The Jessi: I remember reading this on a road trip. Did your family ever just go on road trips to different states, not on like a vacation or anything, just to like drive there? Maybe it's just my family. Anyways, I remember reading this all in one day and it was the first chapter book I ever read in one shot. I was pretty proud of myself. I remember feeling super bad for Stacey because she couldn't eat candy. I still think that would suck.
The Mal: During a club meeting, the girls are discussing what to do when Mrs. Newton goes into labor. While planning, Janine rushes in the room with a flier advertising a new baby-sitting business called The Baby-Sitters Agency. Not only are the people from the agency older, they can sit later, and there is a whole network of them. The girls decide to prank call them to find out how they work. The agency answers calls, takes down information, and calls a list of sitters, they come up with several sitters and let you choose the one you want. The girls get very concerned when they hear this and feel like they can't compete with that. Stacey goes home and starts thinking about the past year and when she found out that she had diabetes. She thinks about how her and Laine stopped getting along when she got sick and that she didn't tell Laine that she had diabetes. She thinks about her parents and how they're so overprotective of her because they found out they can't have anymore children and they want her to be around as long as she can. She also thinks about learning to give herself injections and how they finally ended up moving to Stoneybrook, partly because her dad was transferred and partly because of her not having any friends left in the city. Stacey's mom comes to talk to her about seeing a new doctor in New York for 3 days, Stacey gets upset about missing school and having to see another doctor. Kristy calls an emergency meeting the next day and they discuss ways to improve the BSC. First is doing household chores at no extra cost. Second is offering special deals to their best customers. Thirds are Kid Kits. Four is lowering their rates and five is hiring older siblings aka Janine. They come to the conclusion that they will use the Kid Kit idea and the special offer one but the rest are a little over the top and will only be used as a last resort. Stacey babysits for Charlotte, they go into town and visit the candy shop, Stacey almost eats candy but stops herself. On their way home, they stop at the playground where Charlotte is teased for being a teacher's pet. Then they run into Liz Lewis, head of the Baby-Sitters Agency, who is handing out balloons with the agency's information on them. Later on, Kristy and Stacey go to Kristy's house to find Jamie Newton there with Mrs. Thomas. Jamie's mom had gone into labor and they dropped Jamie off with Mrs. Thomas on their way to the hospital. After Mrs. Thomas goes back to work, Kristy and Stacey decide to throw a Big Brother party for Jamie to make him feel better about having a little sister. After a little while, Stacey finds Jamie in the laundry room crying about Kristy not being his sitter anymore because his mom hired someone from the agency. The next day at school, the agencies is recruiting members. The BSC decides that to keep up with them, they must recruit some eighth graders. During Thanksgiving break, Stacey's parents tell her that instead of having to go to Dr. Barnes for 3 days she will now have to go for 5. Stacey is very upset and tells Dr. Johanssen about him. Dr. Johanssen tells her that Dr. Barnes is a quack and she will try to help Stacey out. Kristy shows up on Monday with a new way for the BSC to advertise and get new members. She makes all the members walk around with sandwich boards on them with all the club's information. The only one to have any success is Kristy and she recruits two new members. Stacey gets asked to the Snowflake Dance by Pete Black who isn't afraid to talk to her even with her embarrassing sandwich board sign.The club goes to visit the Newtons. Mrs. Newton explains why she wants older sitters to watch Lucy. The club holds its first meeting with its new members, the new members accept two jobs. At the next meeting, the new girls never show up, then the clients they were supposed to sit for call and say that the girls never show up. The club confronts them at school and they just laugh it off saying that they work for the agency. Stacey takes a babysitting job for the Newtons. While she is there, Jamie seems sad, she finds out that his other babysitters aren't good and one of them burned a whole in a cushion with a cigarette. She encourages Jamie to tell his parents about his sitters and that he doesn't like them. That same night, Stacey takes a last minute job with Charlotte. While she is there she finds out Charlotte has had other sitters as well and they haven't been very good. She tells Charlotte the same thing as she told Jamie. Then Stacey has a talk with Dr. Johanssen about seeing a new doctor in New York and Dr. Johanssen gives her a recommendation for a good doctor and writes a note to Stacey's parents explaining why she thinks Stacey should see that doctor. The next day on their way home from school, the girls see Jamie playing out by the street in the snow without any winter clothes on. They discover that he's supposed to be being babysat by one of the girls from the agency. When Mrs. Newton gets home, they tell her about what happens and she decides to warn other parents about the agency. Stacey visits Dr. Barnes who gives her several weird tests. Then she surprises her parents with a visit to Dr. Graham. Dr. Graham tells them that Stacey is as healthy as can be and the best thing for her is to not keep switching doctors. They decide to not keep seeing Dr. Barnes. Laine and Stacey make up and become friends again. Charlotte decides to skip a grade and the Baby-Sitter's Agency goes out of business.
