Club-Read: The Baby-Sitters Club #33: Claudia and the Great Search

Well we got a "very special episode" book last time, so it feels only fitting to have one that feels straight out of a sitcom plot. One of the major things we know of Claudia is that she often feels like an outsider to her own family. Janine's the genius, Claudia's very bad at schoolwork and most basic spelling. Her parents are more conservative, she's a fan of more out there clothing, junk food and art. Could it be that Claudia was... ADOPTED!?

Well, only one way to find out. Let's solve this fractured family mystery with Claudia and the Great Search.

The reprint cover wins here. Easily. Why? Because it does something the other one doesn't. And that's give focus to the actual plot. The original just has her watching Emily Michelle. It's fine for selling the book series' overall gimmick, but doesn't scream "Claudia concerned that she may be adopted" outside of the fact that she's sitting for an adopted child, which you'd get if you were an avid reader, but not so much if this was like your first book. With the reprint, it does a far better sell job. Her facial expression, Mr. and Mrs. Kishi behind her seemingly getting along with Janine better than with Claudia and most importantly, the photo album which is integral to the plot. The original is fine, but this is a case where the reprint is far superior.

We open with Claudia excited to leave science class early, but not so happy about having to go to Janine's high school as she's gotten an award for excelling in science at a junior level. She gets a plaque and a 250 dollar in 90s money check which is pretty neat to be honest. What's not neat, at least to Claudia is that everyone is fawning over Janine and even the teachers there initially believe that Claudia might be as smart as her older sister, which Claudia more than easily knows isn't the case. Claudia heads home with her parents as the club meeting is about to start which means it's the easiest part of any of these reviews, the long-ass preamble about the characters and how the club works! After all that, Kristy brings up her adopted sister Emily Michelle and how she's been having nightmares and seems to be afraid of almost everything. Not to mention that she seems to be going slow when it comes to learning, namely in that her speech hasn't caught up to a normal two year old. Kristy wants to watch her, but has a job, so she offers the job to Claudia, who easily accepts. 

At dinner, Claudia's hopes of not feeling inadequate don't quite pan out for her as she learns that Janine is getting interviewed by newspapers and is even being given an article about the day in the life of a genius. She's also saving the 250 for her college fund which, yeah that sounds like a Janine thing to do. So with her parents fawning over Janine, right down to getting her a cake for her accomplishment, it leaves Claudia feeling worse. She looks at some old family albums and notices some things. She didn't look much like Janine when she was younger for one, but more suspiciously, no baby pictures, no hospital pictures following her birth. A thought begins to form in Claudia's head that something's not right here. And that maybe she was adopted like Emily Michelle. She, of course, doesn't just ask her parents since we have to pad out a book, and with no Mimi to talk with, we're not going to get any answers for a while. 

Later in the week, Claudia watches for Emily Michelle and a sick David Michael and things mostly go well, but a convenient storm scares Emily Michelle enough to make that a problem. Stacey calls and Claudia decides to tell her about the whole being adopted thing. Stacey, making this whole thing worse, decides to tell Claudia that she should search for her real parents and get some answers. The next day Dawn watches over Emily and David Michael, which leads to Dawn having to stop her from eating a pebble. So Dawn's been doing a much better job in paying attention since the whole fake kidnapping incident. Kristy shows up and tells her that they can't get Emily into a preschool since she's developmentally behind the other kids. It is interesting that we're getting a plot like this one book after the autism plot. Not that it's one to one, it's just interesting that we're dealing with two kids who have differing developmental issues. 

Claudia calls up Love Bundles, the adoption agency that Watson and Elizabeth got Emily Michelle from. Since they're relatively new and only work with Vietnamese children, it's a pretty dead end. her next plan to get her birth certificate from the safe deposit box at their bank, but she doesn't have a key, so that also doesn't work. Next up, she goes to Dr. Dellenkamp, the local pediatrician, for answers, but doesn't get any as she wasn't Claudia's pediatrician and the receptionist, Miss Wilson, there doesn't know the name of her past pediatrician for convenience sake. Of course Claudia suspects that there must be some sort of cover-up keeping her from learning the truth. In other words, she really has been reading too much Nancy Drew. She sits for Emily again and manages to get her to learn how to match colors, which is the scene from the original cover. She does such a good job at it that Mrs. Brewer decides to give Claudia a job in tutoring Emily, which she accepts. Stacey sits for the Perkinses and makes chocolate chip cookies that their dog Chewbacca almost eats, but thankfully we don't have to compound this book with an animal medical emergency. Though if this were a Stine book that dog would be eating those and probably dying. But more pertinent to the plot is Stacey finding a book called Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye which is about an adopted girl finding her birth mother.

