This cover is just okay, but I feel like it doesn't really sell the plot of the book. You'd assume the "New Girl" of the cover is the blonde girl, and her pulling at Claudia's arm is a metaphor to her trying to pull Claudia away from baby-sitting. So I get the message of it, that's all fine. It just doesn't feel like the most exciting cover to sell that idea with. And really nothing that overly sells Ashley Wyeth as this really interesting artsy hippie-looking girl that the book's description makes her out as. Like I said, it's an okay cover, but it could have sold the idea much better.
Which is why I think the reprints do a little bit of a better job in selling the idea. In the reprint, Ashley's design is on point to the version in the original book and the cover, but sells her being more artistic and covered in jewelry. The graphic novel edition also does a good job in selling Claudia and Ashley having a common interest in art. It changes up Ashley's design, but still works in representing the character in a more modern update. Both also sell the idea of the story more by focusing more on Claudia's friendship with Ashley. Maybe not so much in a "Is the club in jeopardy" way but still fine. I may have to start bringing up reprints to these Cover Stories. It's more paragraphs to write, but I think it's a way to at review the book at face value before going all in.
Claudia opens the book in English class bored out of her mind. So bored that she'd rather watch a fly buzz around and start to give it headcanon. She's so bored that Mrs. Hall, the teacher, notices it and gives the class a surprise test. So yeah, boredom doesn't pay I guess. But as Claudia poorly spells Pharaoh, the secretary, Ms. Downey, arrives at the door with a new girl named Ashley Wyeth who just moved to Stoneybrook from Chicago. And Claudia is immediately enamored with the look of Ashley. Her clothes look more hippie-like (Which she describes in case a kid in the 80s didn't know what a hippie was), with a long pink skirt, hiking boots, and a ton of earrings. She's also well learned, namely with Newbery Award books which the class is reading on. Claudia talks with her and they hit it off with their interests in art. The club meeting goes down later that night. She mentions Ashley, but the other girls haven't met her yet. But as they talk, they get a job call to watch the Rodowskys, which includes Jackie, the kid who is constantly accident prone, and it's Claudia who takes the job.
At art class the next day, Claudia sees Ashley has also signed up, which excites her. They bond over art and show each other their portfolios. We learn that Ashley's been studying art since she was around four, even studying in the Keyes Art Society. As they look at the sculptures of the class, the teacher, Ms. Baehr, tells everyone that Stoneybrook is opening a new art gallery and there's a contest for students to create their own scupltures. Top prize is 250 bucks, which is a big deal for the late 80s. Claudia doesn't think she should enter, but Ashley says she should, which helps change Claudia's mind. Later, she babysits the Rodowskys and it doesn't go too well as Jackie first spills Rice Krispies then gets his hand caught in a bathtub drain after locking the door. Somehow I don't see this kid making it into his twenties. Claudia has to climb the doghouse roof to get to the bathroom window to get in, open the door and then use margarine to pop out Jackie's hand. I can definitely say this is the most harrowing baby-sitting job since the almost-kidnapping.
Some time passes and Claudia is outside with the kids when Ashley shows up, a bit confused as to why Claudia's babysitting her neighbors. Claudia explains the club, but Ashley notes that it must take up a lot of time that could be spent on sculpting, then leaves after being asked to stay, which bothers Claudia. She sees Ashley as more mature, so her playing with kids, even for a job, makes her look childish to Ashley. To make things worse, at school, neither Ashley nor Claudia's friends seem all that interested to know each other, with Ashley more focused on getting those sculptures done. Ah, I see that swimming pool of awkwardness is filling up nicely. She takes Claudia to a watercolor exhibit, which causes Claudia to be late for the meeting, which angers the club, so yeah. Things are going juuuust fine for our friend Claudia. We get a chapter of Dawn baby-sitting the Perkinses, which also continues to tie into the stuff with Jeff having behavior problems and wanting to go back to California. He gets in trouble, so she has to take the kids to school to deal with it since there's no sign of their mother at the moment.
The next day, Claudia and Ashley continue working on their sculpting projects as they decide on inanimate objects to sculpt. This includes a hydrant, a streetlight, a gum wrapper. This goes so long that Claudia is almost late for the meeting, but this upsets Ashley since they were just getting in the zone at hydrant staring. So Claudia chooses to stay with Ashley instead. When she gets home, she sees that she still got jobs to do for baby-sitting, and I already see where this is headed. Job or friendship? 250 bucks or a steady stream of cash? Kristy's chapter is next, which really isn't about the job so much as her entry in their book mostly kvetching over Claudia not showing up. We also learn they think Ashley's stuck up and REALLY dig into her wearing bell-bottoms. I guess it's better than throwing slurs. But they are also really hurt with Claudia seemingly avoiding them. I mean once could say that this whole thing would be avoided if the whole group TALKED with Ashley and Claudia and vice versa, but they do talk next chapter and the group are still pissed at Ashley and snap at both of them and Claudia, while Ashley doesn't make things any better. So, yeah. That pool of awkwardness just turned into an ocean of spitefulness.
Next club meeting, no Claudia, more bitterness. Which culminates in taking Claudia's stashed snacks and eating them then putting them back in the wrong places. Again, at least it ain't slurs. Though they think to write angry notes at her, so maybe I SHOULD be concerned about slurs? You know, angry or not, the girls aren't exactly making me think Claudia's making the wrong decision here. They then think about how Ashley seems to have only made Claudia her friend and plan to expose her for liking Claudia for her art and not for herself. Claudia babysits for the Rodowskys again, which means that Jackie ends up hurting himself again. She's again caught by Ashley who thinks that babysitting is useless and that she should be focusing on her art, which finally causes Claudia to snap on her because she has been treating Claudia more as an art student in need of her advice and help instead of as a friend. And Ashley doesn't take this well and is mad at Claudia because I guess nobody but Claudia can be rational in this book.
