#61: Jessi and the Awful Secret

Tagline: Only Jessi knows what's really wrong with Mary.

Cover: Jessi's leg warmers make her loooooong legs look pretty stumpy. The girl in front has lots of attitude...I think she's going to be a star! Also, it is really safe for the kids to be dancing in socks? Bare feet would be better I think? Oh, who knows. Also, Mary isn't even trying to hide the fact that she's pretty zombie-fied.

Plot!: Jessi gets involved with this program to give ballet lessons to underprivileged kids. One of the other students in her ballet class, Mary, is acting strange, and it's because she has anorexia. Jessi is able to get Mme Noelle on her side and convince Mary that she has a problem. Also, Watson gets involved and gives some of the kids scholarships so they continue ballet.

Points to consider:

• AMM thanks a doctor in the opening pages, so you know this is a serious book.
  
• Jessica Ramsey is not actually Jessica Romsey, in case you were wondering.
  
• Mary Bramstedt gets a mention on the first page, so you know she's an important character in this serious book. Also: is that a common spelling? The second T seems superfluous.
  
• Jessi's one of the best dancers in the class. But she's not conceited - she's just truthful. She's one of the first ones volunteer for the six week course for the less privileged.
  
• The other is - duh duh duhhhhhhh: Mary.
  
• There's a lot of retread of everything we learned in Jessi and the Dance School Phantom: ballet is competitive, Carrie is as old as the hills, Lisa is only a so-so dancer.
• Jessi says that Stacey is just as cool as Claudia, and in some cultures, even cooler.
  
• Kristy is avoiding Shannon because she doesn't have any time to hang out with her. So instead of like, telling Shannon to call some other friends (nicely!), Kristy avoids her. Good thing the BSC sets her straight. A little slow on the Great Idea Machine, Kristy.
  
• Jessi cheers when she hears that she doesn't have to wear her outfit, even though previously she said how happy she was to have to wear it. Maybe she changed her mind.
  
• Apparently, Jazzy Jo Dupre and the Fly Boys is a popular group. Or an amalgam of things that were actually popular.
  
• There's a very, very awkward part where Jessi talks about the 'sorrow' of the underprivileged parents.
  
• Hannie calls the bell captain in 'Let's All Come In' the Bill Capstin. I get like, a four year old saying that, but Hannie seems too old for that. Unless it's a leftover joke from when she WAS four years old.
  
• Shannon comes over to the Papadakises while Kristy is sitting. Can't these girls entertain themselves for an afternoon?
  
• Okay. So remember when Kristy was avoiding Shannon? And decided to tell her to talk to other friends and bother them? So Shannon does, and then Kristy feels left out.
  
• Meanwhile, Jessi is so anxious for outside friends that she even agrees to go eat at Burger King with the other volunteers from the Underprivileged Dance Class.
  
• Jessi wears a neon-green leotard and deep blue work out pants with yellow slouch socks. Hot.
  
• Some of the other volunteers, particularly Raul, jump to the conclusion that because the class isn't like the ones they had when they were little, Mme Dupre is racist and classist and doesn't expect anything from the Underprivileged kids. And while tacit racism is a real thing, I think it has more to do with the structure than actual racism. The volunteers were probably in real long-term classes - this is a six week program, where fun is just as if not more important than the actual skills. Also, this is what, the third class? Just because they're not dancing en pointe yet doesn't mean that they're not learning anything. In my early ballet classes, we did a lot of things like skipping in a circle.
  
• Mary pushes her fast food around, hiding it and making it look like she's eating when she's not. Years after I read this (and other tween books - not that they were called that then) the daughter of a friend of my mom's showed textbook signs of anorexia, as described in these books. Her mom already knew about it but she was doing it anyway - and I had to clue my mom in!
• Apparently Jessi has never heard of anorexia...? In the ballet world? Post-Karen Carpenter? Okay.
  
• Stacey reminds us that when she joined the BSC, before she told people about her diabetes, they thought she was anorexic.
  
• Stacey and Sam are in an awkward phase. I really think that they would totally have a fling or something when Stacey is home from university for the summer, when she's a freshman or sophmore and Sam is...well, two years older.
  
• Kristy asks Shannon if she's having problems at home, since she never wants to be there.
  
• I highly doubt that the ballet teachers aren't very aware of what anorexia looks like.
  Especially Mme Noelle.
  