After reading the book, Claudia decides to check the library for the newspaper during her date of birth. But she's not listed in any birth announcements, which, as goofy as this plot is, this really is an awful lot of coincidences, huh? But she finds a listing for a Resa Ho, and believes that could be Asian or Polynesian enough to be her. There are two other names as well, which interest her and she aims to find them and hope for some answers. Those names come up short, so it's down to the Ho family for any hope in answering Claudia's questions. Kristy and the Krushers have a practice while Emily is taken to the preschool to be reevaluated. David Michael says he hates Emily, but not really, more just jealousy due to her being given so much attention. Which, hey, valid mindset given most of this book so far. Claudia watches Emily again and tries calling people with the last name Ho, and by process of elimination, she believes that a Mary Ho in Wyoming must be her birth mother. She tells Stacey, but Stacey says that it's probably smarter to finally just talk to her parents about this, before harassing some woman in Wyoming.

Of course, this being Claudia, she screams at her parents that they lied to her about being their child, which obviously catches the two of them way the hell off guard. They shut her down quick by saying that they are her parents. The pictures was more a weird issue of them having had more pictures of their first child than their second. As for the lack of a newspaper clipping, it wasn't in the Stoneybrook News, but the Stoneybrook GAZETTE. Claudia apologizes for all of this, but they're not mad at her. Perhaps a bit confused as hell, but not mad. They show her pictures of Mimi when she was about Claudia's age and they look almost alike, so even after dying Mimi's the one sort of saving the day here. A true MVP of this series. And we get our mega happy ending as at the next meeting Kristy says that Emily is doing well and the schools think that she could go to preschool come the fall. And also that Claudia should continue tutoring her since it went so well. After the club meeting, Claudia tells Janine that they should make dinner for their parents as a nice surprise. 

This book is fine. Look, I'll take fine over last book. But for as fine as it was, I'll admit this book did feel very much like it dragged in the middle. Which of course is going to happen given the plot. So you're just hoping to hurry up and get to the point of her just asking her parents about her being adopted and getting the obvious answer. And while there's some decent ideas in the book, there's never really anything that leads to a compelling mystery. I think that comes from there being such a quick resolution to everything. That Claudia never really bothers the Ho family for example. But what I do like from this book is how deep into the rabbit hole Claudia gets with this. Down to not just doubting her birth parents but even going to a point of doubting her own race, generally fearing that she's half-Asian given the possibility of her supposed birth parents not being Japanese. So we do ultimately go around in circles without too much exciting drama up until the end of the book. Making this great search more of a just okay search. A palatable search. 

What I do like from this book is the stuff involving Emily Michelle. Her being adopted is pivotal to Claudia's fascination on possibly being adopted herself. And we get some cute moments in the book with Claudia teaching her how to match colors and aiding in her development. I will admit, given last book, I feared that we'd have some moment where Kristy would fear that Emily had autism, but we thankfully have moved on from that being our topic of the month. And it's the best use of Emily in the main series since her debut. Although this and Karen's Sister seem to often have plots with her being concerning situations, be it an illness or being slower to learn than other kids her age. Kind of hoping that's not all she is, the "add toddler in peril" go-around. At least we get a positive ending out of the whole situation, so I guess I can't be too bothered with everything.

You get some baby-sitting stuff, but not too much. Most of it is focused around the Thomas-Brewers this time around, save for a bit with the Perkins family. No Karen or Andrew this time around, which feels weird. But we sort of already settled Karen's issues with Emily, so having it pivot briefly to David Michael works fine enough. Also no real stuff for almost half the club. Mary Anne, Mallory and Jessi really have nothing in this book. Which is interesting that this is another Claudia-focused book where a lot of the cast feel lost in the shuffle. I figured this would be the case once the series focused on seven protagonists, but it's definitely feeling more noticeable at the moment. 

So overall, this book was fine. Its plot is very goofy, and the search itself can feel underwhelming, but I do like some of Claudia going overboard, and the b-plot involving her and Emily Michelle is cute and balances things out quite well. Probably Claudia's weakest book at this point, but given she was the focus of the highest rated book so far in the series for me, I can't be too upset. And after the mess of last book, even a fine book is something I'll take. Claudia and the Great Search gets a B-. 

Next time, it's back to Sea City with Mary Anne and Stacey and oh no! There's just TOO MANY BOYS for Mary Anne. Whatever shall she do? 

Nancy Drew

Green Eggs and Ham

Chewbacca

Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye

Lois Lowry

Don Ho

Sesame Street

VCRs

Computer Disks