Thoughts before reading:
I loved this book, and the movie, when I was a kid. Both came out at the perfect time for me: I was nine, which was during the height of my BSC obsession. I specifically remember getting this book from the scholastic book fair at school, then reading my copy over and over (still have my original, beloved copy). Back then I also owned the movie on vhs, and had it basically memorized. Still, I think I read the book even more times than I watched the movie.
I also remember being bothered by the fact that someone else wrote this, besides Ann M. Martin. Clearly I did not understand the concept of ghostwriters back then...
The basics:
Claudia has flunked science class, and has to retake it in summer school. If she doesn't get a C+ or higher, her parents are making her quit the club. Kristy assures her that she won't let that happen, and promises to help her study.
Stacey's been sitting for Rosie Wilder every Wednesday for a few months, and they've gotten close. Rosie's cousin Luca is visiting, and Stacey brings him a toy flag, assuming he's a little boy. Instead, Luca turns out to be 17 and gorgeous. Stacey can't take her eyes off him, and he apparently feels the same way, canceling his plans to stay home with her and Rosie for the evening. They make plans to go out, and she ends up going hiking with him without eating properly first (she was nervous). Stacey passes out, but luckily Luca brought food along. As she eats and recovers, she explains about her diabetes. Luca's very supportive, and they end up kissing.
Kristy, Mary Anne, Logan, and Jackie Rodowsky are at the stables one day (they are randomly into horseback riding in this), and Cokie's there with her friends too. She's been after Logan for awhile, and schemes to get him alone to ask him to a Smashing Pumpkins concert. Mary Anne overhears and runs away crying.
Kristy comes up with the idea to have a BSC day camp over the summer. It will be from 10-4, Monday through Friday, in Dawn and Mary Anne's backyard. Everyone likes the idea, and they set about advertising around town. Cokie and her friends go around Stoneybrook taking down the fliers to mess with them. As revenge, Kristy invites them to the park for a party right at the time the sprinklers come on.
Despite this snag, plenty of kids sign up, and things really take off. One of Dawn and Mary Anne's neighbors, Mrs. Haberman, is less than thrilled about having a day camp so close though. She keeps getting disrupted by the noise, and the kids get into her garden too. Cokie sets free a stink bomb at the day camp one day, and it ends up in Mrs. H's yard. After this incident, she tells the BSC that if there are any more problems, she will talk to the city about revoking their permit (which of course they don't have). Cokie is still lurking nearby and overhears everything.
Partway through the summer, Kristy's dad, Patrick, shows up out of the blue while her and Mary Anne are riding their bikes home after camp. Kristy's understandably angry: she hasn't seen him since she was 6. He assures her that he's moving back for good this time, and he's trying to get a job writing for the local sports column... and he asks her not to tell anyone else that he's back until he finds out about the job for sure. He does want to keep seeing Kristy though, in secret. She feels funny about lying, but agrees, making Mary Anne go with her the first time. Patrick makes the girls pancakes and gives Kristy a gift: a dress. From there, Kristy gets into the habit of leaving camp early to see her dad. The other girls wonder why she's so spacey and absent, and she hasn't had any time to help Claudia study either. (On her first quiz, Claudia gets an F.) Then Kristy misses a BSC meeting because she's playing ball with Patrick. She shows up at 6 o'clock, wearing the dress. Her friends are all stunned.
Dawn and Mary Anne end up not speaking to each other, because Dawn knows something is going on between her and Kristy, but Mary Anne refuses to admit what.
Next to Mrs. Haberman's house, Dawn and Claudia pass an old, abandoned lot and notice a rundown greenhouse. Claudia has the idea to use it as BSC headquarters, in case she ends up having to quit the club. Everyone likes the idea, and the girls set about fixing the place up, with help from some of the kids. Kristy's birthday is also coming up, and the girls are also busy planning a party for her at Mallory's aunt's lake cabin.
Things keep piling up for Kristy, and she struggles more and more with all the sneaking around and lying. One day she even forgets David Michael at camp (she was supposed to walk home with him). He tries to walk home alone, and Mr. Kishi finds him and brings him home. Elizabeth and Watson are furious, demanding to know what's going on with her, but she refuses to admit anything to them. Upset and at her breaking point, Kristy finally calls Patrick out on his behavior, and for making her lie. He promises to take her to Monty's (a theme park) for her birthday, then go to her house after and tell everyone that he's back.
The BSC and the campers preform a rap for Claudia to prepare her for her final on the human body (this is a really cute scene in the movie!). She ends up getting a B- on her final, and permission from her parents to go to NYC with Stacey and Luca for a weekend. Once there, they go out to a wild restaurant with Luca and his friends, who are drinking. They remark that Claudia must be boring, since she's studying during the summer, and they try to get Stacey to drink. After dinner, they go out to a dance club that requires ID (16+). Luca finds out that Stacey's only 13, freaks out, and sends the girls back to Stoneybrook. He later shows up at her house, playing his harmonica on her porch, but she's too embarrassed to talk to him.
Back at camp, Dawn is supervising some campers who are working on the greenhouse when she catches them planting flowers they picked from Mrs. Haberman's yard. She's furious, but thaws when Dawn brings her some herbs as a peace offering. They end up having tea together and finding some common ground.
