Thoughts before reading:
I never read this one when I was a kid, but I've been looking forward to it now as something new and different. I definitely like the concept behind this, much more so than all the vacation super specials. Since the girls never age especially, it will be fun to read about them at different ages.
Also, I love this cover! It's definitely one of the best. So many of them leave the characters looking strange, but everyone is so cute on this one, and just like I picture them. I can even tell Shannon and Stacey apart. It's also such a sweet scene, with tons of great little details: the sports stuff indicating that it's Kristy's room, pajamas that suit personalities...
This book was a celebration for the series, which at the time had just hit 100 million books in print.
The basics:
Kristy's disgusted with having to write about her summer vacation for a homework assignment, because it's boring and unoriginal (but why wouldn't she just write about what happened with the vampire movie? These girls never have boring vacations). She's also hosting a BSC sleepover, and everyone else starts complaining about the essay too. They think about all the better topics they could have been assigned, leading to a long talk about memories. Everyone starts reminiscing about their most vivid memory, and Kristy shares hers in the BSC notebook.
Kristy's memory:
She's ten years old, and in the 5th grade. Her dad's been gone for 4 years at this point, and her mom is working full time. They also have a housekeeper, Mrs. Culp, so that David Michael's not in daycare all day. Problem is, Mrs. Culp only shows up half the time, but Elizabeth can't afford anyone better.
One morning in October, Mrs. C calls in sick, and Charlie and Sam are both busy that day. Kristy begs to be allowed to watch David Michael by herself for the two hours until her older brothers get home. To her surprise, her mom agrees.
Kristy's distracted all day in school, because she's so determined to prove she'll be good at babysitting. It's a huge step towards the independence she's been craving. The job itself goes well, although she gets endless calls from adults checking up on her all afternoon. Mimi even drops by. Her mom is impressed though, and she fires Mrs. Culp the next day. Sam and Charlie still do most of the sitting for another two years, but Kristy's proud to be helping her family.
Stacey's memory:
She's 11, and living in NYC with both her parents. 6th grade had just begun, and Stacey has big plans to try out for the soccer team and make some new friends. She thinks it's going to be her best year ever.
Lately she's been extra hungry and thirsty, which her mom attributes to a growth spurt.
Marty, a girl from her friend group, has left to attend boarding school. There's also a new girl in school, Allison Ritz. Stacey likes her right away, and invites her to sit with their group at lunch, which is against Laine's "rules".
The first week of school flies by, as Stacey's busy with homework, befriending Allison, and practicing soccer. Another girl in their group, Deirdre, is having a sleepover that Friday night. Stacey invites Allison, even though Laine doesn't like it.
By Friday, Stacey isn't feeling well, but she doesn't want to miss the sleepover. She does have fun, especially after getting Laine to be nice to Allison, but all night she can't stop eating and drinking. Her and Laine are sharing a bed, and Stacey wets it during the night. Laine makes a huge deal over it, waking up the whole apartment. It's 4 AM, but a mortified Stacey calls her parents to come and get her.
After this incident, Stacey knows something is wrong with her body, but her parents think she has a psychological problem. They have her start therapy immediately. (I'm surprised this hasn't come up before, since Mary Anne confessed to seeing a therapist in the Chain Letter.) Thankfully the therapist recognizes her symptoms as diabetes, and gets her diagnosed by a pediatrician. From there, Stacey learns all the new things she'll be doing to control her disease.
Stacey ends up missing the soccer tryouts while she's in the hospital. Allison and all her old friends are snubbing her, and they told the entire school about the sleepover incident, so she can't make any new friends either. Laine adds Allison to their group and starts ignoring Stacey. Her grades slip, and she faints at school twice. Kids tease her even more, saying she just wants attention.
That June, her dad announces that they're moving to Stoneybrook. Stacey's had such a terrible year that she's thrilled to be leaving. 7th grade ends up being her best year ever instead.
Claudia's memory:
Claudia's 6 years old and in the first grade. She's been slowly learning how to read, and happily spending time at home with Mimi and her crayons. Already a budding artist, she's gone through two boxes of crayons since school started, both bought for her by Mimi. The Kishi fridge is covered in pictures. Claudia is already struggling in school though, and she has a mean teacher who scares the kids by yelling.
Her art teacher gives the class a homework assignment to color a self portrait the way they see themselves. Claudia's excited, and spends hours that night drawing and coloring a beautiful butterfly. She brings it proudly to school the next day. During class, she realizes everyone else drew themselves literally, and the teacher even scolds her for not following the assignment. The whole class laughs at her.
That afternoon, Claud returns home from school crying and tells Mimi what happened. Mimi marches right back to the school and stands up for Claudia, saying she alone understood the assignment. She sees herself as a free spirit, and that's what she drew.
Claudia realizes that Mimi appreciates and values her art, and she could actually become an artist one day.
She still has the picture, with her misspelled name: Caludia.
Jessi's memory:
Jessi's 9 and living in Oakley, New Jersey. Her mom is pregnant, and the baby is due soon. This is a huge deal in the family, because after Becca was born she had two miscarriages, a girl and then a boy. Everyone's been worried, and it's a relief that she's made it to the 9th month at all. Secretly though, Jessi doesn't want the baby. She's worried about all the changes, plus she'll now have to share a room with Becca.
