Thoughts before reading:
This is one of the few Mallory books I never read growing up. It doesn't look familiar to me at all either. She hasn't had a book in quite awhile: the last one was #80. I've noticed the further in the series you get, her and Jessi get less and less books. I wonder why that is? Were they just not as popular? Or as time went on, was the concept of 11 year old sitters just too ridiculous, and they wanted to downplay them?
Despite Mallory's terrible outfit, I do like this cover too. At least she actually looks like a kid on it!
The basics:
It's Christmastime again, and Mallory's thinking about all the gift shopping she has to do, which makes her start to feel down about how commercialized the holiday is. This leads her to the idea to have an old fashioned Christmas this year. She runs it by her family, and they also love the idea. Uncle Joe will also be spending the holidays with them, because Stoneybrook Manor is having a fundraiser, and he wants to get out of the chaos. Mal tells the BSC about all of this, and Kristy wants them all to volunteer at the fundraiser, and also have a BSC party.
Vanessa decides to enter her family in a contest, using the old fashioned Christmas idea. She doesn't tell anyone about it, so it's a complete surprise when a man turns up at the Pike house announcing that they've won. The Pike kids are delighted, however, and Vanessa instantly becomes a hero. Winning means they'll appear on a TV special and earn $10,000. A film crew will follow them around for awhile to gather material for the show, and film their holiday celebrations.
Being followed by the TV crew turns out to be way less fun than the kids expected, and they quickly grow tired of being told what to do, and doing endless takes of the same thing so the crew can get good shots. The younger kids start fighting and having tantrums, which are often caught on camera. Mal gets discouraged and starts losing her Christmas spirit.
The crew also follows Mal to Stoneybrook Manor when she goes to volunteer, to Kristy's delight. Uncle Joe gets overwhelmed by them, and backs out of coming over for Christmas. The manor director also gets fed up with the crew being pushy, scolds Mal, and tells her not to bring them again.
When the BSC party rolls around, the camera crew has the day off. Kristy sulks through the whole event, because she wanted the party to be filmed for publicity. The Stoneybrook Manor event is a success though, and most of the BSC is moved to tears by the kids singing to the residents. Mallory's favorite part is the break from the cameras.
Christmas Eve at the Pike house ends up being a disaster with the crew involved, taking up space, in the way when neighbors drop by, and making the family keep stopping while opening gifts to get good shots. The kids get frustrated and beg their parents to make the crew leave. The whole family votes to return the money and cancel the contract.
Christmas day without the cameras turns out to be wonderful. Uncle Joe ends up coming, the BSC stops by, and everyone gets lots of quality family time.
Timeline:
December, through Christmas.
Misc. thoughts:
*Ghostwritten by Peter Lerangis.
*Mal complains that her parents are way more strict with her than the younger kids... another oldest sibling woe I can relate to. It's definitely true.
*I also relate the the hassle of Christmas shopping for a large family and trying to keep track of what so many kids want.
*Mal and Jessi pretend to be French refugees visiting London for the first time in the 19th century? Funny yes, and weirdly specific, but aren't they a little old to play make believe together? Or am I just thrown off by BSC members actually acting like kids?
*I love the idea of the old fashioned Christmas, but at 11 I would have hated it, so I'm impressed by Mal's maturity and lack of greed on this. (To clarify, by this Mal means homemade everything, nothing artificial.)
*Kristy is 5' 0", and Mal is 5' 1".
*Mal says the Kishis are very strict, but I don't really think so, aside from the Nancy Drew thing. I've always found that ridiculous.
*"12 Days of Christmas" made up Pike style was actually really funny (pg 27).
*Of course Kristy immediately tried to get in on the camera action, lol.
*I like that one of the Pike kids stepped outside of their usual 1 character trait and started a plot device.
*Mal says it's hard to tell the Arnold twins apart? Uhm no it's really not, at least not since book... 21? More bad research...
*I HATE when books devote a lot of time to the kids making crafts for a project. This is just never remotely interesting to read about.
*In an earlier book Mal had to beg for a haircut, but now her mom immediately takes her for one after she says she has an emergency.
*Uncle Joe's Alzheimer's is getting worse.
*This plot had a lot of potential for me, and I was really interested in it at the beginning, but it gets really bogged down by the Stoneybrook Manor side plot.
*Stacey misses a concert with Robert's family to help at Stoneybrook manor, even though they have enough help without her, just so Kristy won't get mad. It's so ridiculous that by this point in the series the girls are scared of making Kristy angry. The whole premise of these books is about friendship, but that's starting to get lost.
*This book says the secret Santa wish granting thing is a Pike tradition? I don't remember that being mentioned in the Secret Santa book.
*We're only told a few of the wishes (I really wish we found them all out!):
Vanessa: to be rich and famous
Adam: a snake, iguana, or gila monster
Mallory: the greatest Christmas book of all time
Byron: his own phone
*The man on the cover in the green jacket is Hodges Soileau, the BSC cover artist.
*It was nice to at least see more of the Pike kids as individuals, not just a unit.
*Vanessa gave Mal a blank notebook for her Christmas wish, so she could write it herself.
Books mentioned:
*A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
*Christmas Tree Farm, by Sandra Jordan
My rating:
2.5 stars. Off to a good start, but ended up going off the rails and really dragging.
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