On Kristy's birthday, her dad never shows to pick her up. She calls the inn where he was staying, and they tell her he's already checked out. She figures they must be meeting at Monty's and she just got mixed up, so she takes a cab there and waits. Patrick still never shows up. A storm hits, and she winds up getting locked inside the park alone. Fortunately when she never arrives at the cabin, Mary Anne spills everything that's been going on to the others. Stacey calls Luca to drive them to Monty's, where they rescue Kristy. The girls return to the cabin, and everyone makes up. Stacey finally talks to Luca too. They clear the air, and share another kiss before he goes.
The next day, Kristy tells her mom everything. Patrick has also left her a note in the mailbox saying the job didn't work out, he owes her, and he's heading to Colorado now.
While the girls were busy dealing with all this, Cokie and her pals trashed the greenhouse. What they don't know is that Mrs. Haberman saw everything. Unfortunately, the civics committee that needs to approve their use of the building is coming the same day the girls discover everything ruined. The whole day camp pitches in to help, and everything gets done in time. However, the committee ends up telling the girls that they can't use the structure for a business that makes money. Mrs. Haberman steps in to defend them, explaining that they don't earn enough to qualify as a viable business. (After expenses, they only made $168.17 all summer.)
The BSC ultimately realizes they don't want to leave Claudia's room. Instead they pick out some plants and flowers, and give the greenhouse to Mrs. Haberman.
Timeline:
Set during summer vacation, but this is outside the continuity of the books, and the events aren't canon.
Misc. thoughts:
*I liked the beginning, which is back to back notebook entries. It's like reading the real club notebook and seeing what it would actually look like for the first time.
*There are several clients made up just for this, but why wouldn't they just use real ones from the 90+ series books so far?
*This is the only book written in third person, which was weird, and really took some getting used to.
*Alan Gray likes Dawn in this BSC-verse. He even asks her out towards the end, and she agrees.
*In here the girls just cover the mouthpiece of the phone at meetings to offer jobs around, instead of calling the clients back.
*Cokie Mason also prank calls the club, something she's never done in the regular books.
*Luca playing the harmonica was so random, haha. So was Kristy, Mary Anne, and Logan being into riding horses.
*The characters are like caricatures of themselves in this book, with their traits really exaggerated. For instance, they have Stacey show up at a BSC meeting loaded down with shopping bags, almost late because there was a big sale.
*Rosie tells Luca that Stacey's favorite movie is Mary Poppins, haha! She's only telling the truth of course, but Stacey is mortified.
*Elizabeth tells Kristy she can have her own phone line when she's 16.
*The day camp in here was a lot fancier than the ones from the series books. The girls even rent porta potties! How could they possibly afford that?
*Cokie and Grace have a friend named Bebe, who isn't a character in the books.
*The BSC day camp costs $250 per camper! Wow, something tells me those aren't canon BSC wages. No wonder they can afford to rent equipment.
*Kristy wears a hat at camp that says BOSS.
*Nina Marshall has an imaginary friend named Jimmytony.
*Fictional kids include Margie Klinger, Daniel, Emmy, Jonas, and Terri and Tammy Barkin.
*I liked how they sorted the different age brackets of campers into groups, using potholder name tags. That's creative advertising.
*The BSC charges act way more like real kids in here: saying silly things, making mischief/trouble, being general handfuls, and having friend groups.
*Alan Gray offers to help out with the camp for free. Also, in here he's just a lovable dork. In the book canon, he's really actually an asshole.
*Mary Anne and Kristy bike to Kristy's house from Dawn's, which is never done in the books. We're always told it's too far.
*I wonder if Patrick really is Kristy's dad's name. We've never been told what it is before now.
*Kristy's worried that her dad blames her for making him leave the family?! I know kids often feel that way when their parents split, but that breaks my heart all the same.
*The greenhouse was built in 1767.
*Kristy keeps a small, taped shut shoebox in the back of her closet, that's full of pictures of her dad and her.
*This book reminded me of how I got my love of projects from the BSC, and I still have that quality to this day.
*When Cokie sees Mrs. Haberman feeding her birds while listening to the radio, she thinks, "There's Mary Anne in a few years", LOL. Pretty true.
*Suzi says random nonsense out of nowhere in here, like "My sister has a nose on top of her head."
*Jamie Newton randomly puts band aids on everything.
*Margo peels a banana with her feet! This is from the books, but we haven't seen it since #15.
*I remember the Luca/Stacey kiss very well, because back in the day I thought it was really juicy stuff.
*Logan has the new Ace of Base CD! I remember liking them around this time too.
*Patrick tells Kristy he used to play minor league ball and wanted to take her on the road a few times, but her mom said no. He's really just a terrible person...
*Kristy tells her dad he reminds her of Alan, haha. Well, same maturity level for sure.
*Does Maureen know how old Luca is? He picks Stacey up at home, so she must know he's old enough to drive, at the very least. I wonder what the hell she was thinking in here?
*Luca calls Stacey "a delicious sixteen". Eww.
*At the end, Luca and Stacey kiss again, and he tells her he'll be back next summer. This is after he knows her age, so it's really unsettling to read as an adult. Also, next summer, when she's 14 and he's 18? That's a much bigger problem!
*Even if, like me, you're very familiar with the BSC movie, this book is worth checking out. Some of the dialogue is different, and there are extra scenes and details. It definitely made me enjoy the movie more.
*Mal and Jessi are both totally ignored in this, and neither has any storylines at all.
*Was Kristy really born in August? I guess we'll find out in her portrait.
Books mentioned:
None
My rating:
3.5 stars. This was different, and enjoyable. I was surprised by how sad this was though. As a kid, I didn't think much about Kristy's situation with her dad, but as an adult, it's heartbreaking to think about someone treating their kids the way he does.
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