Thoughts before reading:
I usually like the school plots, so this will hopefully be a decent read. The last few books have been really average for me, so something that stands out a bit would be nice.
The basics:
Claudia's starting to thrive in 7th grade: she has a new group of friends, and she even helps them with homework since she now understands the work. They even nominate her for Queen of the seventh grade for the upcoming dance (which they call a prom?). Claudia gets really into running, and the enthusiasm of her 7th grade friends. Despite this, she insists to her BSC friends that the whole thing is no big deal, but then she feels let down when they don't wish her good luck, or seem very interested.
Claudia ends up winning, and a boy she doesn't really like, Mark Jaffe, wins King. He's cute and everything, but really cocky and immature. It's no big deal though, because the King and Queen have no real duties beyond organizing attendants for their "court", just for fun, but Claudia's determined to organize and help with the prom. She convinces the administration to let her and Mark run the prom prep. They agree, but Mark doesn't really want to do a bunch of work, so they immediately start fighting about it.
Predictably, the more they work together and spend time around each other, Claudia ends up liking Mark, and they end up kissing. After she confronts her BSC friends about how ambivalent they've been acting about her 7th grade friends and events, and they admit it was just because they miss her. (Basically, the same exact scenario that happens every time someone makes a new friend in these books.)
At the prom, Claudia and Mark kiss again, which is a King/Queen tradition.
Meanwhile, the Addisons have contacted the BSC again, for the first time since Sean was caught setting fires at the readathon. (This was back in #13, Mary Anne and the Library Mystery.) They need a regular sitter for Thursdays, because they now have their own business and meetings on those days. Everyone agrees to take them back as clients, particularly since the Addisons have been in family therapy with Sean.
Mary Anne has the first job with them, and she's really nervous. Turns out she had a good reason to be... Sean is rude and hostile the whole time, because he thinks he's now too old for a babysitter. (The kids at school have been teasing him about it.)
The problems with Sean continue and get worse, until the Addisons decide that he can be a co-sitter. The very first sitting job after this change, however, he leaves without telling Abby where he's going, and heads to the store on his own. Sean then lies to his parents and tells them no BSC members are available the following Thursday, so that they will leave him alone in the house. Stacey ends up having to go over and help him after the dishwasher floods the kitchen with soap. She learns that the kid bullying him is Mel Tucker. (Remember him? I guess the therapy didn't help much.)
Timeline:
Never specifically mentioned, but it's probably around March.
Misc. thoughts:
*Ghostwritten by Peter Lerangis.
*Russ says he was meant to live a hundred years ago, as a pioneer in the wild west. I definitely relate to that feeling.
*Claudia now has a bunch of 7th grade friends. Hooray for the return of non-BSC friendships! Those have been sorely lacking for a long time now.
*Apparently SMS has a King and Queen of each grade every year, followed by a prom. None of this has ever been mentioned before.
*Claudia has a bag of marshmallows in her underwear drawer, haha.
*Mary Anne takes all the books out of her kid kit before going to her job at the Addisons, which I thought was hilarious.
*Claudia gets annoyed that no one's listening to her talk about her queenship at the beginning of a BSC meeting, but from day one Kristy's always insisted on discussing club business first, before anything else. Still, it would have been nice to see the other girls being more supportive of her finally adjusting to 7th grade.
*Giving Sean more freedom and making him a co-sitter was a terrible solution to dealing with an immature, emotionally troubled kid. More amazing Stoneybrook parenting ideas...
*I like that Claudia's 7th grade friends actually act their ages. They come across as a lot younger than Mal and Jessi are written a lot of the time.
*The 8th grade BSC members are all pretty annoying in here. They act like the 7th graders are insanely young and immature, despite having 6th graders in their club, and as friends.
*Claudia thinks that kissing someone twice means you're in a relationship, which is perfect junior high logic.
*It's obvious that one of Claudia's new friends, Josh, likes her and is jealous of Mark, but she doesn't pick up on it.
*It's starting to get really hard to get through these books again, and there's still quite a ways to go. Hopefully it picks back up again like it did last time there was a rut.
Books mentioned:
*Mrs. Fish, Ape, and Me, the Dump Queen, by Norma Fox Mazer
*Call of the Wild, by Jack London
*Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen
*Henry and Beezus, by Beverly Cleary
*My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George
My rating:
1 star. I really didn't like this one at all. It felt like nothing new, not much happened, and it was really dull. I struggled to get through it, despite how short it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment