Shipwrecks and Counterfeit Money: 10 Ridiculous Moments from THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB
The Baby-Sitters Club is iconic, a long-running series that was an integral part of childhood for many growing up in the ’90s. I read my first BSC book when I was 11. My school library had a lot of them, but I ignored them until one fateful day during reading time when I picked up Jessi’s Secret Language from the classroom library. I didn’t (and still don’t) even like it that much, but somehow I was sucked in. Now, over twenty years later, BSC remains an important part of my life (I own the entire collection and this is one of the prouder achievements of my life) and it is something I hold dear to my heart.
However, in saying all that, I recognise that there are some truly ridiculous moments in the series. These didn’t seem particularly outlandish when I first read them (maybe children are better at accepting ‘ridiculous’ as ‘realistic’?) but now, with the benefit of an adult perspective, there are a few things about the series that make me think, ‘what the…?’
The entire Super Special #4, Baby-Sitters’ Island Adventure. Dawn and Claudia learn to sail and decide to race each other to a little island near Stoneybrook. They pack a picnic and take a few kids with them (including four-year-old Jamie Newton), but on their way to the island, a sudden storm hits. One of the boats capsizes and they all end up off course and on a different island where they are stranded for a few days. My husband, who knows just enough about the BSC to mock me about it, loves to use this as an example of why I shouldn’t base major life decisions on what happens in the BSC. Would you really let your four-year-old go sailing with two thirteen-year-olds?!
- Not so much a moment, but a fact that is brought up in every chapter two: There are eight Pike kids. Not only are there eight Pike kids, they are all quite close in age. And three of the oldest are identical triplets. Mr and Mrs Pike had Mallory and the triplets (so four babies!) and decided to have Vanessa basically straight away.
This is actually one of my favourite mysteries: Mystery #10, Stacey and the Mystery Money. Counterfeit money shows up in Stoneybrook. Stacey innocently tries to use a counterfeit bill when she is shopping with Charlotte, gets arrested (not really), and then she and Charlotte and the BSC get on the case. The mystery is solved when one of the bad guys drops a bag full of counterfeit bills in a carpark where Stacey and Charlotte just happen to be.- A bunch of eight graders from SMS go to Hawaii on a school trip in Super Special #13, Aloha, Baby-sitters!, including Stacey. One of the activities some of the students partake in is a helicopter tour. The helicopter Stacey is in crashes. ‘The chopper’s engine was groaning. The blades sounded as if they were cutting through mud. The wind howled and rain slapped against the windows. Mr. Fredericks was yelling into the mike. Now we were all shrieking. Clutching at one another. And then we plunged. Straight down.’
This is actually one of my favourite books, but I’m including it anyway, Mallory’s Christmas Wish, regular series #92: the Pikes won a contest to have their old-fashioned Christmas captured on film. They would be the focus of the gala winter special of the Values AmericanStyle television show. They won $10,000 and a camera crew followed them around for all of their Christmas preparations (until, spoiler alert, they realised the cameras were ruining Christmas and kicked them out, forfeiting the $10,000).
There are many more moments of incredulousness in this great series, primarily the plot lines of most of the mystery books. There are 36 regular mysteries and four super mysteries. There are problems like babies abandoned on door steps, sabotage at a fashion parade, stolen jewellery, secret societies, museum robberies, bank robberies—all of which are solved by an enterprising group of eleven- and thirteen-year-olds.
The series is (obviously) a work of fiction, but for such a small, sleepy town, an awful lot seems to happen (especially in one single year of the baby-sitters’ eighth grade)—and the baby-sitters often get caught up in it. As a child, the ridiculousness didn’t seem ridiculous, and as an adult, it’s part of what makes revisiting the series so much fun. What are your favourite ridiculous moments from the BSC that didn’t make the list?
If you need more BSC love, here is some great BSC swag, a quiz that will tell you which BSC member you are based on how you would plan your wedding, you can order a vintage set of the first six BSC books, plan a BSC pilgrimage tour, and read about the life-changing effects of the BSC. And if you’re in need of new BSC to read, the newest graphic novel, Kristy’s Big Day, is now available!