• Jessi asks Aunt Cecelia what she would do if she knew that someone else was hurting themselves, and Aunt Cecelia immediately wants to know if it's drugs. I know she gets a bad rap, but I think Aunt Cecelia can be awesome in her own way.
  
• She also calls Jessi Jessi. I thought she made a point of calling her Jessica. Or maybe that's a way of showing she's mellowed.
  
• Aw, Kristy feels left out, and because of that she's acting like a major jerk. It's like the reverse of Kristy and the Snobs!
• FINALLY, Jessi mentions to Mme Noelle that she's worried about Mary, and Mme Noelle talks to Mary, and the truth comes out. Why do all of these Jessi ballet stories involve someone quitting ballet?
  
• Watson ends up sponsoring a scholarship for two of the underprivileged kids.
  
• Aw. Jessi has a heart to heart with Martha (one of the kids from the class)'s Mom about being black in ballet that leaves them both feeling hopeful. This series is full of so many cringeworthy moments that I forget there are sort of nice ones, too.
  
• Kristy and Shannon make up, and the kids have their final routine, and the two kids with potential get the Watson and Elizabeth Brewer Dance Scholarships, and Mary, off screen, is allegedly getting help. Everyone wins!
  

Final thoughts: I've covered book #59, and now #61, so that means I should get to #60 soon! And it's probably one of my top three favourite BSC books and one of the most snarkworthy, so it should be a good time.

#42: Jessi and the Dance School Phantom

Tagline: Someone - or something - is out to get Jessi!

Cover: I think Jessi actually looks kind of cute on the cover...way better than the fug looks that they usually give her. And if not for her loooong legs, I think she'd even look kind of age appropriate. No, the hot mess on the cover is Dawn, who is in her California Casual denim-on-denim, wearing a strangely obtrusive watch, has her hair pouffed in a way that makes her head look square, and is going for...maybe scared and surprised? But comes out looking stoned. Also, why is Jessi wearing so much jewelry? Rings and a watch? At a ballet practice? I don't think so.

Plot!: Jessi gets the lead in another ballet - Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. But soon after practices start, she starts getting threatening notes, and someone keeps stealing her stuff. Of course, the BSC handles this on their own (even though Jessi is INJURED by the 'phantom') and while everyone in the class is a suspect, it's eventually narrowed down to Hilary, who is jealous of Jessi and has a pushy stage mom. Meanwhile, the BSC organizes a pet show/competition thing, and I'm really not a pet person so it's even more boring that usual for me.

Points of Interest:

• Ugh. This book starts off in French. Which I don't have a problem with, except that I know Jessi's fake French talking is going to come next. Maybe it's because I grew up taking French in school, but I didn't need her pronounciation guide, and even if I did, the italics indicated that it was in a different language so...whatever, Mademoiselle Romsey.
  
• Jessi talks about being the only black student in the class, and wanting to be a ballerina when there are very few black dancers in general. It always sounds awkward and added-in when the others talk about race, but I think it's good coming from Jessi.
  
• Carrie Steinfeld is so over the hill. It doesn't give her age, but she's about to graduate (from the school? from regular school? I don't know) and she hasn't had any lead roles. Maybe the next school she'd want to be in is like the school in Center Stage, which is kind of a university but more like a ballet school with book props.
  
• This is all happening at an audition for Sleeping Beauty, and they all want to be Princess Aurora.
  
• If Mr. Ramsey works in Stamford, and Jessi's dance school is in Stamford, why didn't the Ramseys just move to Stamford?
  
• Jessi talks about how she likes wearing a uniform, because if there wasn't one there would be too much neon in the class.
  
• The Ramseys are basically the only BSC family that shows affection for each other. Maybe it's because she's eleven, but I think Jessi's family figures into her books more than the other families (well, I guess Mallory is always doing stuff with her family, but because it's so big it's not the same).
  
• SO. The phantom's first move: steal Jessi's toe shoes. But I don't understand how she does it. Jessi puts her bag down and changes out of her clothes. She puts the clothes in her locker and put the tights on. Then, she goes to put the shoes on, and they're not there. Did the phantom move so fast that she took them when Jessi's head was in her sweater? Did Jessi go to the bathroom or something?
  
• Okay, here's anothing thing I don't get (and I HATE being so confused by a BSC book): Mary (the future anorexic girl?) wishes she could lend Jessi her extra shoes, but they're at home, and anyway everyone's toe shoes are different. She describes her breaking-them-in routine, and then says that she needs a new pair of toe shoes every week. Wait, what? Really? Earlier in the book, she said that Hilary gets a new pair of toe shoes whenever she needs them, while the rest of them have to make them last. So does Hilary get a new pair every day or something? Are there any dancers out there that can help me clear this up?
  
• Suspicious behaviour: Hilary suggests everyone look for them again, while Katie Beth finds them in an allegedly empty bag.
  
• Painstaking is a word that I learned (or semi-learned, since I'm not sure exactly what it means but I have a good idea) from the BSC books, but I've never used it or seen it used in real life.
  
• More suspicious behaviour: Carrie keeps plowing into Jessi when they dance. That's...kind of obvious for a phantom.
  
• The phantom's second move is to steal Jessi's entire back up outfit, and leave her a note that says BEWARE and WATCH YOUR STEP.
  
• Jessi is way too excited over the fact that Hannie and Scott Hsu are pretend married.
  
• Kristy babysits for neighbourhood kids and everyone gets competitive about the pet show. Boring.
  
• Jessi slips and falls during a class, and she gets a second note: I TOLD YOU SO. FROM NOW ON, WATCH OUT. This would be a logical time to go to someone, anyone about this stuff, right? Ha hahahahaha. This is the BSC!
• Third note: IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE. TOO BAD IT WASN'T. I don't care if it is some teenaged ballerina - this person sounds crazy and needs help.
  
• Jessi won't go to Madame Noelle because she's convinced Madame Noele will think she's making it all up. What? What about her parents?
  
• Mallory sits for the Barretts, and they're fighting over Pow in the pet show. Boring.
  
• Charlie, for some reason, volunteers to drive the BSC to Stamford so the others can be Jessi's bodyguard. Whatever.
  
• They come up with nothing, so there are more phantom activities: Jessi's leotard is returned (but cut up into shreads), she's pushed into paint, someone hides thorns in her dance bag, letters are sent, and a piece of scenery almost lands on her head. Just a normal ballet practice.
  
• The chapters in this book jump around a lot: we're at a dance rehearsal, we're at a BSC meeting, we're at Jessi's house - all in one chapter. It's paced very strangely.
  
• So Jessi confronts Hilary with this stupid plan to get her handwriting and it only works because Hilary does the classic bad guy move of saying to much. She says "sorry, I won't do it again" and Jessi is like, "okay, fine." SERIOUSLY. THIS GIRL NEEDS HELP. SHE TRIED TO HURT YOU. SHE DID HURT YOU. GAH.
  
• The big solution to the pet show problem: giving everyone an award. Why didn't they just think of that sooner? That's like, the first rule of doing something with a large group of kids.
  
• Stacey wears a tuxedo to Jessi's opening night. Because she's sophisticated.
  
• In the dance, Jessi has to perform with a boy! He's an eighth-grader, and he has to lift her and kiss her onstage! Where were those rehearsals? That would have made for a much better story.
• In the end, Hilary decides to quit dance and Jessi goes out for ice cream. Everyone is happy.

Final thought: the picture on the cover never really happens in the book. Which makes me dislike it even more. Sorry, non-fug Jessi.

#36: Jessi's Baby-sitter

Tagline: Jessi doesn't need a baby-sitter - she is one!

Cover: This one has been updated to show that we're not in the late 80's/early 90's anymore. Jessi is wearing a blue sweater with strange colours and patterns all over it. Her un-slouched socks make her loooooong dancer's legs look really kind of stumpy. Becca looks a bit like she was inspired by Ashley from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Aunt Cecelia looks...pretty much what she's supposed to look like. In the update, everyone's the same but Jessi: she has a new sweater, a new hairstyle, new socks, and a new expression. It's more "This is soooooo unfair" than the original book's "Die, bitch."

Plot!: There are some baby-sitters club books that make you want to throw them against the wall for one reason or another. A character does something that goes completely out of character, they do something improbable, there's a giant event that involves a lot of babysitting and/or some fun thing for their 'charges.' With this one, I just want to keep yelling "You're 11!" over and over, much like Luca in the BSC movie yells "Thirteen!" in the cab.

