Thoughts before reading:
This book is one of my old favorites! I still have my childhood copy, one of only a small handful I held on to from way back when. I've read it countless times, even re-reading it during high school when I was feeling a little BSC nostalgia. When I started this project, this was one of the ones I was most looking forward to re-visiting. Hopefully it still holds up, at least some.
I'd always liked this cover before, but looking at it closer now, it's a bit off. The house looks appropriately eerie, and I love the old early 90s sweaters. Charlotte's hands look really bizarre though, so that's a bit distracting from everything else.
For some reason I've always thought that Ann M. Martin wrote the first 35 books, and then the rest were ghostwritten, so I was very surprised to see this one was ghostwritten by Ellen Miles. I looked into it and the first one she didn't write herself was #23, so I missed a few already. Apparently AMM wrote the outline of every book and looked over the final drafts though. From now on I'll be mentioning the ghostwriters, something I'd meant to do when I started. I just didn't realize they came into the picture so early on.
The basics:
Stacey has just returned from spending a weekend in NYC with her dad, and is now at the Monday BSC meeting. All the other girls are discussing an old house on Elm Street that's being torn down, because it's a historical landmark and has been a part of the town for a long time. Stacey lives on that street, but still isn't very interested and wonders what the big deal is. The discussion is cut short anyway when the Johanssens call with a special request. Mr. Johanssen's father is having surgery and they will be going out of town for a week. Since they don't want Charlotte at the hospital instead of in school, they're hoping she can stay with either Stacey or Jessi. Stacey's mom gives permission, and she's thrilled to accept the job. She rushes home and fixes up their guest room for Charlotte.
The job starts out rocky though, and Stacey's disappointed. Charlotte isn't excited to be staying with her. Instead she's crying a lot and upset over her parents leaving and her grandpa being sick. She does like the room though, and Stacey still works hard at cheering her up. They play games and read books, and Stacey patiently answers all of her questions.
The following day, Stacey takes Charlotte to see the old house as a distraction. Despite her earlier lack of interest, she thinks it's a neat old place when she sees it up close. Her and Charlotte poke around outside until they start hearing weird moaning noises. Stacey then sees a face in one of the windows and a huge fly swarm near the porch. She's reminded of the Amityville Horror and gets spooked. They both run home.
Charlotte gets to attend the BSC meetings during the week her parents are gone, which she's thrilled about. Everyone is extra kind to her, and Kristy even lets her wear the visor and answer the phone. Stacey and Charlotte fill everyone else in on what they saw at the old house too, causing even more interest. Not long after, Kristy is babysitting at her own house, and she finds an old map inside a book Watson bought from an estate sale. Based on the map, she determines the whole town of Stoneybrook was built on an ancient burial ground, with the Elm St. house right over an especially sacred spot.
This new discovery gets everyone really worked up over their "mystery", but Stacey also has her hands even more full with Charlotte. The poor kid has started feeling ill, and finds out she has tonsillitis again. While Charlotte's recovering, Kristy brings the books over so she and Stacey can look through them too. Stacey's not convinced there is even a mystery to solve, but she's grateful Charlotte's busy and distracted by playing detective.
Claudia takes the Perkins girls to the library for story hour on a sitting job. While she's there, she does some research of her own, and learns the house's owner, Ronald Hennessey, is still alive and living in a Stoneybrook nursing home.
Once Charlotte is feeling better, Stacey takes her back by the house. This time, they see flames inside that mysteriously vanish. Both girls have nightmares about the house that night. Kristy calls an emergency BSC meeting so they can deal with the mystery better, and it's decided that they will pay a visit to Mr. Hennessey. Some of them go the next day, and he tells them a bunch of scary stories about the house that seem far fetched to Stacey, then warns them to be careful.
The next day, the house is finally being demolished for good. Everyone goes to watch, so Stacey takes Charlotte. Nobody sees anything unusual except for Stacey, who sees flames and an old man calling to her for help. A strange feeling comes over her when the vision fades away. She then runs back to the nursing home, only to find out Mr. Hennessey passed away last night. He did leave her a note though, saying he made up all the stories because he was happy to have young visitors, and wanted to entertain them.
When Stacey tells the other BSC girls the news, Kristy tells her that Sam and Charlie heard about their mystery and spoke to some of the workmen. By talking to them, they learned the weird noises were pipes, the flies were a beehive, and the inside fire and face in the window were a worker using a torch to remove fixtures. Everything but the fire and old man Stacey saw during the demolition is explained, so she decides she just imagined it.
