Thoughts before reading:
I read and owned this book during the height of my BSC obsession, but I don't have my old copy anymore. It was never an absolute favorite, but I read it enough to still remember the basic plot. This was one of the more realistic mysteries, which I appreciated even back then. I also know I enjoyed this, but not specifically what about it I liked. Possibly it was just the fact that it was a Claudia book, since she was always one of my favorites. (Thanks to her, I tried to be an artist for years of my childhood. I was absolutely terrible.)
This is a good Claudia cover too. I love her outfit, and the cheesy mirror effect it has going on.
The basics:
Claudia returns home one day to find her room rummaged through. It was already messy before, but she just knows it's messy in a different way than how she recalls leaving it. Not long after, she's stunned to see Janine come down to family breakfast wearing clumsily applied eye shadow and nail polish. The whole family notices, but doesn't comment. Then one night Janine is hours late to dinner, something unheard of before.
Janine then asks Claudia to help her with a makeover. Claudia's even more shocked, since she's never shown any interest in her appearance before, but she does agree to help. She gives Janine some pretty tame, basic tips, and Janine ends up loving them. Her behavior continues to change as well. For the first time ever, Janine gets grounded, because she was caught at Pizza Express when she said she was going to the library. Claudia starts to enjoy being the "good kid" for a change, and begins to suck up to their parents a bit.
The other news in Stoneybrook: Derek Masters is back in town, and his show is more popular than ever. Kristy's nervous about sitting for him now, because of his growing fame, but of course when she does he's still just a normal kid. He's also struggling a bit because of an upcoming storyline on his show where he will have to kiss a girl. Derek starts covering up his anxiety by acting macho, telling his friends that he's done a lot of kissing already, so it's no big deal. He's even going to "demonstrate" with Becca and Charlotte. Thankfully Stacey is sitting at the time, and puts a stop to it.
Claudia decides that Derek is the perfect person to help her solve the Janine mystery, because he was on a tv show called Kid Detectives. (Interesting logic, but very Claudia...) She fills him in on what's been going on at her house, and together they start following Janine around town, making a game out of it. On one such excursion, they watch her meet a cute boy outside of the high school. Despite this, Claudia still doesn't figure out what's going on....
Derek and his brother, Todd, love playing detective so much that they start requesting Claudia as their sitter. (Surprisingly, Kristy allows it.) Next, under the guise of getting Janine to help Derek with his civics homework, they call Janine over during Claud's sitting job and stage a courtroom drama. The idea behind this is to make a huge deal over the importance of honesty, thinking Janine will feel pressured to confess everything. Instead, Derek ends up breaking down and admitting to them that he's never kissed a girl before. This also prompts him to admit the truth later to his friends, who assure him they already knew, and were just egging him on to mess with him. (Hence the "demonstrations".)
Since the set up was a huge bust, Claudia resumes following her sister around. This time she sees her meet up with the cute boy outside the high school, get into his car, and drive off. Later that evening she overhears Janine telling their parents she was at the library all day. Claudia's still surprised to catch her lying openly, and starts to think about how Janine could get into trouble or be in danger, and no one would even know where she was to find her. She realizes she has to tell their parents, not to get her in trouble, but because it's the right thing to do for everyone. They listen seriously, then talk to Janine about it. She finally admits she has a boyfriend, but she lied because she just wanted to keep it to herself for awhile, since it was so new. The Kishis ground her for two weeks for lying, but are happy for her that she found someone, and invite him over for dinner.
The dinner goes very well, and her boyfriend, Jerry, turns out to be nice and polite. Everyone likes him a lot, including Claudia. Janine's furious with Claud for spying on her though, but after the dinner she thaws a bit. They end up talking about Jerry, boys, and even kissing, sharing a nice sister bonding moment.
After all the drama Derek's kissing storyline has caused, it ends up getting cancelled. The show writers decide the character is too young.
Timeline:
No clues about time of year, other than that school is in session.
Misc. thoughts:
*I liked that we got to see more of the Kishi family, plus their routines and dynamics. They mostly seem like good, normal parents, and one of the better BSC families.
*It was also nice to see Janine humanized/given another side to her character. It's certainly taken awhile.
*Becca and Charlotte are both supposed to be really shy, so they seem like a strange choice for the kissing demonstration. I can't picture either girl ever agreeing to this.
*How the hell busy is Bradford Court that Janine never notices Claudia, Derek, and Todd all following her in broad daylight?? Not to mention the fact that Todd is only four, so he isn't going to be a very quiet spy...
*I'm really not sure Derek and Todd's parents would appreciate this detective game that Claudia's teaching them. I wonder if they ever tell them about it. Definitely one of the worst examples set by a babysitter so far in the series...
*What 8 year old has civics homework?
*At one point, when the Pike triplets are messing with Derek, they pay Vanessa to kiss him so they can watch. Even if they think he probably wouldn't go through with it, that's really creepy and weird. She's their little sister. Not only should they be protecting her, not loaning her out, but they want to watch it?? Ick.
*For some reason I remembered the courtroom drama scene really well once I started reading it. Must have been really exciting stuff when I was eight.
*Ghostwritten by Ellen Miles.
*Claudia definitely did the right thing by telling on Janine, since she did it for the right reasons. Her thought process about how she could get into trouble and no one would even know where she was is surprisingly mature for Claudia. I don't blame Janine for being pissed that her little sister was spying on her though, and the Kishis should have still had a talk with Claud about privacy and snooping.
*One of the best parts of this was getting to see Claudia and Janine get a little closer, and do some bonding. I've always thought that as adults they would be close.
Books mentioned:
None. This is quite a dry spell for this category...
My rating:
3.5 stars. This was painfully predictable, from the very beginning when Claudia's room is rummaged around in. However, there was a lot of nostalgia in here for me, and this was surprisingly entertaining.
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