The original thread for the 30 Day Challenge is here. I encourage everyone with a BSC-focused blog to do it; it’s really good for getting your cognitive BSC juices flowing.

Here are all my answers:
Day 1, Favorite Sitter: Stacey
Day 2, Least Favorite Sitter: Logan
Day 3, Favorite Regular Book: Stacey and the Bad Girls
Day 4, Least Favorite Regular Book: Kristy Thomas, Dog Trainer
Day 5, Favorite Mystery: Claudia and the Mystery at the Museum/Stacey and the Stolen Hearts
Day 6, Least Favorite Mystery: Kristy and the Missing Child
Day 7, Favorite Super Special: Baby-Sitters on Board!
Day 8, Least Favorite Super Special: Baby-Sitters’ Island Adventure
Day 9, Favorite Minor Character: Cary Retlin
Day 10, Least Favorite Minor Character: Clarence King/Mark Jaffe
Day 11, Favorite Sitting Charge: Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold
Day 12, Least Favorite Sitting Charge: The Perkins Girls
Day 13, Favorite Parent: Maureen Spencer
Day 14, Least Favorite Parent: Patrick Thomas
Day 15, Favorite Fight: Stacey versus the BSC
Day 16, Favorite Love Interest: Ethan Carroll
Day 17, Favorite BSC-organized Event: Valentine’s Day Party
Day 18, Favorite BSC Vacation Spot: Paris or Disney World
Day 19, Favorite Holiday Book: Baby-Sitters’ Christmas Chiller
Day 20, Favorite Couple in the Books: Amalia/Brendan; Maggie/Tyler
Day 21, Favorite Couple Not in the Books: Mary Anne/Cary
Day 22, BSC Member or Minor Character You Could See Yourself Being Friends With: Sunny Winslow
Day 23, Favorite Friends Forever: Claudia and the Disaster Date; Welcome Home, Mary Anne; Mary Anne’s Revenge
Day 24, Least Favorite Friends Forever: Graduation Day
Day 25, Moment/Scene From the Books That Sticks Out For You the Most: Wine bottles in flop socks
Day 26, Favorite Claudia Outfit: “Serious Artist” Outfit
Day 27, Favorite Stacey Outfit: Stacey’s Dad Award Dinner Outfit
Day 28, One Thing You Learned From the BSC: “Continue on” is redundant
Day 29, Favorite BSC “Villain”: Bad Girls/Badd Boyz
Day 30, Biggest “Wouldn’t Happen in Real Life” Moment: The Mystery Series

Last week I watched the movie Young Adult, which stars Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt and was made by the people behind Juno, which I’ve never seen. Besides feeling lots and lots of secondhand embarrassment for Charlize Theron’s character, Patton Oswalt’s excellent turn at dramatic acting, and this song from Teenage Fanclub, the movie has one very important thing going for it. In the movie, Charlize Theron’s character’s profession is… wait for it… YA series ghostwriter!!!

Now we can imagine how Nola Thacker looked while working on the BSC, amirite?

So Mavis, Theron’s character, is a ghostwriter for a YA series called Waverly Prep, which I imagine to be more in the Gossip Girl vein than the BSC or SVH, but whatever. The thing that stuck with me, besides the realization that ghostwriter for a YA/middle grade reader series is kind of a dream job for me, is that the fact that the series has just been CANCELLED is a plot point that’s kind of floating in the background the whole time, and, in my opinion, the thing that really sets off Mavis’s mid-30s crisis, even more than the fact that her long-ago boyfriend had a baby and is apparently happy.

This, of course, brought to mind the BSC and its end in 2000. The end of the BSC has always been spun as, “Ann decided it was time for the thing to end,” but it’s always struck me as more PR than truth. Let’s look at the facts:

Last day of the Challenge… hope you guys enjoyed it. Soon we’ll be back to our regularly-scheduled Stoneybrookite programming, and I hope it’ll be more regular than it has been in recent years.

It’s hard to choose just ONE moment. There are so many. Let’s see, Watson paying for Dawn and Claudia to go on a cruise. Jessi being left in charge of Squirt and Becca and having it seen as a responsible thing for parents to do. I agree with BSCAG that ten-year-olds would so NOT listen to an eleven-year-old and all of those independent softball teams in the surrounding towns of Stoneybrook? Yeah, most kids don’t find Little League that threatening of an activity.

