Little Sister #34: Karen's Snow Day

Tagline: Hurray! No school today!

Cover: Karen, Hannie and Nancy build a snowman, and pretend his name is Parson Brown.

Plot!: Karen is obsessed with having a snow day. She listens to the radio every morning and makes a list of the perfect snow day activities. Meanwhile, Karen's stepbrothers Charlie and Sam have started snowblowing driveways, and they enlist Karen to drum up business. She goes overboard, of course, and when she does get a snow day she has to spend it helping out Charlie and Sam because they are overbooked, and she is too tired to do her activities. But that's okay, because the next day her school boiler is broken and school is closed, so the Three Musketeers have their snow day after all.

Points of Interest:

• The book starts out with one of Kristy's Great IdeasTM: A reading party in the big house den. And all of the family shows up. Because Sam, Charlie, and even Nannie have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon. Is this really how big families act?
  
• I think I might have mentioned this in the other Karen book that I blogged about, but I have no idea what the timeline is for when her parents split up. In this book, she says that she lived at the big house when she was younger than Andrew, who is four (in this book). Watson is already dating Elizabeth when Karen is six. Does she remember her parents together? Does Andrew?
  
• One of Karen's annoying habbits is saying "Guess what" before she says something that's supposed to shock you (like she has a pet rat, or she and Ricky are pretend married).
  
• Isn't Hannie pretend married, too? I thought something like that was mentioned once.
  
• Karen gets really excited about inviting her teacher to dinner. I don't remember inviting my teachers to dinner, but I know at least one of my sister's teachers did.
  
• So Charlie and Sam have a snowblower and want to start a snowclearing business, but they're nervous about calling up people and asking for work. And they agree to let Karen do it. Why wouldn't they ask Kristy, who has her own business? And is older than seven?
  
• Then when Karen finds them more clients, they are all booked. But they don't think to tell Karen this, so she keeps on finding customers for them. Charlie and Sam KNOW what Karen is like - why wouldn't they say "Karen, thanks, that's enough?" Why are these books full of dumb misunderstandings because people don't communicate with each other?
  
• The time span of Karen books can really vary, especially if it's a book with big-house weekends. In the early ones, a whole book could be about a day. This one spans about six weeks. Not like time matters anyway.
  
• Karen gets to choose what she wants for dinner with Ms. Colman. She chooses a salad with artichoke hearts. When I was seven, I would have chosen something like hot dogs.
  
• When they are expecting a blizzard, there's a mention of the events around Snowbound.
  
• Just on a general note, snow days were pretty awesome. So was getting to go home early because of the weather.
  
• When Charlie and Sam don't show up, the clients call Karen. I'm not sure why - why wouldn't they call Charlie and Sam? They're all practically neighbours of the Brewer/Thomas house. Also, even if they didn't know them, they would know she was Karen Brewer...did Karen give them her number?
  
• Oh yeah, Karen lined up all of these new clients...and then didn't tell Charlie and Sam. So they're pissed, and they make the Three Musketeers come over and help them out, which ruins their snow day. Also, I'm surprised that Karen's mom lets her go over to the big house on a little house day.
  
• Karen's snow day is ruined, and Ms. Colman has to cancel their dinner because of the snow. But then, because this is Karen and Karen always gets what she wants (including charging a manicure to her Dad's credit card in Baby-Sitters on Board), the next day her school is closed because of a boiler problem and Ms. Colman can come to dinner. Ugh.
  
• The snowman on the cover's name is actually Dudley.
  
• When she comes to dinner, Ms. Colman announces to these relative strangers that she is getting married: "That is why I have been so busy lately. The wedding will be several months from now. After the wedding I will go away for awhile for our honeymoon. But then I will come back to school. Oh, and my name will still be Ms. Colman." Well, thanks for clearing that up in the least realistic speaking manner possible.
  

Final Thought: Is it wrong that I was actually kind of disappointed when Karen got her snow day?