Anyway. Jessi is 11. Her mom decides to go back to work, so Aunt Cecelia moves in to help look after the children - because there are three children. And Jessi and Becca don't like it, so they play pranks on her and call her Aunt Dictator. Then finally they confront their parents and it all works out because the parents let Jessi go to her BSC meetings and tell Aunt Cecelia to lighten up. Meanwhile, Jessi helps Jackie Rodowsky make a volcano for his science fair project, but does it all for him, and it's pretty much a train wreck. Also, the Pike kids open up a library for a chapter.

Points of Interest:

• Do 11 year olds really dance en pointe? Aren't they still growing?
  
• When her Dad says that they have exciting news, Jessi thinks that her parents might be pregnant and is really thrilled. This has happened to at least Kristy, Dawn and Mary Anne. Really? Especially given the not-so-happy reaction Jessi had with Squirt in The Baby-Sitters Remember...but I guess that bit of history hasn't been written yet.
  
• Do you think advertising is really a 9-5 type of job? I picture people pulling all-nighters, trying to meet deadlines and redoing copy and stuff. Then again, I also picture Mad Men, so I doubt that's what Jessi's Mom's new job is like.
• Jessi's sign on the door:
  KEEP OUT (please)
  THIS MEANS YOU
  PRIVACY NEEDED
  (THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION)
  Who is her audience? Becca? Her parents? Squirt?
  
• Jackie wants to make a volcano because he saw it on the Brady Bunch. As far as old tv references go, I will let this one go, because the Brady Bunch was airing all the time on stations like TBS around this time.
  
• When Jessi and Jackie go to the library, Claudia's mom, the head librarian, is just hanging out there. She has a lot of desk hours for the head librarian - wouldn't she have a lot of meetings and committees and stuff? Maybe she's the head librarian because she's the only librarian. Anyway, she greets them with "What are you doing here?" Friendly.
  
• Why would the BSC convince Jackie, the walking disaster, to build a volcano made of clay and glass? I'm all for encouraging him, but this seems kind of dangerous. When his mom comes home, she's all "Great, Jessi, why don't you help him with this instead of me? Good luck with that!"
  
• The Pike kids opening up their own lending library. As far as Pike kid plots go, it's the kind of thing I can see a big family doing together, especially when they're fairly close in age like that. It wouldn't work so well in Kristy's family, for instance, with the age variance from Emily Michelle to Charlie. I could see Karen trying something like it, though, maybe with Hannie and Nancy. Anyway, it's only a chapter long, and it's kind of memorable, so long story short: this is the book with the lending library.
  
• Jessi calls Aunt Cecelia "Aunt Dictator" because she dared to bring her own belongings when she moved into their house, she told the girls to get ready for bed, and she made them breakfast. That night, Jessi and Becca short-sheet her bed, fill her slippers with shaving cream, and put a spider on her pillow. Yeah, that's totally a fair response, and going to convince her parents that she should be in charge.
  
• Okay, I have to take a time-out here to talk about Jessi's parents. Most of the trouble here could have been avoided if they had taken any time to talk to Aunt Cecelia about the new situation. They know Jessi is defensive about being a baby-sitter, so why wouldn't they start off by saying, "Cecelia, don't call yourself Jessi's baby-sitter." And one of the reasons that Aunt Cecelia is hard on Jessi is because of her baby-sitting schedule and not knowing where she is. Again, why wouldn't the parents set some ground rules? Talk about who's in charge, and privileges, and routines and stuff? All of this is covered at the end of the book, and it's true that Aunt Cecelia is a dominating personality, but really, if the Ramseys had thought about it for half a second, it wouldn't have been so stupid.
  
• Mr. Ramsey has a secretary named Ed?
  
• Charlotte does an experiment to see what music plants grow to best, and the winner is the plant that listened to Duran Duran. Awesome.
  
• Jessi learns a valuable lesson from helping Jackie with his science project: volcanoes are almost always more trouble than they're worth.
  
• Oh, BARF. Aunt Cecelia confesses that she's afraid she's not as good a baby-sitter as Jessi. GAH. This is just so dumb. She's already raised children!
• Style alert! Mal has high-tops with beaded designs on the sides. Fresh.
  
