Thoughts before reading:
I've never read this before, but I'm already wary. So far I haven't been enjoying the super specials at all. The second one wasn't too bad, but this one sounds just as ridiculous as the first. In this book, apparently the whole school is invited to a lodge, and this happens every year? That's some public school! Of course, we've never heard about any of this before. Also, it's somehow winter again already, even though the last super special was summer vacation, just a few books ago.
I don't love the super special formula anyway, so my expectations would be low no matter what the plot was. It would be better to just read the regular series, but that ruins the whole continuity aspect, which was a big part of my project.
The basics:
Every year in winter the SMS students have a mandatory (?) trip to a ski lodge in Vermont. The trip is free, and it's during a school week, not even vacation. Groups of kids from 3 other schools will also be staying at the lodge with them- 2 junior highs and 1 elementary. Everyone from the BSC is going, except for Logan, who's family is going to Aruba that week.
The girls have barely arrived at the lodge when they learn one of the elementary school buses crashed in the bad weather. Kristy volunteers the BSC to go help save the kids, and somehow the adults in charge allow this. They go with the rescuers to help keep the kids calm and organized. All the kids turn out to be fine, just scared, but both of their chaperoning teachers are injured. This means there is now no one to watch the 16 children, but the BSC steps in again. They are allowed to be in charge of all the kids for the week. The lodge even offers to pay them, but Kristy declines. Mrs. George, the lodge owner, is so touched by this she cries. All the BSC girls are then moved into an empty dorm together, where they will be staying with all the kids.
While helping with the children all week, each girl also has her own separate storyline. Mary Anne has volunteered to be "trip historian", so she has to do research on the lodge. While doing so, she uncovers a story about a ghost that's supposed to haunt it. She's also obsessively missing Logan, pining over him, and worrying about him meeting beautiful girls in Aruba. The book we're reading is everyone making journal entries for a book about the trip she's making for Logan.
Jessi's watching the one kid from the bus that got hurt, and staying indoors with her. The little girl, Pinky, is a total brat. She constantly orders Jessi around and even calls her names, but Jessi just lets her. She also assumes the girl's mean to her because she's black. We later find out the girl is just mean to everyone because she's lonely, with no real resolution.
Stacey meets a French boy named Pierre while she's skiing. He literally runs into her, and she gets a massive crush. They spend the whole week together, and attend the final dance as a couple. There aren't any other specific details though, because Stacey only gets 3 short chapters.
Mallory is playing spy again, like she did on the Disneyworld cruise (SS #1). She creeps around all week watching random people and making assumptions about them based on what she sees. There's even a scene where she tries to watch Stacey and Pierre kissing. Other than this, she spends her whole week worrying about the dance. Of course, it turns out fine, and she has her first ever dance with a boy.
Dawn falls down during the skating relay race, a part of the annual winter color war consisting of several different competitions in winter sports. She's mortified, and gets teased about it by her team. After this terrible day, she goes to tell Mary Anne about it, but MA can only think about Logan. They end up in a fight for most of the week, only ending when Dawn apologizes.
Kristy, predictably, gets super competitive over the color war activities. She gets mad at Claudia for not picking her team's snow sculpture, resulting in them fighting for most of the week. Then she pushes a kid to compete in the cross country ski when he doesn't want to, and he ends up breaking his ankle! After this she at least feels bad about her bossiness, but we all know it doesn't change.
Claudia gets a huge crush on her ski teacher, Guy. After spending the week taking lessons from him and obsessing, she finds out he's married with 2 kids. She's heartbroken, because apparently she thought she had a chance with a guy this much older than her?
Timeline:
A week during the winter, second time through 8th and 6th grades.
My thoughts:
Well, I can't help but start off by saying that this was my least favorite BSC book so far. It was an absolute mess of bizarre plots, thrown together with about 90% filler. Somehow it managed to be insane and dull simultaneously. I think the author just tried so hard to make the super specials different from the other books that she abandoned the things that made the other books work. Either that or the publisher was requesting certain elements, and she had no idea what to do with them.
Once again, the plot of this is on such a shaky premise I think only 8 year old's would accept it. The fact that this lodge hosts so many kids from so many schools for free is completely unbelievable. They might be trying to do a nice thing, but just think of the expenses involved. Plus remember, this is done every single year. Even worse, how can SMS make this field trip mandatory? That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. A lot of parents wouldn't want their kids going, for a variety of reasons. The trip may happen during a regular school week, but they don't take classes or do one single educational thing, so why is it mandatory? What exactly would happen if a kid didn't go? It says in here they have to have a very good excuse not to (like a trip to Aruba, apparently). On this particular year the weather is also really bad, so what an insane liability! Why would school officials even allow the trip if that was the case? Imagine what would happen if anything went wrong, on a mandatory school trip, in a freaking blizzard. On a school bus, in a rural area. It blows my mind.
