Super Special #12: Here Come the Bridesmaids!

Tagline: It's a California wedding!

Cover: Where do I even start? Left to right, I guess. Kristy...I believe that if she had to wear a dress, she'd wear that one. Mary Anne is too tall, but the dress looks appropriately awkward on her. Dawn looks better in the dress but not at all California Casual (maybe if she took off the sleeves?) Speaking of sleeveless, Claudia looks different but not wacky. Jeff cracks me up, because he looks like a game show host making patter with a contestant "Ha, ha. Wonderful. Now, back to the game!" Plot!: This book is really two different plots in one, joined together with the tenuous thread of Christmas weddings. On the west coast, Dawn's father gets married (to Carol), and on the east coast, the Barrett-DeWitts get married, and for some reason this is a big deal for the BSC. Because this is a super special, everyone gets their own little drama:

• Dawn: her father gets married and she moves back to Connecticut, for awhile.

• Mary Anne: does not want to be a bridesmaid at Jack Schafer's wedding, then is hurt that she isn't, and it's all Dawn's fault. It's even stupider than this sounds.

• Kristy: organizes the We Heart Kids Club's goodbye party for Dawn.

• Claudia: the thirteen year old acts like a wedding planner and does weddingy things, including taking pictures

• Jeff: watches Jack and Carol fight about things like an entertainment unit and a lava lamp

• Stacey: is a bridesmaid for Mrs. Barrett

• Mallory: gets into a fight with Ben over caroling

• Shannon: watches the Barrett kids at the wedding

• Jessi: is a Santa at the mall. Which has nothing to do with the weddings.
  

• Suzi Barrett: is nervous that Santa won't find her family once they move

Points of Interest

• Dawn opens the book by announcing that her dad is getting married, and she’s already making it all about
  her. Apparently she has to pass her midterms (midterms?) if she wants to pass her classes (wouldn’t they be called finals?), and right after the wedding she’s flying back to Stoneybrook to live for awhile.
  
• But the biggest WTF? Me, Me, Me moment comes when she laments that the Barrett-DeWitt wedding is the same day as the Schafer-Olson wedding, because that means that the BSC won’t be able to come to California. Wait. Time out. She was expecting all of the BSC members to come to California, to watch her Dad (who they have met once) get married? Plane tickets are not cheap!

• I’d better slow down here, because there are so many WTF moments I might pull a muscle if I get outraged at them all.

• Anyway, Dawn is the one who is like, “since I can’t be everywhere, and people have made the ridiculous choice not to come to my dad’s wedding, let’s keep journals!”

• The other thing about this book is that there is very little explanation...of anything! It doesn’t say who is going to California or who’s helping out at the B-DeW wedding until it’s happening. I’m used to way more exposition.

• Dawn buys her bridesmaid dress because she loves it: satiny material, shirred off-the-shoulder sleeves, a fitted bodice and a skirt that flared mid-calf. It’s...a pretty standard bridesmaid dress, it looks like. It does not look like something a thirteen year old girl would be excited about wearing, especially if they were as much of an individualist as Dawn is. What are you up to, Lerangis?

• Dawn buys two dresses...one for her, and one for Mary Anne, who is apparently also a bridesmaid. Luckily, this turns into a plot point later on.

• Stacey eats a big greasy cheeseburger at Burger Town? But what about her diabetes? Actually, I have no idea if she’s eaten burgers before, it just seems strange.

• Mrs. Barrett asks Stacey to be a bridesmaid. In her wedding. At least there are other, adult bridesmaids there.

• Jessi becomes a Santa for Bellair’s department store. This plot feels really out of place, because I keep forgetting it’s set at Christmas.

• Mallory and Ben get into a stupid fight: they are planning to go carolling with kids, but then Mallory agrees to watch the Barretts at the wedding, which is the same day. And instead of doing the logical thing and rescheduling the carolling to like, the next day, they have a big fight. And eventually they end up going the next day anyway. Sigh.

• Dawn describes her life as a soap opera. Mary Anne calls Kristy’s life a soap opera. That should have been the direction they went in for the HBO show.

• I have watched too many TLC wedding shows to think that hiring a thirteen year old girl (with Claudia’s artistic sense) to decorate and/or plan your wedding is a good idea. But that’s how Claudia ‘works’ off the ticket that Jack Schafer buys for her to come to California.

