BSC #27: Jessi and the Superbrat

Tagline:There's trouble for everyone what a TV star comes to town!

Stoneybrook has gone star-crazy! Derek Masters, an eight-year-old regular on a hit TV sitcom, has moved to town. Everyone's wondering what a real-live TV star will be like - will he drive to school in a limo?

Jessi can't believe it, but even stars need baby-sitters, and she's the lucky club member to watch Derek Masters. Even though a lot of kids at school call Derek a spoiled brat, Jessi likes him immediately. He rides bikes and eats junk food like a normal kid, but he has exciting stories about Hollywood, too!

Pretty soon baby-sitting and ballet start looking kind of boring next to TV scripts and cameras. Maybe Jessi would like to be a star, too!

As the synopsis indicates, Jessi (and subsequently the readers), are made aware of Derek Masters. He's apparently the breakout character in an ensemble sitcom called P.S. 162. He plays a nerdy kid who gets all the laughs. Coincidentally, just as Jessi is discovering his existence and that he in fact used to live in Stoneybrook before he left to be a star, his show goes on hiatus and his family comes back. Of course, they need a sitter, so Jessi gets to be the lucky one!

When Jessi first meets Derek, she gets all star-struck and is surprised to learn that Derek in fact is nothing like the character he plays on TV. Derek has normal hair, doesn't wear glasses, and hates science. Eventually Jessi gets over it, and starts to get to know Derek. As she does, she realizes that while he loves acting, when he's at home, he just wants to be treated like a normal every day kid.

Of course, everyone else is super star-struck, and acts like an idiot around him. Becca has a huge crush on his co-star and grills Derek about him. Mallory acts like she's meeting the queen, and the triplets expect him to be super snobby. Things don't get better as Derek goes back to school, and everyone treats him weirdly, from either worshipping him (the girls), to hating him (the boys), to making him talk all about Hollywood (the teachers). Eventually, Jessi discovers that a boy is bullying Derek far worse than everyone else. Jessi calls him the superbrat, and is determined to figure things out.

Eventually Derek starts connecting to his classmates, and the boys realize he's cool and normal, and Derek starts making friends. Soon all the stories about the superbrat go away, but Jessi still wants to know who the kid is. Just as things start looking up for everyone, Derek decides to head by to L.A. to do a TV movie. The girls decide to throw him a going away party, and invite everyone and their mom to it. It's there that the girls find out that the superbrat was really Derek, who couldn't cope with how his classmates were treating him and was retaliating.

The subplot in this one is that Jessi has some super hardcore auditions for the Stoneybrook Civic Centre's production of Swan Lake. She gets super nervous, and tries to downplay it. The more nervous she gets, the more she tries to convince herself that it doesn't really matter, and that maybe she should become a model and be on TV like Derek. Of course, she totally aces the auditions, gets one of the best roles a girl her age can get (one of the swan corps), and totally forgets all the modeling and TV shenanigans.

Random Thoughts:

• This is our second book with a ghostwriter! It's Jan Carr again
• Jessi's steady gig with the Braddocks is slowly being phased out. She mentions that others are starting to sit for them to give her more free time. Which of course she immediately fills with another regular job.
• I doubt that the Swan Lake production is anywhere near as big as Jessi makes it sound ("it's practically off-off-Broadway!"), but it's definitely a big deal, especially for someone Jessi's age. We have an arts centre/theatre here, where touring productions happen and our city's professional orchestra and theatre groups and dance groups perform. It's a big deal. The performers are often people from other cities, who came specifically to spend a season here to get experience. It's nowhere near as prestigious as any of the theatres in say, Toronto or Montreal, but it's a pretty big deal. Anyways, every year, they do a production of The Nutcracker, where they have open auditions for the younger/smaller roles. My best friend's sister got to be one of the mice when she was like, 12, and that was a huge deal for her. I'm imagining the same for Jessi.
• lolz when I was younger, I had no idea why the Derek's sitcom was called P.S. 162. As far as I knew, "P.S." was something you added to the end of letters. It was only near the end of high school that I learned that in the US, standard public schools are often just named "P.S." and then a number. Here, all the schools have names. Anyways, re-reading this now, everything makes a lot more sense haha
• I really like the triplets on the cover. Although they have ginger hair, and so far, I've yet to see a description of any of the Pikes with ginger hair. Usually no hair colour is mentioned (so the only thing we have is "dark brown, or chestnut" from Mallory's first book), and then it's either "curly" or "straight".
• A chapter with Kristy baby-sitting Karen. I don't remember being this annoyed by her in the past, but this time around, I just want to fucking kill Karen whenever she's around. And she's around a lot in this book, considering she does not go to school with Derek or anything.
• The title and description of this book is weird. They make it sound like Derek is the superbrat. Of course, by the end, you realize that he was, but until the last chapter or so, Jessi and everyone are under the impression that the superbrat was a kid in Derek's class who is bullying him.
• I didn't particularly like this book. There really wasn't much to it.