Which brings me to the bus crash of elementary school kids. I know they want to fit some babysitting into every book, but this was the choice method? Yikes, speaking of liabilities. These kids get into an accident in the middle of nowhere, but none of them are taken to a hospital. Instead, they are turned over to the care of the BSC girls, who are just older kids. Just think of everything that could go wrong! There could be endless problems with 16 kids, especially overnight. The dorm is co-ed, even, just the BSC members and all the kids. What parent would be comfortable with this arrangement? Why isn't there at least one teacher chaperoning and staying nights in that room? The remaining 3 schools at the lodge can't spare 1 teacher? High school kids are heavily chaperoned on school trips, and these girls are only 11-13. I also have no idea why the lodge owner would offer to pay them for babysitting. They are already hosting all these kids for free, so why would they also pay more money to have them stay?
There were so many other cringe worthy moments in here beyond this too. I couldn't believe Mallory hadn't outgrown her spy game by now, and it was really creepy that she was trying to watch Stacey kiss a boy. Mal has always been practical and level headed, so I don't know why this book turned her into an idiot. At least on the cruise she was only 10 and still being babysat when she played this game. The whole thing with Claudia and Guy was awful too. We aren't told how old he is, but the fact that he turned out to be a married father of two had my skin crawling. He didn't hit on her or anything, but she was so obsessed with him the whole book that this revelation was still hard to take.
Now, with all of this craziness it probably sounds like there was a lot happening in here, but that wasn't even the case. Most of this book was obvious filler, and I struggled constantly not to start skimming. We have to read about ghost stories people tell, what skits everyone does for the talent show, all the winter color war contests, Mary Anne writing letters to Logan she never sends, an entire skit plot MA comes up with that isn't even used for anything, and a bunch of stuff about a ghost that goes nowhere. After talking to a bunch of people and doing a lot of research, we never find out why this is important. No one sees the ghost, or even has a storyline where they are even remotely affected. It felt like anything was just thrown in to fill space and pad the page count. There was even recycled plots from the other super specials, pretty sad, since this is only #3. Stacey and Claudia can be more dynamic than falling for a new boy any time they leave town, and Mallory is too old to play Harriet the Spy anymore. C'mon, I did that same thing, when I was about...8 or 9? She's supposed to be helping her friends watch 16 children.
Misc:
*382 kids from SMS attend the trip
*Dawn compares the lodge to the Overlook Hotel from the Shining?! How many kids reading the BSC would really have seen that movie? I never would have been allowed to watch it back then.
*There's so much handwriting to read in here, it got old by chapter 2.
*At least the storyline wasn't separated into 7 completely different plots, like some of the other SS books. The girls interacted with each other more in here, although unfortunately most of it was to fight. Speaking of which, it really is starting to annoy me how these girls can never take a trip without fighting over the most petty things. They aren't grateful at all to be on these trips, or be so privileged. I would have killed to have had even one of their opportunities when I was growing up.
*This book had sketches, which could have been interesting, except that they were of the most pointless things, like a chef's hat or skis. At the end of the book Mary Anne says she drew them for Logan and isn't much of an artist. Why wouldn't she have asked Claudia for help?
*There was a passage I liked in here though, from Jessi:
"One thing I've learned is that everybody, even the people you like best in the world, have faults, or do things that bug you. If you want to remain friends with those people, then you choose to overlook their faults." (pg 138)
Good advice for kids.
*Mary Anne is the worst in this book, in ways I've already mentioned, and other small ways. When she's thinking up her own skit, she wants to cast a girl named Kara because she says "She was sort of a feminist anyway, so she would be apt to get riled up when she thought her boyfriend treated her unfairly." (pg 161) Uhm, WTF? Why wouldn't any girl get upset when someone treats her unfairly? That has nothing to do with being a feminist. Clearly Mary Anne isn't one, both for this line of thinking, and because she doesn't get upset no matter how Logan treats her. This is a terrible thing to teach little girls.
*This book was the first time Logan and Mary Anne say they love each other, at least that we've been told.
*Apparently Claudia is an amazing skier? How random is that? She's never even done anything athletic before.
*At the end of this book, we get some fat shaming from Mary Anne that caused me to knock another half star off the rating. Some boys on the bus are singing a mean song about a fat girl, and Mary Anne's comment? Instead of being upset about the hurtful teasing, she writes: "The song didn't prevent Ethel from eating three snickers bars on the way home." (pg 227) Way to teach kids that fat people just bring problems and teasing on themselves, and have no self control.
Books mentioned:
*Matilda, by Roald Dahl
My rating:
1.5 stars. If you're re-reading these for fun, definitely skip this. It'll ruin your momentum. Hopefully I can salvage mine, because I still have a LONG way to go...
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