Club-Read: The Baby-Sitters Club #24: Kristy and the Mother's Day Surprise

It feels frankly weird to get a Kristy book already. Especially given the wide berth between her third and fourth book during the tens. So to go right back to her four books later feels super quick. But this one is a bit more important in terms of what goes down, so I guess not having to wait for this one is a bonus? This book is a Mother's Day story, and if you paid attention to a previous blog where I mentioned Kristy's mom considering another kid, well, you might be able to guess what's going down here. Or do you? Let's discover Kristy's Mothers Day Surprise. 

Technically there's only two covers to talk about, but the original reprints and the ebook edition did edit the cover art of the original enough to bring it up. Mainly changing Kristy's hairstyle and giving her her signature ballcap, which she is known to wear a lot. Other than that, the colors are a bit more vibrant and the art is fine, selling Kristy with a bunch of the kids (notably Becca) at some sort of carnival. Same with the reprint with with far less kids. Both covers are fine though they don't quite sell the idea of a mother's day surprise. Original is my preferred in this batch.

Kristy opens the book as Karen tells her knock knock jokes for a bit. It seems Kristy's been thinking about her family a lot lately, which brings us to preamble #1 for the characters. She then holds the club meeting for preamble #2 for how the club works. 24 books deep now and we're still doing this. At the meeting the girls bring up that April is almost over and Mother's Day is around the corner. They think of presents (save for Mary Anne given her mother passed away when she was born) until the club meeting ends. At dinner, Mrs. Thomas-Brewer not so subtly brings up the idea of another kid in the family and how everyone would feel about it. She's not pregnant, but just throwing that around like a medicine ball to the gut of everyone on the spot. So now with the realization that her mother is considering another baby, Kristy realizes that she's going to have to up her game when it comes to a Mother's Day present this year.

At the next meeting Kristy unveils her idea. To celebrate Mother's Day, they should reward the mothers they sit for by giving them the day off on the Saturday, and the club will watch the kids for the day instead. Take them out somewhere fun. They decide to use their club money on the trip, but have no idea what said trip should be. Claudia sits for the Newtons where Jamie is performing as different circus people. He's really interested in Sudsy's Carnival coming up Mother's Day weekend, but his parents can't take him as they're too busy. He really wants a balloon though, whether it has advertising or not is beyond me. But it gives Claudia an idea. At the next meeting, Claudia suggests taking the kids to the carnival. Most of the kids they've sat for in the series so far. However that's about 20+ kids. So they need help. The associate baby-sitters are busy, but luckily for everyone Stacey can show up to help, so hey, good to see her again at least.

Kristy talks with her mother about the big Mother's Day surprise of taking the kids to the carnival, which she's on board with. On the subject of a new brother or sister, she isn't pregnant, but isn't exactly revealing what she's planning just yet. Kristy seems enthusiastic about this, until she sees David Michael, Karen and Andrew arguing about how their birth parent loves them more. Kristy immediately realizes that this baby plan might be a ticking time bomb. The final list is 23. Several of the Pike kids, Charlotte Johannsen, the Perkins kids, the Barrett kids, the Braddocks, Becca, the Rodowskys, Kristy's younger siblings, Jenny Prezzioso, Nina Marshall, Jamie Newton and Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold.  Betsy Sobak, the Delaneys and Papadakises decided against. Given the last time they were around Betsy Sobak Claudia got a broken leg this might be a blessing in disguise. They set up a list of what girl gets what kid as Stacey calls, mentioning that her parents have been arguing a lot lately. But it's just a phase. Certainly nothing to be concerned about. Yep, that's a pin on the board. 

