, Kristy's family is having a rare family dinner with everyone home. Elizabeth and Watson are acting mushy at dinner, and end up asking all the kids how they would like to have another sibling. The older kids think it's great, but the little kids bluntly say no.
While thinking things over afterwards, Kristy comes up with the idea to give all the moms she knows the gift of a day off for Mother's Day. They would take the kids for most of the day, so the moms could just relax. The other club members love the idea, and Claudia comes up with the idea to send out official invitations so the parents can RSVP. It's also decided they will be taking the kids to a small carnival, and the special day will be the Saturday before Mother's Day. After listing all the clients and siblings they want to include, the girls end up with 29 kids- way too many. Logan and Shannon are busy that day and can't help, so they call Stacey in NYC and invite her. She's able to come for the weekend, and everyone is thrilled.
There ends up being 21 kids who can come, which will be 3 per sitter. The BSC works hard planning everything out and dividing the kids into groups. Stacey arrives the Friday before, and surprises everyone by being at the meeting with Claudia.
The outing the next day gets off to a rough start and is plenty chaotic, but overall it goes well. All of the kids enjoy the carnival, and afterwards they have lunch at the playground, then go to Claudia's house to make Mother's Day cards.
When Kristy and her siblings get home afterwards, their parents sit them down for an announcement: They've decided to adopt a child. Apparently they've been working at it for awhile, but didn't want to tell the kids until there was a sure thing. After a few disappointments, they have now officially adopted a 2 year old Vietnamese girl, Emily Michelle. She's coming home the next day.
While Watson and Elizabeth are at the airport, Kristy invites the BSC over. With the help of Kristy's siblings, they make cookies and a sign to welcome the new family member. Emily Michelle ends up being asleep when she gets home, but Kristy is excited anyway, thinking about how this will finally bring the two sides of the family together.
Timeline:
Spring of 8th grade. Having seasons and an actual time of year is now apparently a thing again.
My thoughts:
This was actually a really sweet book, and I enjoyed reading it. For the first time in awhile, I was liking Kristy's character again. She was really trying to be a better person after all the drama lately, so she has learned something. After the recent club fight about her being too bossy, she kept trying really hard to tone it down during this book. She was also constantly reminding herself to ask other people's opinions and make everything a democracy in the BSC. There was some good stuff with her and her family too. She was very kind with them, and acted reassuring and positive about the new baby even when she wasn't sure she liked it. What a big change from how she acted about her mom and Watson getting engaged! This time instead of acting like a kid and throwing tantrums, she was reassuring the younger kids and smoothing things over.
All of this got me thinking about how Kristy gets a lot of hate for how she runs the BSC so strictly, even ordering the other members around at times. I think it makes sense that she clings to the BSC so hard and is so protective over it, though. Even if the theory that she's gay isn't true, she's still having the hardest time growing up out of anyone. She doesn't want anything else in her life to change, and she doesn't want to be left behind. If the gay theory is true, all of this stands even more. She'd feel babyish and younger than everyone else, confused about why they were so into boys all of a sudden when she's still just not. Without that interest, she would have different priorities and trouble relating to her friends, but not yet know why. Plus without crushes and dating to obsess over, friends play an even stronger role in growing up. She would be terrified to lose those bonds to something new (boys, for all the other girls) that she doesn't share in or understand. Kristy also states in this book that she feels left out of her own family, which is a terrible feeling and would also contribute. I know none of this specifically relates to the plot of this book, but in the last few books she was outrageously bossy, even for her, and we didn't have her POV until now.
I also think Kristy talked herself into the crush on Bart more than anything else. She obviously noticed his good looks, and since they had similar interests it was easy to convince herself of feelings that weren't really there. After all, she didn't even know him when she just "decided" she had a big crush on him. Since then, neither of them has made any effort. It sounds like they haven't even seen each other since the game in #20. They still aren't even friends yet.
When Watson and Elizabeth first ask the kids about having another child, Kristy thinks about how her mom could be pregnant because she's only in her late 30s. In another book though, she said her mom was 37 and she thought that was too old to have a baby. She also says her mom had Charlie, who is 17, right after graduating from college. That math doesn't add up at all, unless she means junior college. Sounds to me like a fib her mom has always told the kids so they would wait until after college themselves.
One of the things I liked about this book was that Stacey came back for it. We haven't seen her in awhile, and she livens things up. It was really cute how much she and Claudia missed each other. I also noticed by contrast that Kristy and Mary Anne don't seem very close anymore. They never hang out or even talk one on one. Neither thinks about the other while narrating either. Mary Anne seems a lot closer to Dawn now. I wonder if this is all intentional and whether it will change later on.
There was a weird bit at the beginning of this book where Kristy was discussing different types of families, and she mentions that she thinks of her Nannie (her maternal grandmother) as a one person family? I was really confused by this comment. She's Kristy's grandma...she's obviously a part of their huge family. A 13 year old doesn't think family is just who you happen to live with....
Misc:
*It says in here that Dawn doesn't eat meat, but in the last book she said she did, and she ate fish numerous times in CA.
*I thought it was crummy of Mary Anne to interrupt everyone's discussion of Mother's Day plans to say she never has to think of them. That isn't their fault, way to make everything SUPER awkward.
*Sam's joke "your epidermis is showing" to Karen made me laugh. I so learned that from these books and did it to my younger siblings.
*It's bizarre to read these now and find myself sympathizing with the adults. I never thought about them one way or the other when I was a kid, they were basically just background.
*The family dinner gets interrupted when Boo Boo brings a live mole into the dining room?? That's horrifying. Their house really is like a circus...
*I've noticed that no one has friends outside the BSC anymore, which isn't healthy at all. Hopefully that's going to change.
*Not sure why Elizabeth freaked out so much over Kristy's invitation for the day off. Karen and Andrew are barely even at the house with them, and again, they constantly have sitters. She gets a lot of days off.
*Stacey mentions her parents have been fighting a lot. They're already setting up for the divorce and her return.
*Jessi and Stacey meet for the first time in this book
*Stacey surprising Charlotte Johansson at the outing, and then their reunion after, was adorable. I got a little emotional, I will admit.
*Mimi, Claudia's grandmother, is deteriorating, which sets up another upcoming book.
*Karen got scared during the carnival haunted house and had to use the emergency exit, go figure. If only she could remember this moment when trying to terrify other kids.
*In the book list in the back, #26 is called Claudia and Mimi
Books mentioned:
none
My rating:
4 stars, this was a good one with a lot going for it.
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