Club-Read: The Baby-Sitters Club #09: The Ghost at Dawn's House

It's time for another book starring Dawn. She was a decent focus in her first outing, although, again, I will harp on it once more that she did almost cause a possible kidnapping by dropping the ball that one time. I know I harp on that a lot, but in terms of stuff we've seen with BSC so far, it's a pretty big whoopsie. So now we have her second turn at bat, with a focus on her house possibly being haunted. I mean, it would fit in line with the possible witch we also have in this series, so I guess sure, why not? Does it equate to a good book? Let's find out as we learn about The Ghost at Dawn's House.

This cover, honestly, is kind of forgettable in the grand scheme. It's got some good detail and it sells the idea of a mystery with Dawn and Jeff, flashlight in hand, checking out a creepy room. It does at least sell a mystery vibe, which coincidentally Baby-Sitters Club would make into a spinoff series a few years from this point. It's just, kind of bland to me otherwise. I think it's also the art itself which looks more rushed and less detailed compared to other covers in the series, especially the cover for the last Dawn book. So overall, decent, but not one I remember when I think of this series.

The Baby-Sitters Club meet up for the first time since their Summer vacation. Well, except Kristy who didn't really vacation anywhere. Claudia and her family went to New Hampshire, and we already followed the misadventures of Mary Anne and Stacey last book. Dawn and her brother Jeff went the furthest from Stoneybrook, heading to California to visit their dad. Dawn notes them watching European Vacation on the plane, which I guess is less risque than the first so sure. Then again it's the 80s and kids still watched stuff. She also refers to her father as "Disneyland Daddy" which sounds more creepy than I think Ann M. Martin intended. But she means that the Disneyland trip is a make good for not visiting them. She got to babysit for a bit, two kids named Clover and Daffodil as they belonged to hippie parents, so they're literal Flower Children. Which, I guess you can get away with Clover easy. Good luck with the name there, Daffy. Kristy also notes a new family known as the Perkins family moved into her old house, which made babysitting there feel really awkward.

Dawn returns to her home, which is a rather cramped farmhouse built in 1795. She and Jeff have a salad and eat outside, while Dawn notes that she thinks that there's more to this house than meets the eye, like there's a hidden room inside or something. Or maybe a ghost. At Dawn's house. Their mom returns home, to which Dawn notes she's sort of a mess lately with her new job taking a lot out of her. Their picnic is cancelled by a convenient thunderstorm. Dawn heads to her room and begins to read a book about ghosts, spooks and other supernatural beings when the lights start to flicker and she can hear tapping noises, to which her mom notes that, I mean, duh, convenient thunderstorm. Certainly not a ghost. At Dawn's house. 

After baby-sitting the Barret kids again, this time without kidnapping incident, Dawn invites the girls to her house to search for any hidden passages in her house. They don't find anything, but get scared by Jeff in a Halloween costume. They may be good babysitters, but they're easy marks I guess. Mary Anne baby-sits the Perkins kids which again feels weird given new people in Kristy's house and all, but it goes pretty much without incident. Dawn baby-sits for the Pikes with the help of Mallory. Things seem fine, but one of the boys, Nicky, is a bit upset that nobody treats him with any respect, so he's allowed to walk two blocks by himself, which of course bothers Dawn given, you know, the thing I keep harping on. Nicky walks off and Dawn can't find him. But he shows up shortly after, and stuck to the rule, so yeah, crisis averted this time. 

Dawn returns home and reads in the barn, only to fall down a hole. Turns out that there's a hidden room after all. And all it took was nearly killing herself to find it I guess. The hidden room is more of a hidden tunnel underneath the house and barn that connects to both. More concerning however is Dawn finding an old shoe buckle, a silver button and a key ring, which makes her suspect that someone must have been in the tunnels centuries ago, and maybe died there. Could there really be a ghost? At Dawn's house? Back to the others, Kristy is watching David Michael, Andrew and the agent of chaos, when yet another convenient storm hits, meaning that Karen is in the mood to tell a ghost story of a man named Ben Brewer who was haunted by a ghost who turned him insane. And now his ghost haunts the third floor of the house, or the attic, or  somewhere at least. But Karen's tale spinning is pretty good as it actually scares them all. 

Meanwhile, the storm cuts the power out to Dawn's house, so with not much else to do, she shows Jeff the secret passage. They look around and find a very old nickel and what looks to be a really old ice cream cone. It's enough for Dawn to think the place is haunted, which given they hear what appears to be moaning sounds, it's not too much of a stretch. It's enough to scare them into calling their mom who is on a date with another guy, not Mary Anne's father, because that hasn't really been cemented yet and her parents are trying to get her to go with other people. They tell her about the passage and the noises coming from within said passage. She returns home with her date, a man named Trip, who confirms there's nothing in there that could or could not be a ghost. At Dawn's house. That doesn't deter Dawn however, who is certain that this is a ghost and not the sounds of a storm, or a house settling, or stuff like that. 