The Stacey: Number of pages: 167 (this is the longest book in the series), Number of months the BSC has been in business: 2, Number of times Stacey talks about New York: enough that if every mention was a person it would fill every apartment building in New York.
The Dawn: There are two very dramatic situations in this book. First, Stacey is trying to deal with her parents being so overprotective of her and her diabetes. I can understand both sides of the problem. I used to only sympathize with her but now I kind of see that her parents had a reason to worry and they were right to search for a miracle cure. I'm sure if I had a child with a disease I would do everything I could to make them better and in the mean time watch their every move. The second drama is the BSC's struggle with The Baby-Sitters Agency. The Baby-Sitters Agency? How clever. I thought the girls who started it were older and supposedly smarter. Couldn't they have at least picked a name that wasn't one word away from their rivals. While for the most part I am totally against them and think it's lame of them to steal the BSC's business, I can see their point. I don't think the BSC should have a total monopoly on the babysitting jobs either. It would free up more of their time and I would get to hear about more boy drama and Claudia outfits. I do like how the BSA has older girls. Looking back, there's no way I would hire a 12-year-old to watch my newborn child, maybe a 17-year-old but only after I gave them a test-run and saw them in action.
The Claudia: Since this book doesn't describe one specific outfit, I thought I would just take certain pieces that Stacey talks about and mash it up into one outfit.
The Mary Anne: Stacey talks about Stoneybrook being a small town and only having one middle school. What about Stoneybrook Day School where Shannon goes? Does that not count? The girls are talking about Liz and Michelle, Claudia says that they're sassy and a bunch of different things and "They hand around the mall. You know, that kind of kid." Since when did you become that kind of kid from hanging out at the mall? Oh, Claudia. When Kristy calls the Baby-Sitters Agency she discovers that they hire boy sitters. She is so appalled by this fact. What about when Logan joins the club? Isn't he a boy? Make up your mind Kristy! This is the book where the Kid Kit makes its first appearance. When Stacey and Charlotte go to the candy store it names a bunch of different candies, one of them is my personal favorite, Mary Janes. You guys ever tried those? AMAZING. Go eat some. Right now. Mrs. Thomas must be pretty cool and have a super flexible job if people can just drop their child off in the middle of the day and her boss doesn't even care. Is it bad that I really want to name my daughter Lucy Jane after this book? Too bad. It's the truth. I love it how Stacey doesn't even know what Black Friday is. I thought she was supposed to be this mega shopper. When Kristy has all the girls walk around school with their sandwich board signs none of the teachers say a word. Really? Are the adults around here blind? How did Mrs. Newton not smell cigarettes when she walked in her house? If neither her nor her husband smoke how did she not notice this? It's not like cigarettes have a faint fragrance, they're pretty strong. I love when Stacey goes to the movies and complains about her popcorn AND drink costing $1.75 and that it's so expensive. Show me where that theater is Stacy! Lastly, in this book they talk a lot about a sitter named Cathy Morris, is this the same Cathy that is David Michael's sitter in the first book? Now that I think about it, how weird would it be to babysit at somebody's house when you're the same age as them, assuming Cathy is in high school with Sam and Charlie. Isn't there always a chance that she would run into them while babysitting, I guess it's just me but I would find that super awkward.
The Kristy: My opinion, I kind of felt like this book had too many storylines going but yet it still seemed to drag. I got bored hearing about Stacey and her diabetes. I know that is horrible to say. I did like hearing about New York and it was really cute when Pete asked her to the dance but I would have liked to hear more about the dance. Overall, I give it a 2.1 out of 5.
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