it might be surprising to you how popular an opinion this is

I'm supposed to have thirty blog posts by next Friday, and I have seventeen. So that's a problem.

I read Baby-sitters at Shadow Lake (Super Special #8) last week. I had to give a presentation for the book collection contest--which, by the way, I am 90% sure I have not won--and they asked me to bring my favorite five books, and I totally thought that meant we would be discussing my five favorite BSC books but we didn't really at all.

It was somewhat of a disappointing read. Sure, I adored it when I was twelve but I'm twenty now. I mean, it's still pretty fun, and the parts at the ~*~haunted island~*~ in the middle of the lake are full of good moments, but Baby-sitters at Shadow Lake was my favorite as a kid because it was a super special that had Karen's point of view! Then I grew up and realized that Karen Brewer is the worst child to ever enter literature. Why do I hate Karen Brewer, you ask?

1) She skipped first grade because she is oh-so smart. What, exactly, does second grade offer that first grade does not? I don't get it.
2) She shouts all the time when she is in the classroom. She think her teacher Ms. Colman adores her but I am pretty sure Ms. Colman wants to strangle her.
3) She is a two-two which means she has two of everything because her parents are divorced.
4) She's the only child of Watson's who actually acts like she's the child of a multi-millionaire, i.e. really freaking spoiled.
5) She bosses everyone around, which causes all of her friends to hate her, and then she always wins them back by either buying them stuff or by throwing parties which are wholly too elaborate for a six-year-old.
6) She decided she hated some girl because she wears perfume.
7) There's this one book where she meets a really shy girl and upon realizing that the little girl is so shy and--gasp--has a heart defect, Karen decides she is going to make her "feel better," aka talk, by hanging around her constantly being really, really obnoxious and asking a million questions about whether she'll die if she swims. IT MAKES ME WANT TO PUNCH HER KNOW-IT-ALL FACE

books books books

This has been going around! These are the top 100 children's novels ever and everything in bold is what I've read.