But probably the BIGGEST is the Junior League Detective Agency they ended up turning into over the course of the Mystery series. In the beginning, it was a little more realistic, and dealt with things that weren’t necessarily “mysteries,” per se–the Missing Ring, Janine acting weird, Jessi and Quint THINKING they found a Mystery when in fact they found rehearsing actors, etc. And then things got weird and they required an entire separate notebook for “cases” and became de facto members of the Stoneybrook Police Department and everything else. I actually kind of like how they ended the Mystery series, with “Whoa, this shit has gotten real/totally dangerous,” even though the Super Mysteries were just as dangerous, with CRAZY STALKERS and everything.

I am going to go with 2 answers for this one: The Badd Boyz and the Bad Girls.

Both of them are just hilarious to me. SMS’s very own GANG, who have matching leather jackets and send threatening notes to Logan? Comedy gold! I wrote about my love for them here.

As far as the Bad Girls go, my boundless love for their antics can be summed up in six words: mini wine bottles in flop socks.

“Continue on” is redundant.

In all seriousness, although I DO think of Janine Kishi every time I hear “continue on,” there are so many random things I know that I first read about in the BSC. In the 200 or so books that comprise the series, there’s a lot of room for random facts, new vocabulary words, and grammar lessons. One of the real benefits of the books, I think, is that it encourages its readers to explore other books and to be interested in the world.

I think we also all learned a lot more about plots of various I Love Lucy episodes, although since my mom had it on every day before school when I was growing up, I had already seen all the episodes.

My favorite Stacey outfit is far easier. It has always been the kind of out-there outfit Stacey wears to her dad’s dinner in Stacey’s Choice. Now, I think some people might question wearing a leotard to such a fancy event, but I love that Stacey went with something daring and fashion-forward. Leotards are so Edie Sedgwick. Plus, light pink and black is one of my favorite color combos.

Now, the real question–who is your preferred BSC Fashion Plate, Claudia or Stacey? Or do you hate both and prefer Kristy’s “uniform,” Mary Anne’s selections from the LL Bean catalog, Dawn’s California Casual, Jessi’s “I didn’t have time to change after ballet,” Mallory’s desire for glitter, or Abby’s umbros?

I don’t like many of Claudia’s outfits. If you have to preface an outfit with, “It sounds crazy, but on [person] it totally worked!” I believe that you are just filtering your view of that outfit through your love of your friend, and not the aesthetic reality of their sartorial choices.

I do, however, like the outfit Claudia puts on to go to Serena McKay’s class in Middle School Dropout. I believe it is just black jeans and a black sweater and her snake bracelet and converse sneakers, or something like that. I basically wear that every day. I also secretly want a snake bracelet. In my mind, the snake bracelet is a wooden and painted green. I would wear it with my imaginary I’M AWESOME necklace that I am also still searching for.

I think the reason why it’s been so long since I answered a challenge question, besides travelling/holidays, is that this question is so hard.

I guess it might be Stacey and her Bad Girl friends getting busted for mini wine bottles in flop socks? I have no idea really, though. The BSC is just such a part of my subconscious that this question is impossible for me to answer. I’m interested in hearing your responses, though!

It’s been twelve years since the series ended, eleven since I started Stoneybrookite, and since then the fandom has only grown and become more awesome. Happy 2012 everyone!

Per my last post, I like the FF series as a whole. If I had to choose a least favorite, however, I think I’d go with Graduation Day. While this was an event that we had been waiting for ever since Logan Likes Mary Anne! was published, I’m not sure if I liked how it was handled in Graduation Day, or if it could ever really live up to any expectation we could have had.

I’m glad they went with this direction in ending the series, and having a real “conclusion” book to the whole thing, instead of just ending with Claudia and the Disaster Date or something. But still, it’s not really a book I reach for often. Let’s see, Stacey freaks out about returning a Beverly Cleary book (what? THAT is how you end the story of our Most Sophisticated Sitter?!), Claudia almost fails (no surprise), Mary Anne… I don’t even remember, Kristy is sad about the end of eighth grade/the BSC (ok, this plot makes sense, and is a perfect segue for ninth grade BSC fanfic), and the kids do a time capsule thing. Yawn. I guess you couldn’t conclude the series without a stupid kid project, though.

Anyway, I think it accomplishes what it’s supposed to… but it’s just not a book I find terribly interesting. And yeah, I recognize that this is a series that includes a book where the central plot revolves around every single ex-boyfriend of a THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD coming into town at once, but I’m sticking with my choice.