• Okay. Dawn forgets to tell Mary Anne that she’s a bridesmaid, and Mary Anne freaks out, because she hates being the centre of attention and she’s worried about being sunburned from the dress. Then she comes around, but it turns out that she’s NOT a bridesmaid – Dawn just assumed she would be, and didn’t talk to Jack or Carol or anyone about it. Oh my Lord. Is Dawn really that dense? Mary Anne has met Jack once. She’s the daughter of the man that his ex-wife married. Why the hell would she be in the wedding?

• Mary Anne is also pretty judgemental about a beach wedding. She’d prefer a nice normal indoor wedding, which Dawn takes offence to, because Mary Anne is calling them abnormal.

• Carol’s dress is not at all a wedding dress. It’s more like a dress you’d put on to have brunch with your friends because you don’t really have to impress them. Also, I always thought she was a blond, but the illustration is of a brunette.

• Oh, right, the Barrett-DeWitt wedding. Shannon and Mallory are looking after the youngest B-DeW kids, and they have to sit all the way at the back of the church. I don’t get this. Why couldn’t they be up closer, sharing the day with their parents and Bobby and Lindsey, who are in the wedding?

• Marnie makes a break for it and stands up at the front with her mom. Ryan DeWitt (the Stoneybrook one) starts crying and Shannon takes him out of the church. And that’s about all of the drama there.

• Mrs. Barrett has three bridesmaids and a maid of honour. That seems really big for a second wedding, especially given all the stress they had planning everything.

• Her dress is: a long white beaded antique gown with a plunging neckline. How plunging? Why aren’t there any pictures of that? Come on, illustrator!

• After the weddings, the book kind of peters out: there’s a going away party for Dawn, Logan helps move furniture for the DeWitts, Suzi leaves a trail of bread crumbs for Santa to find her at her new house, Mallory goes carolling, Dawn gets a ticket back to California from her Dad and Carol, and she and Jeff go to Stoneybrook. The end.


Final Thought: I think my favourite part about this book is the picture of Jeff on the cover. It just makes me smile!

p.s. sorry about any weird formatting...this one kind of got away from me.

Super Special #8: Baby-Sitters at Shadow Lake

Tagline: Campfires, ghost stories - summer vacations are the best!

Cover: I feel like we've seen that outfit on Claudia before. I guess wearing cowboy boots to a camp-out is what classifies her as wacky. Dawn looks kind of simple, and has really dark eyebrows. Jessi looks like a man. Mallory looks middle-aged.

Plot!: Watson is asked by his aunt if he wants to inherit an old cabin at Shadow Lake. He isn't sure, so he decides to spend some time their with his family. And the BSC, of course. Kristy really wants him to keep the cabin and organizes the BSC into keeping a diary to give to Watson as an after-trip gift.
Individual plots are:

• Dawn finds out a mystery and thinks that Shadow Island (where they go on a camp-out) is haunted
• Stacey has to deal with Sam, who is suddenly in love with her
• Jessi meets a boy, teaches him to dance, and is conflicted because of Quint
• Mary Anne baby-sits for Karen, Hannie and Nancy, and they find a playhouse in the woods
• Kristy learns how to drive a boat
• Mallory is attacked by bugs and baby-sits for David Michael, Linny and Nicky, who fight a lot
  
• Claudia decorates a boat for the boat parade

No, seriously. Those are the plots. There's even less going on here than in a regular Super Special. Anyway, in the end Watson decides to keep the cabin (or agree to have it willed to him, I guess) and calls Kristy his daughter, which she likes.

Points of Interest:

• Shadow Lake is in the mountains of Western Massachusetts. In case you want to go there for yourself.
  
• The Brewer/Thomases are allowed to bring friends, so David Michael invites Linny Papadakis and Nicky Pike, Karen invites Hannie and Nancy, and Kristy brings Emily Bernstein. No, just kidding, she invites the whole BSC. And Watson and Elizabeth go for it, because they don't really want to spend time with their family when they can get 13- and 11-year olds to do it for them.
  
• FYI: Jessi is black and Mallory is white. For your information.
  
• Jessi sees a cute guy (who is dark-skinned like her (again, that's what the book says)) and starts getting excited, then feels badly because she forgot about Quint. As if, in all of NYC, Quint never sees a girl and thinks "Hmm, she's cute." Or a guy.
  
• Sam calls Stacey Dahling and ravishing.
  