• David Michael's ribbon from the science fair is hanging over his bed. In Kristy's Big Day, the Thomases had a trophy table/wall in their house, and they wondered if they'd have one at Watson's. I guess not.
• The BSC is really hard on Jessi about the whole Jackie fiasco. Yeah, she made a mistake, but AGAIN, she's 11. And the rest of the BSC did a variation on this in Little Miss Stoneybrook...and Dawn, so, deal. When Jessi says that Jackie doesn't want her help next year, Kristy says "I don't blame him." Nice.
  
• Foreshadowing! Mallory is worried about her dad's job (#39, Poor Mallory!) and Stacey tells Dr. Johanssen that her diabetes has been hard to control lately (#43, Stacey's Emergency)

Final Thought: Ads in the back of the book include the BSC board game, a t-shirt, a 1991 calendar, a contest to win a trip to New York in honour of the next Super Special (the answer is California), a 1990-91 School Planner and Date Book, an announcement of a winner of a previous contest, and BSC Videos. It really was quite a moneymaker, eh?

#55: Jessi's Gold Medal

Tagline: Go for it, Jessi!

Cover: Does anyone else hear "Go for it, Heather!" from "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion"? I do. I've tried to do at least one book of everyone in the club before I repeat, but then I did two Claudias. Partly because I was so excited about my new books, partly because I didn't have any Jessi books that really inspired me. Jessi and the Dance School Phantom, maybe. I haven't read the later ones about her. Then I remembered that I also would need to do one of Abby's books, so that will probably be next (I don't have either the Shannon story or the Logan books...yet).

Anyway, back to this book. I wonder which one Jessi is? Also, couldn't they have at least tried to make the girls' arms look synchronized? That's kind of the whole point of the book.

Plot!: Speaking of the point of the book, Jessi is discovered to be a natural for synchronized swimming because of her ballet talent. She's partnered with Elise Coates, someone we've never heard of before and will never hear from again. They're worried that they'll embarrass themselves, because they've never read a children's book before, but in the end, because this is a children's book, they win. Oh yeah, synchronized swimming is a sport in the SMS Olympics, and in subplots, different members of the BSC are entering different events (including a boy vs. girl Kristy vs. Alan race). And because baby-sitting has to come in somewhere, they hold a mini-olympics for the kids they baby-sit.

Points of Interest:

• This is the book that has the 'horses sweat, gentlemen perspire, ladies glow' nonsense that is totally not true. Ladies sweat; let's get over it.
  
• Jessi is a born dancer. It's not conceited, it's just true. Just so you know.
  
• Jessi's dad sounds like James Earl Jones. Cool?
  
• Ugh. It's a hot day, and then the Ramseys have seafood casserole for dinner. It seems...heavy to me.
  
• Stoneybrook has a sports complex with three pools, including an Olympic-sized pool. I have absolutely no idea in my head about what Stoneybook is like. Sometimes it's this tiny little town and then it has three middle schools and a university.
  
• Claudia was wearing: shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and sandals. Wild.
  
• Oh, Alan Gray. I prefer Cary Retlin in terms of Kristy antagonists; he's kind of a bad boy, and Alan's just kind of a doofus.
  
• Ugh again. Even though she hates sports (and gym! There's a whole book about it), Mallory decides to be part of the sports festival....because everyone else is doing it. BSC books are really all about group-think. My favourite one, Mary Anne's Makeover, is the classic example of that.
• Dawn enters the Javelin throw, because she's so, like, offbeat and different. Yawn.
  
• Jessi and Elise decide to get to know each other better after the competition is over. And then we never hear of her again. She just drifts off into the black hole of people who aren't fanatical about baby-sitting; it's a place very similar to the high school classroom where all of Zack Morris' ex-love interests are.
  
• I thought Alex Kurtzman was the super-serious guy who carried a briefcase and wouldn't let people cut in line. So why's he participating in the backwards race?
  
• Kristy wins the boy vs. girl race against Alan, of course. They try to make it dramatic, but...it's not. It's about as dramatic as the Lisa vs. Slater obstacle course at the Malibu Sands. Has there ever been a girl vs. boy race that the girl didn't win?
  
• Speaking of no suspense, Jessi and Elise win the award for best synchro routine. I wonder how the rest of the team feels, being beaten by the two newest girls in the group. Take that, losers. Then Jessi and Elise decide to quit. So...everything is back the way it was before the book started. The end.
  

Final Thought: I really do love the (real) Olympics.