100. The Egypt Game – Snyder (1967)
99. The Indian in the Cupboard – Banks (1980)
98. Children of Green Knowe – Boston (1954)
97. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane – DiCamillo (2006)
96. The Witches – Dahl (1983)
95. Pippi Longstocking – Lindgren (1950)
94. Swallows and Amazons – Ransome (1930)
93. Caddie Woodlawn – Brink (1935)
92. Ella Enchanted – Levine (1997)
91. Sideways Stories from Wayside School – Sachar (1978)
90. Sarah, Plain and Tall – MacLachlan (1985)
89. Ramona and Her Father – Cleary (1977)
88. The High King – Alexander (1968)
87. The View from Saturday – Konigsburg (1996)
86. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – Rowling (1999)
85. On the Banks of Plum Creek – Wilder (1937)
84. The Little White Horse – Goudge (1946)
83. The Thief – Turner (1997)
82. The Book of Three – Alexander (1964)
81. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon – Lin (2009)
80. The Graveyard Book – Gaiman (2008)
79. All-of-a-Kind-Family – Taylor (1951)
78. Johnny Tremain – Forbes (1943)
77. The City of Ember – DuPrau (2003)
76. Out of the Dust – Hesse (1997)
75. Love That Dog – Creech (2001)
74. The Borrowers – Norton (1953)
73. My Side of the Mountain – George (1959)
72. My Father’s Dragon – Gannett (1948)
71. The Bad Beginning – Snicket (1999)
70. Betsy-Tacy – Lovelace (1940)
69. The Mysterious Benedict Society – Stewart ( 2007)
68. Walk Two Moons – Creech (1994)
67. Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher – Coville (1991)
66. Henry Huggins – Cleary (1950)
65. Ballet Shoes – Stratfeild (1936)
64. A Long Way from Chicago – Peck (1998)
63. Gone-Away Lake – Enright (1957)
62. The Secret of the Old Clock – Keene (1959)
61. Stargirl – Spinelli (2000)
60. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle – Avi (1990)
59. Inkheart – Funke (2003)
58. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase – Aiken (1962)
57. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 – Cleary (1981)
56. Number the Stars – Lowry (1989)
55. The Great Gilly Hopkins – Paterson (1978)
54. The BFG – Dahl (1982)
53. Wind in the Willows – Grahame (1908)
52. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007)
51. The Saturdays – Enright (1941)
50. Island of the Blue Dolphins – O’Dell (1960)
49. Frindle – Clements (1996)
48. The Penderwicks – Birdsall (2005)
47. Bud, Not Buddy – Curtis (1999)
46. Where the Red Fern Grows – Rawls (1961)
45. The Golden Compass – Pullman (1995)
44. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing – Blume (1972)
43. Ramona the Pest – Cleary (1968)
42. Little House on the Prairie – Wilder (1935)
41. The Witch of Blackbird Pond – Speare (1958)
40. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – Baum (1900)
39. When You Reach Me – Stead (2009)
38. HP and the Order of the Phoenix – Rowling (2003)
37. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry – Taylor (1976)
36. Are You there, God? It’s Me, Margaret – Blume (1970)
35. HP and the Goblet of Fire – Rowling (2000)
34. The Watsons Go to Birmingham – Curtis (1995)
33. James and the Giant Peach – Dahl (1961)
32. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH – O’Brian (1971)
31. Half Magic – Eager (1954)
30. Winnie-the-Pooh – Milne (1926)
29. The Dark Is Rising – Cooper (1973)
28. A Little Princess – Burnett (1905)
27. Alice I and II – Carroll (1865/72)
26. Hatchet – Paulsen (1989)
25. Little Women – Alcott (1868/9)
24. HP and the Deathly Hallows – Rowling (2007)
23. Little House in the Big Woods – Wilder (1932)
22. The Tale of Despereaux – DiCamillo (2003)
21. The Lightning Thief – Riordan (2005)
20. Tuck Everlasting – Babbitt (1975)
19. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Dahl (1964)
18. Matilda – Dahl (1988)
17. Maniac Magee – Spinelli (1990)
16. Harriet the Spy – Fitzhugh (1964)
15. Because of Winn-Dixie – DiCamillo (2000)
14. HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban – Rowling (1999)
13. Bridge to Terabithia – Paterson (1977)
12. The Hobbit – Tolkien (1938)
11. The Westing Game – Raskin (1978)
10. The Phantom Tollbooth – Juster (1961)
9. Anne of Green Gables – Montgomery (1908)
8. The Secret Garden – Burnett (1911)
7. The Giver -Lowry (1993)
6. Holes – Sachar (1998)
5. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – Koningsburg (1967)
4. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – Lewis (1950)
3. Harry Potter #1 – Rowling (1997)
2. A Wrinkle in Time – L’Engle (1962)
1. Charlotte’s Web – White (1952)

A lot of these are books I own and haven't got around to reading (I bought The Westing Game a few months ago, for example, and I just haven't read it yet), or books that I feel like I've read but haven't. There are also a few that I feel are missing--The Cay by Theodore Taylor is one of my favorites, as are I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman--and I think Anne of the Island is better than Anne of Green Gables. It's also missing some lesser known ones, but I think that is more understandable. A lot of these books have been on my to-read list FOREVER and there are a few that I really want to reread now--though of course I don't have time. My first two weeks/last three weeks of summer, i.e. the times when I am home, are going to be a crazy whirlwind of going to the library and reading everything I can. My immediate to-read list includes: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly, A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee, Going Bovine by Libba Bray, Fire by Krisin Cashore, Smile by Raina Telgemeier, and a reread of The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. Plus I have to read a lot of Nancy Drew and Betsy-Tacy this summer for my thesis. Woooo.

this is sooo feminism 101 but i'm cranky now

Do you know what I hate and am completely tired of? Two things, actually, that I want to talk about: the way a lot of otherwise kickass female characters I like tend to equate stereotypically feminine culture with weakness, shallowness, etc. and furthermore, the troubling way that TV culture in particular seems to put certain characters in this box, where they have to be tough and feisty or whatever in order to get their feminist icon status. Like, Buffy Summers? A feminist icon. Claire Dunphy? Not so much.

