Thoughts before reading:
I never read this one growing up, and not terribly excited to now. This sounds like a rehash of old problems to me. I'd love to see them mix things up instead, by finding another decent club member now. I know we eventually get Abby as a replacement, but they could have added someone now and still had her join later. These books always act like it's impossible to find any decent sitters besides the current BSC members, despite there being a few hundred options at SMS. At least this is a Jessi book about something other than ballet...
I love that one of Claudia's junk food paintings is on the wall on the cover! It's nice when they add little touches from the books.
The basics:
Jessi is at home sitting for Becca and Squirt, and she decides to invite her new friend Wendy over to join them. Everyone has a great time together: it turns out Wendy's great with kids, and they both really like her.
Things at the BSC have been really busy since Dawn left. They have two crazy busy meetings in a row, taking in more calls than they can handle. Mallory's out sick, too exhausted to take any jobs. Jessi suggests Wendy as a potential new member, telling them about how great she was with her siblings. Kristy agrees to have Wendy come to a meeting, then a practice job. She ends up paired with Jessi to sit for the Barretts, and she really impresses Jessi during it, securing her a place in the BSC.
Things go quickly downhill from there though. Wendy shows up for her first official BSC meeting at 5:55, and is angry that they didn't schedule her for any jobs. (It's a club rule that they don't schedule members for jobs if they miss a meeting or are late and no one knows about it beforehand.) She's also taken an outside sitting job, for one of her neighbors, without going through the club, which is against BSC rules. This job is also the reason she was late.
Mrs. Pike hires two sitters so she can take Mallory to the doctor, since she isn't feeling any better. Jessi and Wendy get the job, but Wendy is late yet again, so Jessi has to call Mary Anne over at the last minute. Wendy shows up later, and doesn't understand what the big deal is. She had gotten a job watching her neighbor's baby at the last minute.
Wendy ends up quitting the BSC because she doesn't want to have to deal with following so many rules. Jessi wants to remain friends though, so the two girls work things out between them at least. Shannon agrees to be the alternate officer until Dawn comes back.
There's two side plots in here as well. One is just some of the BSC charges making a video to send to Dawn: an original play that ends up being Snow White mixed with Captain Planet. It's a success, just like almost all BSC projects. Dawn also sends them a video she made, a virtual tour of California. The BSC girls all hang out together to watch it and call Dawn.
In the second, Jessi witnesses Margo Pike stealing a troll ring from a store. She confronts her and makes her promise to tell her parents, but she never does. Jessi's unsure of what to do, but eventually tells Mal, who talks to her sister about it again. Margo then admits to her mom that she's stolen several things, just to see if she could. They take her back to the store together to confess and pay for the items.
Timeline:
It's October, nearing Halloween.
Misc. thoughts:
*Ghostwritten by Suzanne Weyn
*Squirt gets a monopoly token in his mouth while Jessi's sitting, and she thankfully gets it out in time. Pretty close call though. What if she couldn't, and he actually choked on it? This is why you don't leave babies with 11 year old's...
*I remember the Flipper tv show! (Some of the kids watch it in here.)
*Mal's been feeling tired and run down for awhile, and is late to a BSC meeting because she falls asleep. Setting up her mono, although she doesn't get a diagnosis in here yet.
*Kristy says 8 BSC members would be too many, but why? It's only one more, and there's been a lot of times where they had to rely on Logan and Shannon due to being so busy. Not to mention times when a member needs some time off.
*The Hills are still clients. I had wondered if they would be at one point.
*The Pikes win yet another parenting award in my book for leaving Mal and Jessi to sit for all the other kids while Mal's too sick and tired to even stay awake. Is it just too much to ask that one of the parents stay home and care for their own kids more? They chose to have 8 freaking kids! Mal didn't choose to be stuck dealing with parenting 7 kids while still a kid herself.
*The Barrett kids start the video idea because they miss Dawn, which I thought was really cute.
*I used to love the troll dolls too. We've now gotten up to all kinds of good 90s nostalgia!
*I had to look up what the hell Nok hockey was. Turns out it's basically just tabletop hockey, with a big wooden board to play on.
*On pg 103 there's an error where a quote mark is used before narration.
*Jeff considers himself a "major Deadhead", LOL...
*Dawn's enjoying California so far, and has joined the We 💓 Kids Club.
*This is another book with a misleading title. Wendy's not a bad babysitter at all. She was actually great with kids. She's just more of a normal kid than the others in the BSC: not very punctual, laid back, resents following rules, wants to have fun and do other things besides babysitting and attending meetings. She also doesn't want to turn all her own clients over to the BSC; she'd rather do things her own way. I think that's pretty reasonable, and a problem plenty of new members could have. If people are asking her to sit on short notice and she says no, they'll just ask someone else. The BSC isn't really designed to accommodate requests like that, and I know there are times the other girls have had to do similar things. Plus people who have already been using Wendy as a sitter might not want a stranger instead, or appreciate being told to wait and call a meeting during a certain time instead.
*Of course, the BSC does need some rules to run smoothly, but a lot of them could be relaxed or adjusted. It's no wonder all the new members are people who are new to town. The only non-founding member who wasn't is Mallory, but she was too young to have had clients of her own.
*I also can't blame Wendy for getting angry. No one actually even sat her down and explained the rules, then she has Kristy snapping at her for breaking them. She's not a mind reader, and Kristy could have been way nicer about things, as usual. Plus I just naturally wanted to defend Wendy because everyone was so hard on her! Kristy says she can't believe Jessi would even be friends with her, and Jessi calls her a loner (?) and gets annoyed when Wendy's sharp with Kristy.
*This was all too bad, because I thought it was nice that someone had a new friend. Do we ever hear about her and Jessi being pals again after this?
*If Shannon's a regular member for now, why doesn't she get regular series books, at least until Abby takes over? That would've been interesting.
Books mentioned:
*The Enormous Crocodile, by Roald Dahl
*Grimm's Fairy Tales
My rating:
3.5 stars. I enjoyed this one, but the stuff about the video play really dragged. I'm tired of reading about productions...
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