• The sitters make fun of Stacey for saying Yo, as in "Yo! Look out at the middle of the lake." I would maybe think that this was strange, but I'm watching MuchMoreMusic's 100 Greatest Hip Hop songs and all of the slangiest words from the 1980s, 90s, and 2000s are running together in my head.
  
• The BSC finds a boat under the dock, but Watson and Elizabeth decide that only people over 12 can take lessons to drive it. Take that, Mallory and Jessi.
  
• Karen gets two chapters in this book. So does David Michael. That's as many as Mallory. Sam gets one, too.
  
• Kristy's mom wears a bikini when she's just hanging out around the cabin. Not bad for a mother of four.
  
• The BSC goes to the lodge to eat by themselves. Kristy says she has a great idea. Then the waiter comes and they say they need five minutes. Then they choose, and the waiter comes back 15 minutes later. THEN Jessi says "what was your great idea, Kristy?" So what were they talking about for the 15 minutes? The menu?
  
• Anyway, Kristy's Great IdeaTM is to go out to Shadow Island and spend the night. Everyone thinks it's a great idea except for Dawn, who is pretty much scared out of her mind. What? Dawn loves ghost stories and mysteries. I find this highly out of character for her, especially when Mary Anne is okay with going out to the island. I guess it's in line with her New York, New York persona when she wouldn't even go outside, but it still doesn't seem like Dawn.
  
• So Daniel, the boy Jessi's obsessing over, says hello, and Jessi starts freaking out because she has previously in her life also said hello to another guy. Seriously. Jessi, chill.
  
• Daniel asks if she wants to go to the dance at the lodge with him, and Jessi says yes, even though in the previous paragraph she realized they had nothing in common - he likes sports and hates reading and baby-sitting, and he can't dance.
  
• Mallory is being eaten alive by bugs, and Kristy called her hopeless and an embarassment. Claudia and Stacey tease her about her bug netting, and Mallory flips out, telling them to shut up. I kind of hoped that this would be Mallory's chance to really go crazy and call out the BSC on all of their shit, but no, by the end of her chapter she's back to fretting about mosquito bites.
  
• Claudia is looking after Andrew and Emily Michelle, and she takes them to the docks and then announces she is going to stop and draw. Andrew says they will too, and Claudia is relieved because she didn't know what they were going to do. That...seems like pretty bad baby-sitting to me.
  
• Sam is obsessed with shaving and talks on and on about 'whiskers.' Because he's a grizzled old prospector.
  
• Dawn gets a lead on the Shadow Lake mystery, and it's about the Bayard family, who disappeared years ago under mysterious circumstances. By an astonishing coincidence, the clerk at the general store was Annie Bayard's fiance, and Dawn pushes ahead and pumps him for details, no matter how painful.
  
• There's a picture with Claudia, Kristy and Dawn in the boat parade, waving to the crowd - but Claudia and Kristy were the only ones in the parade. Dawn just joined them for the ride home. Bad continuity!
• Oh, and the boat, dressed up like the Lake Monster, wins for Most Spirit.
  
• In the picture where he's driving them to Shadow Island, Sam is wearing a button-down dress shirt. While driving a boat. While camping. Wouldn't he be more comfortable in a T-shirt or something?
  
• To pass the time on the island, the BSC sings the theme song to the Beverly Hillbillies. Naturally.
  
• When Dawn's brother Jeff was younger, he called it a "waterlemon." Precious.
  
• Mallory shares her theories on alien abduction for the purposes of scientific discovery. What?
• Dawn finds a locket in the remains of the Bayard house and gives it to her fiance when they get back to the mainland. "This is for you," she says. "It's from Annie." Which is pretty much exactly what Jessica and Elizabeth say in Sweet Valley Twins' The Curse of the Ruby Necklace.
• David Michael and his friends were trying to make a fort to compete to Karen's playhouse, but their efforts don't lead to much. But everything works out in the end and Karen agrees to share their playhouse, because they're bored with it.
  
• It takes Stacey and Claudia FOUR HOURS to get ready for a casual family dance at the lodge. That seems extreme.
  
• Stacey and Claudia work out a secret signal for Claudia to rescue Stacey from Sam: blinking their eyes. It's perfect! Because no one ever blinks their eyes otherwise.
  