Claudia heads back to the Rodowskys the next day as Mary Anne is sitting. She chooses to make Jackie's head as her sculpture model, to which we learn that Jackie broke the metronome, the doorbell and the umbrella of his piano teacher. Again, making it to 20 seems like a crap shoot. Ashley shows up, angry that Claudia chose to sculpt a living person instead of an inanimate object, to which again Claudia calls her out on her nonsense. Later she tries to call Ashley and explain about how her life is busy and she can't put all her focus on her, but Ashley gets more angry and hangs up. But apologizing to the club works out at least. Claudia continues working on the Jackie head sculpt, even though she knows that she won't finish it in time for the contest. She goes to the next meeting and apologizes for everything, and takes jobs again, so it seems that we're wrapping stuff up in a neat little package. Despite the sculpture not being finished, Ms. Baer puts it in the contest, where it doesn't win, Ashley's hydrant does, but it got an honorable mention ribbon, so that's still something. And the book ends with Claudia inviting Ashley to sit at lunch with her friends and it goes okay, so they're still sorta friends, just not best friends anymore, which given everything, I guess is as good an ending as you could ask for? Hey, a book that isn't just a mega happy ending for once. Progress.
I found this book frustrating. But I think that's by design. The book wants to be frustrating because the situation its presenting is frustrating. How the club acts, how Ashley acts. Nobody fully being in the right and making things worse. And even ending with what feels like the first case of a mediocre resolution. But that is also what makes the book work honestly. Because this is a situation I feel a lot of kids can easily relate to. Feeling caught between friendships, not knowing who to be with without hurting the other. And Claudia is a great character to place this focus on. The books have established her love of art, so giving her a new friend who is really, really, really interested in art makes sense. But it comes at a price with the relationships she's already formed with the club. So it makes the book feel a shade slog-like to have to wait for Claudia's inevitable realization that she's being jerked around here. On both ends, but especially with Ashley. So you're just waiting for her to inevitably be the one to say "cut the crap" over all of this. And it does feel cathartic when she finally does.
Ashley is frustrating, and again, that's the point. She doesn't seem like a bad person, or even that bad to Claudia. But the book makes it abundantly clear that her passion is art. And that she can't see past art as an interest. Given she was pretty much raised into the art scene since she was four, you can understand why she sees it as more important than anything else, especially baby-sitting. And she gets to the point of being a pain, especially to Claudia, in how she more ore less forces her ideas on to Claudia. How she doesn't like the idea of Claudia wasting her talents with her own ideas instead of Ashley's. Granted, her ideas ultimately pay off to winning a first prize, so it's not like she was technically wrong I guess. She just handled it horrendously, acting like an art teacher instead of a friend. And I'm honestly glad we don't really end this with her and Claudia being best friends as it does feel toxic. Granted, how the club acts is also pretty toxic, but with them I get it more. She did start ghosting them without much of a say as to why. So you can see how things could easily devolve into pettiness. It's also very believable that this is how a bunch of 13 year olds would handle something like this.
This book is also not as babysitting intensive as the last few, which I feel is by design. We get one with Dawn, but it's only really here to continue the issues with Jeff that started last book. Otherwise, it's the Rodowsky family and that's really it. Jackie and his siblings are fun additions, mainly for Jackie being a walking disaster. And it does what I feel the books do well and that's show how important the relationships with the families are to the BSC. That these are more than just jobs, the girls actually want to be involved with these kids' lives however they can. So having someone like Ashley dump on it because it doesn't match what she feels one's pursuits should be makes for a solid conflict that I feel the book handles quite well. And something I feel is important is that after two books where we established these associate roles for the club, the book makes it clear that this isn't going to be the case with every friend that the club members make. This isn't a book series where every single person is suddenly down to watching kids.
So overall, this was a decent book. Not my favorite as while the frustrations of the book were intentional, it didn't make sitting through a lot of it as fun. Claudia is still a strong lead and the conflict is better handled than, say, the club breaking up in Mary Anne Saves the Day. And it is interesting that, after our last book was about snobs, we get a character in Ashley who honestly does feel more snobbish and pretentious than Shannon was. At least she didn't resort to fake pizza calls. So that's a plus. For as frustrating as the book is, I think it handles the situation in as realistic and as fair a manner as it could. It's a book that also asks the question of which is better, friendship and commitment or focusing on your craft above all else, while really saying that neither way is inherently bad. Both Claudia and Ashley still succeed on their own paths. And I think that continues to show how Ann M. Martin understood how to build this series. So it's still a recommend. Claudia and the New Girl gets a B.
Anyway, Stacey's book is next. Guessing it'll be another simple book full of lovey dovey situations and diabe-WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S LEAVING??
The Yearling
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The Newbery Award
Nancy Drew
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
The Westing Game
Sarah, Plain and Tall
Woodstock
Andrew Wyeth
Doritos
Keyes Art Society
Rice Krispies
VCRs
Chewbacca
Bazooka Gum
Twinkies
Peter Pan
Sherlock Holmes
Monopoly
The Twenty One Balloons
A Wrinkle in Time
The War of 1812
Hershey's Kisses
Cuthbert's Athlete's Foot Creme
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