BSC #23: Dawn on the Coast

Tagline: Dawn's a California girl!

Dawn can't wait for this trip to California. Besides all the sun and fun, It's Dawn's first visit since her bother, Jeff, moved back to live with their dad.

California is better than Dawn ever remembered it. The beaches are beautiful, Disneyland is a blast, and Californians eat healthy food! Plus, Dawn's best friend, Sunny, has even started up her own baby-sitting club.

After one wonderful week, Dawn begins to think she might want to... stay in California, like Jeff.

Dawn's a California girl at heart - but could she really leave Stoneybrook for good?

It's spring break and Dawn is headed to California for two weeks to visit her dad and brother. Of course, Dawn can't wait, but she assures her mom that she'll always want to come back to Connecticut. Mary Anne is worried too, but Dawn also tells her that she has nothing to worry about. Despite the fact that she'll be busy, Dawn is sure that she'll miss Stoneybrook.

Dawn's flight to California sucks, as the flight attendant is too busy flirting every attractive man to do her job properly, leading Dawn to have to flag her down several times. The flight attendant even gave away Dawn's vegetarian meal! Luckily Dawn's seatmate is nice. Soon enough, Dawn arrives in California.

Right away, Dawn feels like she never left. She meets Mrs Bruen, who is the housekeeper that Jack has hired for Jeff. She makes the family an elaborate healthy breakfast full of fresh fruits and other fresh items. On Dawn's first day, so goes to Disneyland with her dad and brother. They know they can't do everything in one day, so before they leave, they create a plan of attack, and Dawn is grateful for how organized her father is, in contrast to how disorganized her mother is.

Upon getting back from Disneyland, Dawn goes over to Sunny's house for a surprise: Maggie and Jill are there too, and together they've formed their own baby-sitting club, the We ♥ Kids Club. Dawn's amazed to see how chill everything is: there's no Club Notebook, they just answer the phone, cover the mouthpiece, decide who's free, and then take the job. Plus the snacks are all healthy things that Dawn loves! Maggie and Jill, whom Dawn had known before leaving but was never particularly close to, tell Dawn all about the club.The girls line up a job for Dawn for two girls she used to sit for, Clover and Daffodil Austin.

The girls go to the beach, and then the next day Dawn baby-sits for Clover and Daffodil. Nothing too exciting happens, other than Dawn realizing how much she missed them and being able to just go to the beach whenever. Soon Dawn realizes that she's having so much fun, that she doesn't ever think of her mom and Connecticut until someone calls or brings it up. It makes Dawn think that maybe she doesn't like Connecticut as much as she thought she did, and that maybe it was a sign that she should stay in California.

Dawn's entire second week is basically spent waffling back and forth between staying in California or going back to Connecticut. She thinks about all the things she loves about California, and all the things she loves about Connecticut. Overall, the California list seems longer, but Dawn eventually realizes that the different items had different weights. Although there was a baby-sitting club in California, for instance, the W♥KC had way fewer clients than the BSC, and therefore they didn't really need her nor would she get as many jobs. Dawn also doesn't like the idea of leaving her mom alone, especially if that means pushing her mother more towards the Trip-Man. In the end, Dawn decides to go back to Connecticut.

There's really no subplot in this one. Back in Stoneybrook, the girls continue to baby-sit. Claudia and Mary Anne sit for the Newtons, Perkins and Feldmans all together. They're surprised to see that Rob, although still not too impressed with girls in general, really liked taking care of the babies and knew a surprising amount. Jessi sits for Karen, Andrew and David Michael, and we get some foreshadowing about Mrs Brewer wanting a baby. Mallory and Kristy sit for the Pikes, and Nicky tells them that he misses Dawn, which ultimately spurs Dawn to come back home, apparently.

