Back Cover: Dawn's the newest member of the Baby-sitters Club and everybody's glad - except Kristy. Kristy thinks things were better without Dawn around. That's why Dawn's eager to take on a big baby-sitting job: It's her chance to show Kristy what she's made of.So the description and title of this book are very misleading. Let's start with the Kristy subplot: yes, Kristy isn't pleased about Dawn, but she's never outright antagonistic. It's very clear early on (to both the reader and even Dawn), that Kristy is just jealous because she used to be Mary Anne's only friend, but now Mary Anne has gone out and made a friend all on her own. At the beginning, Kristy does compete with Dawn for Mary Anne's attention, but Dawn soon realizes that yeah, Kristy is jealous and going through a hard time (what with the upcoming wedding and move), and decides to bond with her. They bond over divorces and moving, and eventually Dawn just outright asks Kristy if she wants to hang out. Kristy says sure, and they soon put aside their differences and realize that they're still both Mary Anne's friend. Kristy officially welcomes Dawn into the Baby-Sitters Club, and makes her the alternate officer.
What a mistake! Taking care of the three Barrett kids is too much for any baby-sitter. The house is in chaos, the kids are impossible, and Mrs Barrett never does any of the things she promises. Dawn's got more trouble than she bargained for. But she's not going to give up until all four Barretts are under control and she's friends with Kristy. Or whichever comes first!
The stuff with the Barretts is the main plot, and it really has nothing to do with Kristy at all. Dawn starts sitting for them, and because the kids like her so much, Dawn continues to be their regular sitter. Like I said, the title and description of the book is really misleading, because it's not so much the kids that are impossible, but moreso Mrs Barrett: she's just incredibly disorganized and essential a baby-sitter's nightmare.
Mrs Barrett has just gone through a messy divorce, and as such is trying to find a job, be a single parent and finalize arrangements. Plus who knows: maybe she was disorganized and scatterbrained in the first place. Her kids are Buddy, Suzy and Marnie, and they're not doing so well: they want their mom and are confused by everything. As such, they act out a bit, but no more so than you'd expect kids to react in such a situation.
So it's Dawn to the rescue, and she steps in and baby-sits for them, and while she's baby-sitting, she also does all sorts of cleaning and homework help and life help for the kids. Of course, the kids and Mrs Barrett love her, so of course they ask her back. This goes on for MONTHS, with Dawn griping to everyone, but never actually confronting Mrs Barrett.
This all comes to a head one day while Dawn is baby-siting for the Barretts. Buddy goes outside to play while Dawn gets Suzy and Marnie ready. When Dawn and the girls get outside though, Buddy is nowhere to be found. Dawn contacts his friends and neighbours, and soon a search is started. Jordan Pike then says that he saw Buddy get into a car, so the cops get involved. Eventually, it's discovered that Mr Barrett took Buddy to teach Mrs Barrett a lesson, since it was supposed to be his weekend with the kids. However, when Buddy isn't enjoying himself, Mr Barrett realizes that Mrs Barrett isn't even at home, and immediately returns. Poor Dawn.
Dawn later confronts Mrs Barrett about everything, and says that the Club has decided that they can't sit for her family anymore. Mrs Barrett apologizes and promises to change things and to do better. So Dawn decides that it'd be okay to continue sitting.
Random Thoughts:
- The cover! Omg the cover. Dawn's face. In future books, they always describe Dawn as gorgeous (but naturally, not sophisticated and done up like Stacey), but in the last book, Mary Anne described her "not exactly pretty". This cover is ugly!Dawn haha
- The first few books take up much more time in story than the later ones do. This one takes place over the course of at least two months! Also, it's already heading into spring (probably March/April), but just a few books ago, it was the first day of school!
- I find it interesting that so much time has passed, but the only holidays that got mentioned were Halloween and Thanksgiving (and only in passing). We didn't see Christmas, New Year's or Valentine's Day at all.
- They mention that Kristy's mom is getting married in the fall. Unless something happens in the next book that I don't remember (completely plausible, because I know it's not one I've re-read often or recently) that bumps up the wedding date, that means we're getting a time-skip of about 5 months!
- Fun Fact: Buddy's real name is Hamilton Jr. I don't think it's ever mentioned again in the series. I definitely didn't remember that. If I had thought about it long enough, I probably would have conceded that yeah, Buddy was most likely a nickname (although, not necessarily) and most likely because he was a Junior.
- They foreshadow in this book what a great baby-sitter Mallory would be one day, and how maybe eventually the Club would grow so big and successful that she'd be able to join.
- I don't blame Dawn for wanting to tidy up while she's there. I would not be able to baby-sit in such a messy household. But I would probably only tidy up one room, like the playroom, not the entire house. Just enough so that the kids could actually play and I wouldn't go insane from the messiness. Otherwise, I just wouldn't sit for them at all.
- I really liked the part of this book when Buddy went missing. I always liked it when BSC got dark. That's probably why I like the California Diaries series so much.
- I like how one of the things Mrs Barrett decides to change is to ask Dawn to come over 10-15 minutes before she actually needs to, so Mrs Barrett can actually have time to tell her stuff. Uh, isn't that what most people do anyways?? And shouldn't Dawn have been arriving early anyways herself? If someone told me I was baby-sitting at 5:30, I would definitely make sure to show up at least 5 minutes early in case of instructions.
Author's Note:
AMM's note tells readers how they can avoid getting into a situation like Dawn's. Find out ahead of time what's expected of you in the job, and if you're to be doing housecleaning and more than just baby-sitting, making sure you're properly compensated for it. She also tells readers that while a parent should provide you with the contact information and important info, it's also up to the reader to be proactive and ask for those things too.
Notebook Pages:
Buddy, Marni, and Suzi Barrett give Dawn such a hard time that she calls them "the impossible three". When I have to deal with impossible kids, I grab whoever is being good/quiet and give them all my attention and ignore the bad ones; unless the bad ones are doing something dangerous.
The most impossible kids I know are honestly, I've only ever really baby-sat for good kids; I didn't do a whole lot of baby-sitting as a kid. Oh, but I was a camp counselor, and there were two kids who were impossible! Darla and Kevin (not related, and at different camps).
They are impossible because Darla would not shut up and kept interrupting me whenever I tried explaining things and would go off on tangents; in hindsight, she reminds me of Karen Brewer. Kevin did not want to be at camp. I felt kind of bad for him, but he got to the point where he wasn't just not participating, he was actively being destructive and didn't even want to do lunch and free time.
The best kids I know are Winston
I like them because he is smart and sensitive.
Kristy doesn't like Dawn at first, but then becomes her friend. One person I didn't like at first but am now friends with is Lexi.
We became friends because we used to swap manga haha
One person who doesn't like me, but who I still want to be friends with, is no one; I have completely given up on trying to make friends. I don't even care anymore haha
We aren't friends because I'm not friends with a lot of people because I have absolutely zero patience for people haha
One person who I would want to move to my school is ah the perils of doing these questions as an adult: I no longer go to school. I suppose if we switched "school" for "workplace", I'd pick my boyfriend. If only so I could have a ride to and from there and have an excuse to see him more haha
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