• So Stacey and Sam dance at the dance, and I really hope this picture turns out, because you have to see this illustration. Stacey looks like she's too weak to stand on her own legs so she's grabbing at Sam for support, and Sam looks like he's medically checking to see if Stacey is wearing a bra. It's the most awkward picture this side of Logan and Mary Anne's Sea City date.
• At the dance, Jessi awkwardly and embarrassingly confesses to Daniel that she already has a guy she likes. But it turns out that he already has a girlfriend back in Boston! Wait. Time out. Now, it's true that most of Jessi's "OMG he likes me!" is made up (like, he walks her home after their dance lesson), but I have to say he was leading her on a little bit. He stalks her to the dance studio and asks her for dance lessons, invites her to the dance with him. calls her gorgeous, and puts his arm around her. Those are kind of dick moves for a guy with a girlfriend.
  
• To get Stacey's attention, Kristy says "Yo, Stacey!" I guess Stacey's sophisticated New York language has rubbed off on her.
  
• Stacey whispers that Shadow Lake is soooo romantic. I can totally see her as the type who would honeymoon here with Sam because it was where they first fell in LUV. That should be a BSC fanfic, if it isn't already: The BSC is reuniting for Stacey's wedding to Sam, and it's all happening at Shadow Lake! Will Dawn try to solve the mystery? Will Jessi get time off from her fabulous ballet career? Will Kristy bring Abby as her date? Will they remember to invite Mallory?
  
• In the end, Watson decides to allow his aunt to will her cabin to him, and in a letter to her he refers to Kristy as his daughter. And she's really touched by that, which is kind of sweet.
  

Final thought:

I love the Super Special illustrations, in the way that it's like, "OMG I can't believe they put that in a book and people bought it."

Super Special #2: Baby-Sitters' Summer Vaction

Tagline: Good-bye, Stoneybrook...hello, Camp Mohawk!

Cover: I thought this would make a good Super Special to start with, because I don't have Babysitters on Board (here). Camp Mohawk one is a good one to start at, because while it's pretty silly, it's not flat-out ridiculous like some of the other ones (California Girls, NewYork New York, or the last couple). The cover gets the summer camp feeling across. I've always thought it was (from left to right): Kristy, Dawn, Jessi, Mary Anne, Stacey, Mallory, Claudia. But Stacey and Dawn aren't always easy to tell apart, even though they should be, because Stacey should have shoulder length permed hair and Dawn should have loooooong cornsilk hair. But they never do. Anyway, the rest of it is typically odd. Jessi is showing off her looooong dancer's legs. Kristy is short. Mary Anne, being all bent over like that, would be way too tall if she straightened up. Claudia's legs are so short that she can't even touch the ground. It looks like somebody kicked Dawn in the balls.

Plot!: The BSC decides to be summer camp consellors, because they watched some camp movie and thought it would be fun, or something. And of course, everyone in Stoneybrook also decides to send their kids there. So they go to Camp Mohawk and have varying plot lines:

• Stacey gets sick and spends most of her time in the infirmary.
• Claudia falls in luv with a Japanese-American guy named Will.
• Jessi meets some racists but changes their minds through the power of dance.
  
• Mallory dorks out with Jessi.
  
• Mary Anne feels way uncool compared to the other counsellors, so she acts all schmoopy
  
• Dawn gets lost while camping.
  
• Kristy gets a makeover.
• Logan gets teased because Mary Anne is his girlfriend.
  

This is the first Super Special with the 'classic' line-up that includes Mallory and Jessi. Stacey is still in New York, but she convinces her parents to let her leave NYC for this wilderness.

Continuity Fairy: The Super Specials always have random things assigned to them. Like Stacey - she's not normally a hypochondriac. And Kristy doesn't really care what people think about her. Plus, everyone is racist.

Points of Interest:

• Kristy calls Stacey the New York branch of the BSC. God. Can't they just be friends without making EVERYTHING about the club?
• Stacey's the one who makes it into a book, the one who is like, "Okay, guys, write down all of your experiences because I need a memory book!" That's another consistently dumb plot device.
• She's reading Catcher in the Rye. Of course. Isn't it a little scandalous for a BSC member? Shouldn't she be reading some Paula Danziger or something?
• Dekanawida is NOT A HARD NAME.
• Sometimes I'm curious about the relationship Emily Michelle will have with her siblings when she grows up. I mean, when I'm thinking deeply about fictional two-and-a-half year olds.
  