As her mother goes to check around, Dawn finds a book about the history of Stoneybrook underneath her purse. It's a book from 1872 that mentions that one of the mysteries of the town involved the disappearance of Jared Mullray in 1810. The Mullray family were forced to sell their belongings to a banker named Mathias Bradford and were forced to move from their farmhouse. However, one of the family members, a man named Jared, chose not to go with them. The family could hear him say he wasn't leaving, but he was nowhere to be seen. In fact, nobody would ever see Jared again. It's believed he found a way to hide himself inside the house, and very likely died there. Dawn puts two and two together to realize this must mean that her home is the very farmhouse that Jared Mullray lived in. He may just be our ghost. At Dawn's house. We get a quick chapter with Claudia watching the Newton kids, mainly Jamie, who keeps forgetting to do things before going to bed. 

The next day, Dawn shows Mary Anne the secret passage. This time she finds what look to be peanut shells on the ground, which she didn't see before. So if there is a Jared Mullray in the passage, he sure likes his snacks. Next up is Stacey watching the Pikes again. The conflict here being that the girls took a sample pack of Shampoo and used it on Claire, which turned her into a foamy mess. Also Nicky goes missing for a minute. Back to the main plot as now Dawn finds bread in the tunnel and is less surprised now. But she does find a strange key, which makes her suspect something is up. Back to the Pikes with Dawn watching this time. The triplets pick on Nicky, causing him to leave yet again, but this time Dawn suspects something. She returns to her home and checks the passageway and sure enough, Nicky's down there. Meaning he's our ghost. At Dawn's house. Given it's within two blocks which he's allowed to wander, he found the passageway and decided to hang around there, given the other boys in the family keep giving him a hard time. Dawn's relieved, though it doesn't fully explain the other hidden items including a set of keys she found. The book ends with the girls having a slumber party at Dawn's house, where she shows them the passage and scares the others by pretending to be a ghost. The next day, they all think of what else they can do with summer coming to a close, and Dawn no longer worrying about any possible ghost. At Dawn's house.

I'm going to be honest, I do feel this is the weakest of the books so far. It lacks a lot of the oomph that I do feel previous books had. As while the mystery of the ghost is interesting, it's not strong enough to pad an entire story. And that very much feels like the case here. I've said before that I do feel that the baby-sitting stuff does feel like padding at times, but it definitely feels like the case here. Namely anything not involving the Pikes, which it is interesting that two books in a row they're pivotal to the plot. More so one of the Pike kids, but still. The mystery is decent, and you might even forget about the whole "Nicky can go two blocks" thing that it catches you off guard at the end until the reveal. But a lot of it is super slow progression to the mystery. Just Dawn going into the passageway over and over. I can see why the baby-sitting things are needed, especially since this is yet another book where the entire group are barely used. At least we get stuff with each of them, even if it's very basic baby-sitting stuff.

What I do like about the book though is the ideas that it sets up, even if there's really no payoff to it that could work given the books are set in reality. The history of Jared Mullray and his apparent haunting of a farmhouse that could be Dawn's, with the book making it clear that it's not 100% positive that this is the same house. And what bits we do get in the passageway do work for a creepy atmosphere. The noises, the darkness, the strange objects. If you're going into this story wanting a creepy mystery, it should at least satisfy that a little when it comes to atmosphere. But as a compelling mystery, I don't think it lands as well as I think it could have. But with a story like this, I can definitely see how the series would eventually spin off into the Mystery books later on. Feeling like a way to satisfy fans who want mystery stories while the mainline books mostly focus on more grounded plots. Maybe we'll cover those in the future, we'll see. Provided I actually try to keep a consistent schedule on these blogs. 

So yeah, not much to really say about this one. Dawn's fine as a protagonist, the plot flows well enough, and there is enough of a balance between mystery and baby-sitting that the book succeeds at serving both masters. But said baby-sitting can feel like padding, the progression can feel redundant by the end and the story not the most overly compelling compared to previous books. But that might be me, so I'll give it a recommend regardless. I think I'm just wanting a bit more after we got a couple books with stuff that's more important to the overall story and also a decent vacation story. I also hope this pattern of me being mid on the Dawn books eventually comes to an end. Mary Anne's up next and we finally enter double digits with BSC. Hope it's a better one. The Ghost at Dawn's House gets a C+. 

National Lampoon's European Vacation

Chevy Chase
Disneyland
Hippies
"Flower Children"
Oscar Madison
The Odd Couple
Felix Unger
Nancy Drew
The Hidden Staircase
Chewbacca
Barbie
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Hush Little Baby
The Tailor of Gloucester
Chutes and Ladders

The Little Engine That Could

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Ramona and her Father
Dairy Queen
Paddington Bear
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Make Way For Ducklings
Sixteen magazine

Ghostbusters
Star Wars
Mary Poppins
Sixteen Candles

The Parent Trap

M&Ms

Bill Murray
Hershey

Perrier