Thoughts before reading:
I've never read this before, and I don't know anything about it going in. The babysitting plots aren't my favorite though, and this sounds a BSC member meets and magically fixes a family type of book. Those are my absolute least favorite. At least the foster kid aspect is something slightly different.
No idea what's going on in this cover scene, haha, but I guess this would grab a kid's attention.
The basics:
Kristy's at home babysitting for all her younger siblings, plus Karen has her friends Hannie and Nancy over. Hannie announces that her parents are taking in a foster child. The other kids aren't sure what that means exactly, but after Kristy explains everyone is excited about it. When the big day arrives, Kristy and David Michael head outside to watch the new child, Lou, arrive. Right away they're surprised by her behavior: she climbs right over the top of her social worker's car, for instance. When she comes over to play with Hannie, she's really quiet and just stands back watching the other kids. Kristy gets annoyed because she just shrugs when spoken to.
Mary Anne ends up babysitting for David Michael on a day that he has Linny and Lou over to play. (Linny is Hannie's older brother.) She loses control of the kids after Lou and Linny decide to leave for the playground, despite her telling them no. To stop them, she has to physically hold Lou by the arm, but after threatening to send her home, Lou does end up playing ball with the boys and staying in the yard.
Kristy ends up sitting for Lou and the Papadakis kids again, and gets Lou to open up some about her family by telling Lou about how her father abandoned the family and never stays in touch. Despite the fact that Lou was giving her a hard time during the job, Kristy comes to have a lot of sympathy for her, realizing that they are similar. With less luck she could have ended up right where Lou is.
Despite the small breakthrough, things with Lou continue to be tough. Karen, Hannie, and Nancy are building a playhouse in Kristy's yard, which Lou keeps insulting. She's also been tormenting everyone's pets. During a job with Dawn, she flicks brownie batter into Hannie's hair. Lou ends up having a breakdown, crying and telling Dawn about how everyone she's ever loved left her. Even her dog ran away. Dawn realizes that's why she pesters the animals and tests the people: to keep them from getting too close to her.
While Kristy's sitting for the Papadakis family again, Lou's social worker comes by. Lou's beyond excited, thinking they found her mother, and has a meltdown when she learns that instead her and her brother will be going to live with an Aunt and Uncle. After Kristy leaves their house, Lou goes missing. David Michael also finds Karen's playhouse trashed, clearly Lou's handiwork. Everyone goes out looking for her, and Kristy ends up being the one to find her, after remembering her mention liking the stream and park near her old house.
The Papadakises throw Lou a party to celebrate her new family, and her Aunt, Uncle, and brother Jay all come. Lou's happy and playful around Jay, like an entirely different kid. Her Aunt and Uncle give her a puppy of her own too, a rescue lab, to Lou's delight.
The BSC members mail cards to Lou at her new house, and she writes back to Kristy that she named her dog Happy, has her own room now, and gets to decorate it how she likes.
Meanwhile, SMS is holding an auction to raise money to buy new computers. Kristy has the idea to try to get autographed items from famous people to donate. She's also really worried that Cokie will have a better donation than her. Luckily her plan comes through, and she ends up getting an autographed t-shirt from a musician to donate. Jessi gets toe shoes from a famous ballerina, Mallory an autographed book set and a blanket from a horse that won the Kentucky Derby, Stacey a baseball signed by the whole team, and Mary Anne gets Cam Geary's jacket. The celebrity items donated by the BSC are the hit of the auction, but the highest ticket item of the event is their donation of 24 hours of babysitting. (Yeah right! Exactly how much do these girls charge per hour??)
Timeline:
Nothing's mentioned about the time of year.
Misc. thoughts:
*Ghostwritten by Nola Thacker
*Sam still delivers groceries for the A&P, good continuity.
*Claudia has a box of frosted flakes hidden in her room, haha! That's a new one...
*This book makes a big deal at first about how no one knows if Lou is a boy or a girl, because she has short spikey hair and gender neutral clothes. This definitely wouldn't fly today. It felt really dated and awkward to me.
*Kristy and Mary Anne actually hang out together for fun! It's been a long time.
*I thought it was harsh of Kristy to think Lou was rude at first just because she wasn't talking to anyone and seemed sullen. (This was at the beginning, before she became a terror.) Kristy doesn't have any idea what this kid has been through, or anything about her.
*Lou ended up in foster care because her father recently died. Her mother took off on the family when she was little. Jay's in a separate foster home.
*This book says Mary Anne never says anything mean about anyone. LOL, right.
*Maybe since the Papadakises now have a troubled foster child, they shouldn't be hiring 11-13 year old babysitters? Seems like a no brainer to me.
*According to Kristy, the Papadakises have an ancient monopoly set from when Mrs. P was a kid, with colored wooden pieces. I remember being so young that you think that way...
*I really didn't think Lou was that bad, all things considered. She's defiant and stubborn, and mouths off a lot, but it could be a lot worse. The BSC just considers her the worst kid ever because she doesn't listen to everything they say, like every other kid in the BSC-verse does.
*This is the type of plot where I'd have loved a scene where Kristy goes to her mom or Watson for advice. Of course, the adults are barely around, and this doesn't happen.
*The celebrity items plot was pretty far fetched. They should have just had Derek Masters send them some items...
*Are the Papadakises going to be foster parents now, or was this a one time thing? If so, that's pretty odd.
Books mentioned:
*The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
*A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
*The Great Gilly Hopkins, by Katherine Paterson (Kristy gives it to Lou as a goodbye gift)
My rating:
3 stars. Fairly well done, but the auction parts were really boring. This was also sadder and darker than I expected.
No comments:
Post a Comment