Random Thoughts:

• This is the first one that's officially written by a ghostwriter: Jan Carr. I wonder if it's because it's so largely set in California. I wonder if Jan Carr wrote the California Diaries series.
• Okay, a quick check of my collection (I've only got 11/15 of the books) shows me that Peter Lerangis actually wrote most of them!
• We get another appearance of the Trip-Man. Funny how in just 7 books, Dawn's mom will be marrying Richard? We know it's currently spring... I wonder how many months pass before she marries him. How long did they date exclusively before deciding to settle down together??
• Dawn reiterates at the beginning of this book that she'll never leave her mom the way Jeff did. But then the whole plot of this book is Dawn contemplating leaving her mom! And of course, later on, we see that she leaves for an extended period, before leaving again for good.
• I've only flown a plane once (twice if you include the trip back... okay, 4 times if you include the layover), and that was technically international (I always forget that the US is international to Canada), so I am no way an expert on air travel. But when I flew, we had to be at the airport like, 2 hours beforehand. Again, part of the reason was because it was an international flight, so we had to go to customs and show our passports and what not, which obviously Dawn didn't have to do. But still. I'm amused by the fact that Dawn didn't even think about heading out to the airport until an hour before her flight. (And that's "in case of a traffic jam"!)
• Here, we learn again that Dawn is not a "strict vegetarian", she just doesn't like the taste of meat (especially red meat) and that the vegetarian dish on flights is always better
• In Disneyland, Dawn buys Mickey Mouse ears for everyone. Now, I went to Disney World last year, and though they varied in price, I believe Mouse ears were on average 15$-20$ each. That's a lot of money! Especially to buy 5 pairs! Plus a few other things
• We get some foreshadowing on the Brewer-Thomas household acquiring another child
• There's an error in my copy: Dawn talks about "Sam Brewer", but it should say "Sam Thomas". None of the Thomas kids took Watson's name
• At one point, they described a spinach lasagna they were having for dinner out in California. I fucking love spinach lasagna. Way better than regular lasagna. Now I want spinach lasagna >_< haha
• Apparently the Pikes are cool with the kids just taking a whole milk carton and dipping paint brushes into it for crafts. That idea disgusts me. I paint and do lots of arts and crafts. You can never get paintbrushes fully clean once they've been used. I would not touch that milk carton again.
• I like how Dawn considers the Trip-Man to be a bore. He just sounds like a modern day hipster to me: chamber concert, wine tasting, lecture on humor, tortoise-shell glasses...
• The funny thing is, we always hear about how strict Richard is, and how although Mary Anne loves him, and he clearly loves her, they're not particularly affectionate and cuddly with each other. Richard is also a lawyer and works standard 9-5 hours. If you ask me, that sounds pretty boring haha I mean, as an adult now, I'm cool with Richie, but it's just funny that Dawn considers the Trip-Man to be a bore, but never once expresses the same about Richard Spier. Probably cuz he's Mary Anne's dad
• ...god piss, now I want some chicken enchiladas!
• Even though it won't happen for another bajillion years, Jack Schafer suggests that Dawn bring the whole club next time, setting us up for Super Special #5
• And I just checked: SS#5 is published a year and a half later
• I love how they merely get delayed at the metal detector because Jeff has a pocket knife. Today, Jack and Jeff wouldn't be allowed through the metal detectors and to the gates, and if for some reason they were, Jeff would immediately get tackled and detained and interviewed for that knife
• On the way back to Connecticut, Dawn finds the list of plays her seatmate had suggested on the way down. A quick Google search tells me that none of these are real:
• Cat Dancing
• Romeo in Joliet
• Scheherazade's Tales
•  When Dawn gets back, she finds that the girls have already scheduled her to work a few baby-sitting jobs. I don't know if that would frustrate me or not. On the one hand, she'd probably have booked those jobs anyways if she had been around, but on the other hand, it's like, bitch please, I just landed after a 6 hour flight, and you've already got stuff lined up?? haha
• We don't get much of a description here of Sunny, Maggie and Jill, so it's easy for me to believe that they're still the same girls that we'll see evolve into the California Diaries characters. All we know is that Maggie loves ghost stories like Sunny and Dawn do, and that Jill likes painting their nails.
• Sunny's mom is still very much healthy in this book. I know one of the reasons why Dawn goes back to California for an extended visit is because of Mrs Winslow's cancer. The whole crux of Sunny's storyline and development in the CD books is that her mom is dying of cancer. I'll be interested in seeing which other BSC books this comes up in, and seeing the progression, since in CD, it's clear that Mrs Winslow is no longer fighting the cancer, but just letting the time run out and is dying.
• Every chapter in this one starts off with a postcard written either to Dawn or from Dawn. Like all the Notebook entries and other handwritten things, I tend to just skip them altogether now haha
• When Dawn takes Clover and Daffodil to the carnival, Daffodil only gets a prize when she manages to get all 6 rings on ring-toss. I'm surprised they didn't have smaller or medium-sized prizes for having achieved 2 out of 6 and 4 out of 6 rings.