The family's in the middle of preparing Becca's old room for the baby when their mom goes into labor early. Squirt is born, tiny but healthy. Jessi and Becca are dismayed to discover that he has colic and cries all the time though.
One day, their mom falls into an exhausted sleep after Squirt's been crying non-stop. He's still not letting up, so Jessi picks him up to help out. She rocks him and sings, and to her surprise, he actually quiets down. After this, Jessi ends up being the only one who can calm him down, so they spend a lot of time together.
Logan's memory:
It's about a year ago, and Logan's family is just moving to Stoneybrook. (Their dad wants his kids to see the country, so they drive.)
Logan's really nervous to start school, but Mary Anne catches his eye right away. He tries to follow her around school to find out her name, and asks his guy friends for info. Then he orchestrates a meeting by getting the guys to move to a lunch table nearby the BSC. He already knew ahead of time that they were having an emergency meeting, so when they start discussing being short handed, he mentions that he's done a lot of babysitting. The girls invite him to the next meeting, like he wanted, where he's disappointed that Mary Anne doesn't talk.
Mallory's memory:
Mallory's 10, and her favorite author is Amelia Moody, who writes funny books. After a long wait, she's finally gotten her library hold on one of her books, and is happily reading. Mary Anne and Claudia come over to babysit, and Mal takes a break to chat with them (and make her book last a little longer). Mary Anne suggests writing to Amelia Moody, something Mal has never thought to do.
She ends up sending off a letter, and gets a reply back. It mentions an upcoming book signing she's having at the Washington Mall. Mal's parents agree to let her go. Leading up to the event, Mal practices dressing up and what she wants to say. She ends up wearing her school picture outfit. Mrs. Pike is taking her alone, making the day even more special.
Once at the bookstore, Mal gets a copy of her latest book, Live From New York. When she finally gets to the table to get it signed, she gets overwhelmed and bursts into tears. Her mom steps in to tell Amelia Moody her name, for the signature. Mal never gets to say anything, but she learns from the experience what an impact an author can have on a reader, and decides to become a writer.
Shannon's memory:
She's 13, an age she's looked forward to being forever, and 8th grade has just begun. Shannon's thrilled about the first day of school, because it's her safe haven. She meets her friend group on the bus, and finds them talking to a new girl, Sally White. Right off the bat, Sally seems unfriendly to Shannon, and their friend Meg ends up going off with her and ignoring everyone else. The other girls are jealous that Sally chose Meg to be her BFF, because everyone thinks Sally is just SO cool. She lived in London for awhile, has traveled, and her parents know celebrities. Shannon's mainly just confused, since Sally could have just been friends with all of them.
Meg and Sally go to a Springsteen concert together, and afterwards Sally starts snubbing Meg because she got too excited at the show. Now Sally hangs out only with Greer, another of Shannon's friends, until a Saturday morning when Shannon gets a call from Sally, inviting her over. Shannon goes, but when she's invited back on Sunday, she says she has to stay home and study. Sally hangs up on her. By Monday, Polly, yet another friend of Shannon's, is the chosen one.
All Shannon's studying pays off, and she makes it into the astronomy club like she wanted. Still, every time she sees Sally with a new chosen girl (which is often), she feels angry. Pretty soon, she's angry all the time.
It's during this time that Shannon first met Kristy. After her experience with Sally, Shannon's not inclined to welcome any new girl. When her anger fades though, she has a change of heart and wants to be Kristy's friend.
Dawn's memory:
She's 12 and has just started 7th grade. Her parents have been fighting a lot, mostly over little things. Then one night in November, her dad doesn't come home at all. After that incident, her mom starts sleeping on the couch. In early December, Dawn's woken up by her parents screaming at each other in the middle of the night. Her dad leaves for 3 days. When he returns, they announce the divorce. Only days later, their mom tells them about the move to Stoneybrook.
By January, Sharon, Jeff, and Dawn have already packed up and moved to Connecticut. The kids are angry and heartbroken, and there are a lot of tears. Dawn's also terrified to start at a new school, but on her second day she meets Mary Anne.
Mary Anne's memory:
She's 8, and dealing with having different babysitters constantly. She wishes she had a mom, and is close with Mrs. Thomas and Mimi. Her dad is away for a weekend on business, and has hired her a sitter from an agency he uses often. Mary Anne's upset, so he agrees to let Kristy and Claudia sleep over on Friday night. (See, he was never even that strict, and always had trouble telling her no!)
Mary Anne hates her sitter, Mrs. Tate, just like she has most of the others. She's old and strict. When she complains to Kristy, she declares they will have to get even at the sleepover... and sure enough, Kristy arrives with a plan to put pepper in the sitter's food.
When the pepper fails to get a reaction, Kristy nails her slippers to the floor with tacks. When Mrs. Tate discovers this, she just smiles. After this, the girls play endless jokes on her, and each time she just smiles or compliments their creativity. She even pranks them back.
The book ends the last night of August, with another BSC slumber party. Everyone chats about how important memories are.
