Oct

What Makes For a Good BSC Book?

The Miss BSC Pageant is close to showing which BSC book is the most popular, and Stacey books and Mallory books predominate. The Stacey-Goes-Bad arc (which consists of Stacey and the Cheerleaders, Stacey’s Lie, Stacey vs the BSC, and Stacey and the Bad Girls), which happens to be my favorite, seems to be especially popular. What makes this arc so popular?

It’s markedly different from the rest of the series. No one else in the club, besides maybe Abby at the very end, seems to question the value of the BSC in their lives and the overbearing way Kristy runs things. This is the first time someone says, “Forgoing a social life for the sake some bratty kids kind of sucks.”

Boys! Cute boys! Romance!

The grunge fashion and U4Me, I think, really brings us all back to those mid-nineties. The 80s outfits are before my time (I’m a 2nd generation reader), but the 90s ones I can actually remember.

Not so much focus on the baby-sitting plotline. Yes, there is a stupid talent show in Stacey vs the BSC, but this is only memorable for how Stacey totally betrayed Charlotte Johanssen due to fallout from her totally awesome boy/girl party.

The Bad Girls are so wild! They wear black lipstick and sneak liquor into concerts! It reminds me of this time I was reading Teen Magazine in like, sixth grade, and they did a big first-person story on some girl who tried to sneak wine coolers into a concert and her car was pulled over and she was totally taken to the station. That story put me off wanting to try drinking for at least like, three months.

Again, I think the main point is that this arc finally addresses what we’re all thinking–baby-sitting kind of blows, so why do these girls never try having a normal teenage existence?

Sadly, after Bad Girls, we get the Stacey of Stacey McGill, Super Sitter who wants to be the best BSC member ever. Luckily, once Dawn moves back to CA and CA Diaries begins, we once again get to see a member of the BSC who also is over the BSC and its strict ordinances. And Dawn? That girl never goes back to her old ways. For me that more than makes up the butchering the ghostwriters did to Dawn’s character after the first thirty or so books.

4 Responsed To This Post

myu said, October 19th, 2007 at 1:26 pm

“That story put me off wanting to try drinking for at least like, three months.”

Ha ha ha.

I particularly like the “Stacey Goes Baaad” (I’m really tempted to make that into a ’sheep are in’ joke, but I won’t) arc because it was completely different and it wasn’t part of the usual “normal life/CRISIS/solved by chapter 15″ routine. All right, it only lasted five books (more if you count the Mysteries), but it was still excellenty.

Coco said, October 24th, 2007 at 4:25 pm

I agree with the Stacey goes bad story arc. I always thought Stacey and Mary Anne books were the best. This was due to the fact that they were the ones most focused on boys/relationships. Mary Anne with Logan and Stacey with the ample number of guys who thought she was the most dibbly-fresh girl in all of Stoneybrook. Let’s face it- we all get sick of reading about 5 year olds playing in a softball game.

elphitha said, October 31st, 2007 at 4:47 pm

Every time I read the books now, I want to strangle them ALL for the crazy notion that BSC = life and friends/life outside the club = bad, because honestly - what thirteen year old REALLY wants to be so tied down and devoted to a ’successful business’? Let alone one that involves small children with runny noses and dirty nappies (or diapers, depending on whether you read the British or American versions!). I certainly didn’t feel that way when I was thirteen (though I did kind of want to babysit, just to be like them!) and I don’t think any thirteen year old I knew then or now would, either.

*I think the main point is that this arc finally addresses what we’re all thinking–baby-sitting kind of blows, so why do these girls never try having a normal teenage existence?*

That’s something I’ve thought about a lot recently, because I’ve had this yen to reread the books and finally got round to it - part of me wants to say that they’re afraid of becoming a Cokie if they allow themselves to live a life that doesn’t involve small children, or that they’re afraid of growing up with the responsibility that brings (though of course, the responsibility of a thirteen year old babysitting a nine month old baby is insignificant!). Or maybe they just like kids. A LOT. Maybe they were all secret perverts? *shrug*

Virjo said, March 13th, 2008 at 5:01 pm

i often wondered why stacey ever joined the club.
i know this girl who totally reminds me of stace… except she’s not blonde.. not from new york either… but she is kind of stacey-ish in a way.. she must be if someone noticed ^^
i love this site!

About

Stoneybrookite is a Baby-sitters Club blog written by Greer. It has been online in one form or another since 2002. Greer has been reading the BSC since 1993. She was also stamped as "Stacey" at BSC Stamped. Her geographic location is hard to pin down, as she has lived in seven cities in two countries in past five years, but a part of her is always in Stoneybrook. Hence "Stoneybrookite," the official term for residents of Stoneybrook.