Club-Read: Baby-Sitters Little Sister #02: Karen's Roller Skates

One and done. Yeah, right. Of course I was going to end up doing more of these because I am simply a glutton for punishment. And, thankfully, the Little Sister series, at least early on, wasn't a monthly series. Instead it was more quarterly at first, then every two months until being a monthly ongoing in mid-1990. So at the very least, I don't have to actually companion these until a little further down the line since we're in late 1988 at this point. So given I try for at least three mainline BSC books a month, it can mean I can squeeze one of these quick ones out. So, back to the Agent of Chaos we go as Karen's got some sick blades. What can happen when you give Karen wheels? let's find out with Karen's Roller Skates.

A decent variety of covers with this batch. Each interestingly feeling like a different part of the scene. The reprint having Karen getting herself set up in the roller skates, the graphic novel having her in motion, and the original cover having her jump in mid-air in what is clearly an early case of "images moments before disaster". Of the three, this time it's the original that I like the most. The other two put focus on the roller skates, but there's just something silly and fun about this cover that makes me laugh. this kid straight trickin' over those cans. Fitting perfectly with why I call her the Agent of Chaos. Of course she'd try to pull of a sick jump. All good stuff.

Karen starts the book with telling the reader about her recently acquired roller skates and how she's been itching to do some killer stunts on them, even if her parents tell her not to. While at her dad Watson's, her stepmom Elizabeth asks her to take Shannon out for a walk. Karen instead has her younger brother Andrew walk Shannon while she decides to skate it like a champ. She grabs a pair of coffee cans and jumps over them, like in the original cover, only for her landing to go bad. Breaking her wrist bad. Interesting to have two BSC books, both released in the same month, that focus on a broken bone. Clearly not the month of too much variety. 

Watson and Kristy take Karen to the hospital where she's checked out by Dr. Dellenkamp and then has her X-Ray taken. Kristy is very interested in all the hospital stuff, which I guess is more normal than wanting a pie in the face. The bone doctor, Dr. Humphrey sets her bones back in place and places a cast on her wrist. She returns to Watson's and is pampered, a bit too much given she starts to act indignant if someone doesn't do something she asks for. Broken wrist or no, this is still Karen Brewer. The next day, she realizes she can't do everything normal given the broken wrist, but doesn't want to admit it. She wants to go roller skating again but Watson puts the kibosh on that given that the broken wrist was bad enough. Karen, Watson and Andrew head to see Dr. Humphrey to check on the wrist. Karen tells Dr. Humphrey that she jumped over four coffee cans and she fell from trying not to run over a caterpillar. So yeah, seems right on time for her to lie about everything. Agent of Chaos indeed.

Karen gets the news that she's going to have the cast on for eight weeks, and is none too happy about it. Heading out, they spot a classmate of hers, Ricky, who has a broken ankle. Now Karen upgrades the story to five coffee cans and a caterpillar and her baby. However, Ricky one-ups her by saying that his cast will be signed by Hubert McGregory, a famous baseball player that his dad knows. So now Karen has her new goal. Find a way to get a famous person to sign her cast. Upon coming home she visits Hannie and her friends and now upgrades it to seven coffee cans and a whole bunch more caterpillar babies. After searching for more people who might know someone famous to autograph her cast, she stops as the ice cream man Mr. Tastee shows up. But after signing her cast, she learns that he's not actually Mr. Tastee, that's just the company, so that pans poorly.

So, everyone has signed her autograph, except for Mrs. Porter, AKA Morbidda Destiny, who Karen thinks is gathering herbs to create a spell to get rid of Christmas. Again, Karen's into witch stuff and yet still treats Mrs. Porter like garbage. 122 books, huh? But she decides to still get an autograph from Mrs. Porter regardless. Mrs. Porter signs the cast and draws a black cat on it, which of course drives Karen into believing this must be some evil spell. But Watson just says she drew her cat Midnight on it. So she's now appeased thinking that Ricky may have gotten a baseball player's autograph, but she has the autograph of a witch so that's somehow better by comparison? Oh, and Karen's mother and stepfather are friends with a movie star named Amy Morris so maybe she'll get that more famous autograph anyway because of course she would luck out.

Again, not much to really say with this book. It's again super quick and its plot really has less to it than even the previous book did. And given we just covered a book with a character having a broken bone, it doesn't exactly feel that fresh. Save for maybe more focus on what a hospital does with a broken bone. But other than that, it's a Karen story alright. Making herself the center of attention, causing chaos, exaggerating to make herself look better by comparison to everyone, harassing an old lady for unsubstantiated witch claims. Pretty much what you expect to get from this story, you get. Save for maybe much of the actual roller skates the book's cover sells you on. We only get her with the roller skates for a few pages before the injury happens and the book makes it clear she won't be skating again any time soon. If this book was called Karen's Broken Wrist it would at least be more accurate to the majority of the book. 

So there really isn't much else to say. It flows well, and Karen's an okay lead, even if she does get a shade annoying with her bratty behavior. Again, I don't know if I truly want to commit to this series since it's so threadbare for content, especially once it goes monthly, but I might find a workaround by then to at least give the books more coverage than they probably actually deserve. But for now, this book was just fine, but lacks in much roller skating action, so it might disappoint some. Karen's Roller Skates gets a B-.