Timeline:
It's the summer before 8th grade, for the 500th time! This goes right up to the beginning of another school year.
Misc. thoughts:
*No ghostwriter! It's been a very long time since we actually had AMM with us...
*All these summers "before" 8th grade we've already had, and this is the first one with homework, haha.
*Mary Anne brings a teddy bear to the BSC sleepover at the beginning, although it's unclear why. A little regression?
*Kristy, Claudia, and Mary Anne have walked to and from school together since Kindergarten. Janine went with them until she reached 6th grade.
*We learn that Kristy has always been independent and take-charge because she saw her mom doing so much by herself, and wanted to be just like her. (Makes so much sense, actually!)
*Mrs. Newton calling to check on on a young Kristy was cute. It's nice to get a sense of this world at a different time, and what's changed, since nothing does now. This sort of thing pieces together the current relationships, and how they got clients so young.
*During the time of Kristy's memory, Mary Anne had a babysitter who was studying to be a beautician and was constantly enlisting her to help.
*How fitting is it that Kristy's most vivid memory was a babysitting job?
*It was fun to go back in time and get these little slices of life, although the stories that took place where the teller was 12-13 seemed like cop-outs. We already know them at those ages. Something new would be vastly better than a retelling of information we've been given many times over.
*Laine has a temper, and Stacey always worried about little things, like making her wait. Laine also puts her down and makes little digs at her. I had a BFF dynamic just like that as a kid, where I was the Stacey. It's no fun, and I'm sad that my younger self put up with it.
*I like Stacey's positivity. Even at 11, she knew that in order to make school okay or have her best year ever, she had to make a decision that it would be that way.
*Stacey attended Parker Academy in NYC from the time she began school through 6th grade.
*Laine was written even worse at 11 than she was at 13. She tells Stacey she'll get fat if she keeps drinking so much, and she tries to control every little thing her friends do.
*Continuity error: Stacey finds out she's still getting sick so much because she's a brittle diabetic. But she actually learned this after getting sick in #43, Stacey's Emergency... which was roughly 2 years later.
*Stacey's memory didn't have a whole lot of new info, but it was interesting to learn more about what happened. This is a sad thing to have as a most vivid memory though.
*Claudia's memory was the only one I knew about ahead of time, because I've read about the butterfly picture in Claudia's room on the Netflix show.
*Claudia's apparently in summer school, but isn't this the same summer vacation as the Fire Island trip and the vampire movie? None of those books mentioned her being in school.
*When Kristy was 6, she was always trying to fight other kids. Her dad is still at home when the girls were this age, and Louie is a puppy. So... he died of old age at 7 or 8? That doesn't add up at all...
*Janine reads while walking! I also did this as a kid, and pretty well.
*Mary Anne cried constantly in first grade, often caused by the mean teacher the girls had.
*In first grade Kristy fought Alan Gray on the playground, LOL.
*Logan following Mary Anne around to learn about her was creepy. Also, his entire memory was a rehashing of the events from #10, just from his POV. This could have been interesting, but it didn't read much differently. I was curious why he was so interested in Mary Anne right away when she didn't even talk around him, but there aren't any answers here. He basically just says "there was something special about her." Blah, cliché. Middle school insta-love. I would have much rather learned something about his life in Louisville.
*The pictures in this book of the girls when they were younger are all adorable!
*Mary Anne once wrote to Louisa May Alcott, not knowing she was dead.
*Shannon loves school and has always worked hard. She scores high on standardized tests, and is in a ton of clubs.
*We also learn for the first time that Shannon's home life isn't very good, hence why she throws herself into school. Her parents have been fighting, and things are really tense.
*Ah, junior high friendship politics. I remember all of those dynamics too well, and they were brutal.
*Shannon's taking psychology and philosophy as an 8th grader, and is the only 8th grader in the astronomy club. I wish my junior high had had these options, because I was a lot like Shannon then. I didn't encounter any of those subjects until college. I wish now that she had regular series books, because I would have really liked her character growing up.
*Shannon's memory may have been a valuable learning experience, but it's a depressing most vivid memory.
*Sunny and Dawn have been friends since second grade.
*No wonder Sharon's family situation is such a mess! Her decision to move was so fast and impulsive, and she gave the kids no time to adjust to the divorce in California first. She also comes off as really cold about the whole thing.
*Finally, one of my questions was answered! In an earlier post, I questioned how Dawn knew her house was part of the Underground Railroad. In here, we learn that her grandparents found the house for them, and they tell her and Jeff about it.
*It was interesting to get the backstory on Dawn's move to Stoneybrook, since that situation has really stood out to me in this re-read.
*No wonder Mary Anne grew up shy, with strangers in and out of her house all the time when she was growing up.
*It was cute to see Mary Anne, Kristy, and Claudia be babysat for.
Books mentioned:
*Little Women and Jo's Boys, by Louisa May Alcott
Amelia Moody, and all her books listed, are fictional.
My rating:
5 stars. This was so different and fun, a perfect BSC book in my opinion. I wish they had done more things like this! So far, it's my series favorite.
If you made it this far, you deserve a prize! :)
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