That evening, Charlotte's parents return home. Her grandpa is doing well and will recover, and Charlotte excitedly tells her parents about her eventful week.
Timeline:
School is back in session already, somehow. This book spans almost exactly 1 week.
My thoughts:
This was a lot different than the other books so far. It read like a goosebumps book, with some baby-sitting thrown in. The plot was strange too, with so much build up that ultimately lead to nothing. I'm sure the intention was just to make sure young readers wouldn't get too scared, but it just came across oddly now. It's hard to even say for sure what the "mystery" all the BSC girls were so worked up over even was. I guess the mystery of if the house was haunted? If so they mostly find out the answer is no, which means there wasn't a lot of point to this story. Plus the whole aspect of the entire freaking town being built over an ancient burial ground is just forgotten. Once they hear the worker's side of the story, no one is worried about that little problem anymore. I wonder if it's mentioned again in any of the other books?
That being said, I couldn't help but enjoy this book. Once I started reading it, everything was so familiar, and I even started remembering the little moments, and how they influenced me as a kid. That's always the best part of re-reading a childhood favorite. This was undeniably entertaining too. I enjoyed Stacey's point of view a lot, and I could see how this sort of book got me going on the road to being the big horror fan I am now. Don't get me wrong, this is very mild spooky stuff, but to a 7 year old, it's scary.
The best part of this read was Stacey herself, hands down. She's an absolute star in this book, mostly with regards to how she handles Charlotte. No matter how difficult Char got, Stacey was so patient, kind, and sweet with her. She takes her own disappointment in stride, swallowing it to give Charlotte what she needs. All of her free time this whole week goes to playing endless games with her, caring for her when she's sick, reading to her, and finding new ways to distract her when she gets down. One of Stacey's really stand out moments comes when Charlotte is whining and having a complete fit about taking her medicine. Instead of losing her patience even a little, Stacey shows her all of her diabetes equipment. She explains how she has to prick her finger and give herself shots, as well as watch her diet. All of this makes swallowing medicine seem like no big deal, and Charlotte gladly takes it. By the time Charlotte returns home, Stacey feels closer to her as a "sister" than ever, not at all put out by how things turned out.
There was also a scene in the beginning that served as more evidence that Stacey definitely isn't spoiled. She's actually surprisingly down to earth, particularly for a rich, privileged kid. (Even though the books never call her rich, her parents had a big apartment in NYC, on a single income. There are also other hints that I've mentioned before. I think Stacey just doesn't think of herself as rich, so we never hear about it the way we constantly hear about Watson.) I'm getting a little off track here, so back to the scene: Stacey goes to a designer store in NYC with her dad. He tells her to pick out anything in the store that she wants. Despite this free reign, she bypasses the awesome suede jacket she really wants for a pair of heart sunglasses, because she doesn't want to take advantage of the situation. For a teenage girl who loves shopping, this is very impressive self control!
Misc:
*There was another chapter in here about Morbidda Destiny and Ben Brewer. I know it was to go with the spooky theme, but yawn. It's so overdone. Save it for the Little Sister books at least...
*Apparently Watson has a huge library in his mansion, with thousands of books and big comfy armchairs?! Why have we never heard about this until now? I'm so freaking jealous.
*When Kristy goes through the old books Watson got from the estate sale, we also learn a little more about Stoneybrook:
*The Brewer family has lived there for a long time.
*In 1988 there was a great blizzard, and people could walk out of their second story windows into the snow.
*There was a funny scene where Stacey took Charlotte to the pediatrician, and was looking at an old Highlights magazine to see if it had changed from what she remembered. A hot guy walks by and sees her reading it, and she's totally embarrassed. Leave it to Stacey to even find a hot guy at a doctor's office, LOL...
*This type of plot had all the BSC girls really acting their age, which was nice to see.
*I loved this book so much as a kid that I read all the books mentioned in it growing up, except the Oz one.
Books mentioned:
*Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White
*The Long Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
*Summer of My German Soldier, by Bette Greene
*Ozma of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
*Highlights for Children magazine
*Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, by Virginia Lee Burton
*The Little House, by Virginia Lee Burton
My rating:
4 stars. This went absolutely nowhere, but I had a blast reading it anyway, because of the intense nostalgia.
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