The Baby-Sitters Club is rife with examples of glaring violations of child labor laws. Logan works as a busboy at the Road Spud. Laine poohs baby-sitting in favor of working as a cashier at Flowers and Bows, the boutique on the Upper East Side (or West? Please, someone with Stacey’s Ex-Best Friend handy, let me know!). Stacey works at Kid Center in Bellairs.

But in later books, someone seems to have sent Scholastic a memo saying, hey, THAT IS ILLEGAL. Sunny says that Ducky is the only friend of hers who can work at Winslow Books, because he is sixteen. Maureen Spencer says that none of Stacey’s friends can work at her new, as yet unopened store, since they’re not old enough. While in many ways the series got more unrealistic as time went on (oh hai princess in Stoneybrook and field trips to Europe), when it got to be CA Diaries/FF time, things seem to have become more realistic. Nothing in the plots of either series are as outlandish as things often found in later BSC.

Another thing I noticed in my reread of Stacey’s Problem: Samantha is one glamorous woman. She is a former model turned fashion photographer. Now, this kind of woman is not going to date just some normal guy. I would imagine that she would probably end up with someone high-powered and rich, because that is the kind of person she would come across in her work. We’re told over and over again that Watson is Very Rich, yet Stacey buys all her clothes at Bloomingdales (which is not cheap–Stacey is rocking the cost equivalent of Marc by Marc Jacobs in eighth grade), she went to a fancy private school in Manhattan, they had an apartment overlooking Central Park, Ed takes Stacey to fancy restaurants and Broadway plays all the damn time. So how come the obvious was never stated, that Stacey is very wealthy as well, in addition to being sophisticated? It seems odd to mention Kristy’s wealth in every Chapter 2 and not say anything about Stacey’s.

One of the marked features of the time warp is that no matter when someone’s birthday supposedly falls, after Logan Likes Mary Anne!, if you’re in eighth grade, you’re thirteen, and if you’re in sixth grade, you’re eleven, and so on. Even if you’re Dawn and your birthday is in February, if it’s an eighth grade June, you’re stull not fourteen.

Having everybody be thirteen in eighth grade and so on is kind of strange, because at least where I come from, it was common for people to be older. People like Mary Anne and Abby, who were born in September and October, respectively, usually wait a year to start kindergarten. Even kids with late July birthdays like me are often spend an extra year in pre-k.

There is only one exception that I’ve been able to find, and it’s sixteen-year-old sophomore Ducky McCrae in the California Diaries. Maybe his parents were too busy travelling to remember to enroll the Duckster in school. Maybe The Powers That Be wanted a character who could drive, thus giving the girls more independence, but didn’t want their friend to be a Junior in high school. But James Kodaly is a junior, and Amalia dates him, so that kind of makes that theory a bit strange.

Oh, and Mark Jaffe is thirteen and in seventh grade, because Claudia dates him for his “maturity.”

Are those two the only exceptions?

When you are reading the California Diaries series, it is easy to forget that Stoneybrook exists. I happen to really like the CA diaries, but they have a very different “feel” than the BSC series. First of all, there’s the diary format, and secondly, no baby-sitting. I don’t like Other People’s Kids very much, so that aspect suits me just fine. The second is that characters who also appear in the BSC series seem very different from their BSC incarnations.

First up is Dawn Schafer. Dawn in the BSC books is the eco-baby-sitter whose ~individuality~ is talked about often but rarely seen. In CA, “California Casual” turns into hippie-granola occasionally punctuated by WILD EARRINGS and SEXY BLACK PLATFORM SHOES. Dawn no longer seems to care about Mary Anne crying back in Stoneybrook. She has bigger issues to worry about, like drinking! and sunny dating everyone in Palo! Also, who doesn’t love the scene where she and Maggie go to this store called “The Tea Shop” where they sell “more than just tea”?! OMG Dawn smokes pot in 3…2…1.

Second is Sunny Winslow. Sunny’s character change is actually the most subtle and realistic. She was always a little unpredictable and boy-crazy, and her “turn it up to 11″ personality change in CA Diaries can easily be justified by her mother’s impending death. Depressing!

Third is Maggie Blume. Maggie’s was just… shocking. In BSC, she was “LA Futuristic Cyberpunk.” In CA Diaries, she’s a preppy straight-a student who really just wants to sing. It makes sense to me that they did that though, as Sunny really had the “wild girl” position locked up and to have another would be kind of useless. Let’s put Maggie’s changes down to her trying to “find herself” or whatever.

Jill Hendrickson (is that her last name?). Oh, poor Jill. Carelessly written out in the first Diary. She used to be serious and boring, now she just really likes unicorns. Again, like having two wild girls, Jill’s seriousness was too dull for a series.

I really like Amalia and Ducky, although they don’t appear in BSC except in passing mentions. The Gay BFF was missing in the BSC series, and Amalia is just really likeable and down-to-earth, and her problems are interesting while still being realistic. I would have totally dated Brendan in 8th grade. (Or now, you know if he were about fifteen years older).

Where things get interesting is where the Stoneybrook and Palo City worlds collide, like in Welcome Home, Mary Anne!. Mary Anne and the BSC just can’t seem to handle the New Dawn. Even though the girls grow up and away from baby-sitting a little bit in the FF series, they still are in the Middle School building, after all.