• Dawn watches The Parent Trap once a week? Because of the divorce? That seems...not healthy. Does Dawn ever get therapy? Even in the California Diaries? Mary Anne does, though, doesn't she? I have a memory of someone talking to a therapist of some kind.
  
• Seven of the Pikes go to camp? (All but Claire, because she's too young). What? Do the Pikes come from money? Because they probably ALSO go to Sea City that summer. Crazy. Meanwhile, how awesome would that be for Claire, to have all of her parents attention?
• They really sing the Bottles of Beer on the wall all the way there? I doubt it. They'd get sick of singing it and trail off, I would think.
  
• Do we know Mimi's first name? Claudia writes a postcard to Mimi and addresses it to Mrs. L. Yamamoto.
  But Claudia starts the postcard with: Hi, Who are you? So maybe it's not for Mimi after all. Maybe she's part of a random postcard mailing project.
  
• Junior CITs is the dumbest part of this book. And there are a lot of dumb parts. You're eleven years old! Who wants all of that responsibility? Be a kid! Have fun!
• Stacey got a body wave for her hair. I still don't really know what that means.
  
• Jessi is complaining about everything: there are no black kids at camp. she can't be a CIT. Her roommates all have names that begin with MA. Wah.
  
• Mallory makes Junior CIT armbands. Lame.
• We have to hear everyone explain that the counselor gets a private area, and that Mrs. Means is called Old Meanie. It's not more interesting the third time.
  
• Mallory 'haughtily' defends the Bobbsey Twins, and then gets accused of reading them. Instead of denying this or explaining she just has a good memory (or a general knowledge brain), Jessi instead insists they DO read the books, which they don't. If she'd said they read horse stories, the bonding that happens later (spoiler?) could happen now. Stupid.
  
• Mary Anne name-drops Julie Harris and Faye Dunaway. Mary Anne is about the only BSC member I can see knowing those actresses, but I still don't buy it. At least it's not an I Love Lucy reference.
  
• Mary Anne tries to impress the other CITs by revealing she has a boyfriend, but they aren't that impressed by Logan. Probably because "he's from Kentucky and is on the other side of the lake" sounds a lot like "she lives in Canada."
• One of Dawn's campers just wants to read Anne of Green Gables, so Dawn calls her stuck-up. Yeah, take that, Heather! Reading is so uppity. Feminists like conformists, right, Dawn?
  
• Ugh. Nonie.
  
• Jessi and Mallory seem even more co-dependent than usual in this book. Between linking arms to walk places together and getting up early to say good morning to each other, they seem more coupley than they ever do.
  
• Kristy claims she doesn't know what her name means. According to Wikipedia, it means "follower of Christ." Would that really not have been in a baby book? Kristin, in the 80s? I don't believe it. I also don't know why I'm choosing THIS to be hung up on.
  
• At the 'canteen,' Claudia buys: a snickers bar, an almond joy, a mars bar, a bag of doritos, two packages of peanut m&ms, a pack of twinkies, and cheese doodles. I think she has some kind of problem.
  
• Mary Anne calls it 'Lake Dukakis.' Ha...ha?
• Logan compares writing for Stacey with 'The Diary of Anne Frank.' I usually love ANM's efforts to talk about real books, but this one just feels odd.
  
• Rick, Logan's co-CIT, is WILD. We know that because he wears a Hawaiian shirt over his camp clothes.
• Dawn said she's never met anyone like Heather - quiet, prefers to read, and calm under pressure. Uh, that sounds a lot like...Dawn's best friend/step-sister, Mary Anne.
• Dawn's speech to the campers when she takes over as counselor sounds a lot like Charlie's speech when Watson and Elizabeth go on their honeymoon. Of course, it was a cliche to begin with: you MUST stay up late, you MUST eat junk food, etc.
  
• I always thought that Dropsy was when you dropped stuff a lot. No, I'm serious.
  
• Claudia has this weird speech about how her parents want her to marry a Japanese guy (probably), so she's really glad that the guy at camp that she hasn't actually ever talked to is Japanese.
  
• For no reason (is it in the public domain?), Dawn's campers sing "Monster Mash" while on their hike. I know that Karen sings it in a Little Sister book, too.
  
• I don't even know how to end this, because all of the non-plots have non-endings. Dawn is no longer lost. Kristy goes to a dance. Claudia falls in luv and then cries. The end.
  

Final Thought: I never really liked summer camp.