Stacey arrives and finally meets Jessi and is fully up to date with everything going on. They plan for the big carnival day. They also see Mimi, who is messing her words more and trailing off. We're getting real close, gang. Oh I'm dreading that book. The day arrives and the kids show up, with Jamie and Charlotte in particular being super happy to see Stacey. The kids all then start crying, and Jenny is bothered that Matt Braddock is coming too, to which Haley super quickly shuts her up. They arrive at the carnival and have fun. Karen goes in the haunted mansion, but gets scared by everything, so a worker in a mask tells her the secrets of the effects, which given this is the agent of chaos, means she's going to spill the beans. Lunch is later provided by Mr. Kishi and Mimi, who is still talking about random stuff and seems really confused. It goes mostly well until Andrew injures his knees and the kids start crying and fighting again. The kids make their mother's day gifts then leave. The girls prepared their own gifts, even Mary Anne for her father because I guess Mary Anne finds gender-specifics lame, which rock right on sister. 

Kristy returns home and gets the answer from her mother about what's going on. She isn't pregnant, but instead she and Watson adopted a two year old Vietnamese girl named Emily Michelle. Kristy's side takes it great, though Karen and Andrew are particularly bothered by the news. The day arrives and Kristy gets more elaboration. Elizabeth and Watson had wanted to have a kid, but didn't think that they should go through another pregnancy, so they searched for a child to adopt and ended up with Emily. Watson and Elizabeth leave to get Emily as the kids and the club all wait and hold a welcoming party for her. Emily Michelle arrives, everyone is happy, and Kristy finds it to be the best Mother's Day ever. So this isn't just a mega happy ending, this is like a super mega happy ending. 

This book, as it is, is fine, but far from the strongest book in terms of being super interesting. It suffers the same way Kristy's Big Day does in that we get a lot of focus on watching a group of kids and less on the more interesting stuff going on in the background. This is a book that could be looked at as filler if not for the fact it sets up a lot of stuff that's going to be important later on. First off, Mimi's declining health which we're very close to reaching the unfortunate conclusion of. There's also the blink and you'll miss it bit of Stacey's parents fighting, and Stacey mentioning her mom misses Stoneybrook. Probably easy to put 2 and 2 together as to what's going on and what the end result will be. But the biggest piece of development involves Elizabeth and Watson wanting another baby. Emily Michelle debuts in this book and while we don't get much with her, it's still an interesting piece of new continuity. I would have liked more build to her arrival, but this book is about Mother's Day surprises so yeah, don't spoil the big surprise entirely.

If you want baby-sitting in the books, you get one normal one, and the rest is focused on the carnival trip, which is fun and cute, but definitely not very meaty either. Just a quick series of events and we move on. A definite feeling of these books' lengths really weighing the books down on doing many exciting things. Even with Stacey who we build up her big return, but she ends up really lost in the shuffle by the end. I still think the concept of all the kids being sat at once is handled better here than in Kristy's Big Day and doesn't detract from a plot that would be more interesting like that book did with Elizabeth and Watson's wedding. Here, the book puts just enough focus on the incoming new baby to make readers intrigued as to what the final result is going to be. And the book does something important about that. Making Karen and Andrew not so happy about this new kid. Which makes sense since they're young, are still reeling from their parents' divorce and have a fear of being replaced. So add all that as an added pin, namely for the Karen books, but still.

Overall, this one isn't the deepest BSC book out there and the plot is very straightforward, again even for BSC. But it's still an important book in terms of that oh-so-important worldbuilding. Setting up a lot of things that will be more important down the line. So it makes it an easy recommend. Not the meatiest book, but not a filler either. So that's good news. Mary Anne is up next and we've got a missing cat to find. Thank god this isn't an R.L. Stine book. Kristy and the Mother's Day Surprise gets a B+. 

Cheese Doodles

Cracker Jacks

M&Ms

Looney Tunes

Titanic

Sesame Street
Pampers

Love Story

Brian's Song

V8

Beaver Cleaver

P.T. Barnum

Disney World

NBC

Wheel of Fortune

Popeye

Coke

The Addams Family

Uncle Fester

Band-Aid

The Ants Go Marching

I've got Sixpence

Side by Side

Bill Bailey Won't You Please Come Home

Heigh-Ho

99 Bottles of Beer

Where the Wild Things Are

One Morning in Maine

The Cat in the Hat

If I Ran the Circus

Paddington

VCR

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds