I’m keeping my membership in the Baby-Sitters Club
Reporter revisits beloved book series 20 years later to discover she likes them even more
In this weekly series, we look back at our first pop culture loves.
It’s 1995 and my classmates are sprinting around the room, throwing toys in the air and frantically doodling with glitter pens.
Me? I’m asking my teacher for a play- time exemption and burrowing into a dog-eared book. This is my happy place. The Baby-Sitters Club books, and the characters depicted within them, ostensibly became my best friends in Grade 3, when I was a new student at Assikinack Public School in Barrie. The previous year, my family moved from Ottawa — where I’d learned to read in French — and I was getting over the shock of being branded not so smart by my Grade 2 teacher (she put me in the “turtle” read- ing group) and a goody-two-shoes by my classmates (I liked answering questions).
But my fictional babysitting friends — Claudia, Kristy, Mary Anne and Stacey — didn’t judge me or question my intellect. They made me feel happy, safe, curious and smart.
Seven-year-old me gives The Baby-Sitters Club a rating of 3 stars out 4. The books served as my escape and my anchor, stimulating my imagination and giving me the confidence only a once-illiterate child burning through 150 pages of a book can understand. The characters also seemed cool, independent and responsible — all traits I aspired to attain when I became a 13-year-old grown-up.
Twenty years later, I’m bumping that rating up to 3.5 stars.
When my editor asked me to re-evaluate a form of entertainment I cared about as a kid, I feared my beloved Baby-Sitters Club books were going to be exposed as simple-minded drivel.
I mean, if a Grade 3 kid can plow through them, how deep can they be? Boy, was I wrong. When I reread Kristy’s Great Idea — a new graphic novel version of the original book by Ann M. Martin — I devoured it in one sitting, putting it down only to take notes and blink back a tear or two.
The book details the creation of the Baby-Sitters Club: Kristy had a “Great Idea” and the club forms around her leadership. We also get to know the initial four babysitters: outgoing Kristy, creative Claudia, quiet Mary Anne, and cool and secretive Stacey. The 13-year-olds offer their babysitting services out of Claudia’s bedroom — because she has a phone — and share stories about their adventures and misadventures at meetings.
This could easily be a recipe for bland young adult fiction. But Ann M. Martin is no beige flannel of an author.
When skinny New York City-raised Stacey McGill moves to town, it becomes clear she’s hiding something. She’s scared of candy, tells the club she’s on a diet and comes up with excuses to leave the room when junk food appears. She must have an eating disorder, I assume, as does Kristy, who finally shouts, “You have anorexia, right?”
I was impressed that a book aimed at preteens would even assume young readers know what anorexia means, let alone tackle the subject head on. In fact, secretive Stacey has diabetes, a disease she is deeply embarrassed by but quickly comes to terms with when her friends assure her it’s no big deal: even Kristy’s cousin has diabetes.
Divorce is the other sensitive subject the book digs into.
Kristy’s parents are split up and while she seems happy living with her single mom and three brothers, she does not approve of her mom’s new boyfriend, Watson. The most painful scene in the book comes when Watson buys Chinese food for the family, a peace offering of sorts that Kristy rejects, choosing a peanut butter sandwich instead. The scene becomes more uncomfortable as it unfolds, with Kristy giving clipped responses to Watson’s well-meaning questions and mocking Watson for calling his son’s G.I. Joe action figures “dolls.” Finally, her mom sends her to her room.
“I’m sorry, Watson,” Kristy says, heading to the stairs before hurling one last insult: “I’m sorry you’re such a horrible father!”
I cringed reading that. I felt badly for Watson, a man who clearly cares about Kristy’s mom, but also understood Kristy’s pain, seeing a new man replace her father.
Kristy lies in bed that night, feeling shameful and realizing Watson is a good father who sees his two kids regularly, unlike her own absent dad. She writes a note to her mom: “Dear mom, I’m sorry I was so rude . . . I love you, Kristy.”
When a note reading, “I love you too,” appears at Kristy’s door in the morning, I teared up. It was a simple back-and-forth between a parent and a child, but the scene hinted at the underlying deep bond between a single mom and her daughter.
Such storylines made me wonder if I realized the complexity of the issues Martin was tackling when I first read the books.
Twenty years on, I appreciate that she treated her young readers as adults. The Baby-Sitters Club portrayed characters tackling difficult health and relationship issues with maturity and strength, while also making mistakes and suffering the consequences. And Martin didn’t force characters into stereotypes. She let Stacey be cool and confident while also fearful and secretive; let Claudia embrace her artistic side while feeling overshadowed by her genius older sister; let Mary Anne be shy without being a doormat and let Kristy be spiteful while also being remorseful. This book reminded me of the struggles I faced as a preteen and made me feel glad that I became obsessed with the series. Maybe I missed out on opportunities to make friends, fight over toys and overcome shyness during that Grade 3 year, but the books kick-started my lifelong passion for reading, helped prep me for future life challenges and provided me with a slew of positive role models.
Unlike some of the other entertainment I devoured as a preteen (ahem, Sailor Moon) I can now say I was — and am — a proud Baby-Sitters Club fan.