I have been seeing/reading a lot of stuff lately about really awesome lady characters and then suddenly they're all "I denounced all that girly stuff, so now I'm badass" and I'm all "HEY WAIT A SECOND." Sometimes it's outright, like in Kristin Cashore's Graceling, where the main character actually says something along the lines of "At least I'm busy doing something useful like swordfighting and not brushing my hair"--that was the only part that truly bugged me about the book; well, that and the slow start--or sometimes it's kind of subtle. Sometimes the creator manages to balance it out like Tamora Pierce in the Alanna series (where Alanna doesn't dislike dresses and stuff, she just, you know, has to be a boy and stuff), but then sometimes the creator just avoids the question by not including many ladies at all (see: Mulan--my favorite Disney movie ever! but still). And then I was thinking about how in Ugly Betty, Betty meets up with her ex-boyfriend who is all "fashion isn't your dream, and now you've turned into a robot like all those other people who like fashion" and that made me think of The Devil Wears Prada where Andi essentially loses her friends because they think that her deciding to dress more trendily is some kind of betrayal and it's part of the reason she loses them (well, that and because she became horrible and flaky but the clothes thing was definitely part of it). Same in The Princess Diaries ("You look ridiculous. You should sue.").

Look, guys--as much as I want to kick down the patriarchy and show everyone how awesome and tough I can be, I'm just not that tough. I don't want to stake vampires or save China or pretend to be a man so I can be knighted. I like pretty clothes and I'm really vain about my hair and my favorite books are A Little Princess and Anne of Green Gables and even though I see how they are problematic and kind of creepy sometimes, I really enjoy Disney princess movies. I read mommy blogs and look at wedding magazines! All "girly" things, brought to you by the letter F and our special guest, socialized gender roles, which have gotten us to a point where you can be anything you want to be, except you can't be too girly or you're shallow or too masculine because you're a hairy lesbian. You can wield a sword but not if you don't want to ruin your mani/pedi.

Look, Buffy, you are a pretty cool kid, but there are reasons Meg Murry and Anne Shirley were my idols when I was younger.

One of my best friends likes to talk about her narrative priorities a lot, and one of mine is becoming "stories about girls who are strong in other ways than being tough" (Katara, I am looking at you) or "stories about girls who do things like paint their nails before going off and saving the world from crime." And there are stories out there like this, it's just that those tendencies towards femininity (the stereotypical kind, I mean) are so often portrayed as faults or as frivolous or whatever. Look, so maybe my bookmarks folder called "shoes I neeeeeed" is a little frivolous but I'm also crazy smart and if I realized that I could regenerate/fly/mind-read I'd get out there and get shit done. You know what I mean? And then I'd come home and watch another episode of Say Yes to the Dress.

sometimes the pikes are there though and everything is better

So I'm entering my collection for the Seymour Adelman Book Collecting prize and with it I have to submit an annotated bibliography of every book I own. First of all, this is really difficult because I haven't actually been able to read all of the books I have yet, or at least reread them in the years since I've had them, and it's not like my memory of books I read at age ten is all that vivid. Second of all, the summaries are crazy boring. The plots are often: "BSC thinks of some wild scheme/go on a financially implausible trip, they fight/someone gets jealous/someone gets ill, they make up/get better, everything is a wild success." Sometimes Jackie Rodowsky breaks his arm. Here is my summary of Boy-Crazy Stacey (which is my favorite of the entire series), for example:

The Pikes are such a large family--ten including Mr. and Mrs. Pike and their eight children--that when they need someone to baby-sit all eight of the kids at one time, they have to call two of the girls from the Baby-sitters Club. It is no different when the Pikes need mother's helpers on their annual trip to the fictional Sea City, and Stacey and Mary Anne Spier are the only members available for the week that the Pikes will need them. The trip is chaotic and it is hard work taking care of eight kids in a place neither Stacey or Mary Anne have ever been, but when Stacey falls in love with the seventeen-year-old lifeguard at the beach, she leaves all the work to Mary Anne. This leads the two girls to fight, but they make up when Stacey's heart is broken when she realizes that the lifeguard is not interested in her, and their last night in Sea City is spent with a pair of different boys that both of the girls like even better. Stacey is Claudia's best friend and Mary Anne is Kristy's, so until this book readers never really had a chance to see Stacey and Mary Anne do a lot of interaction, and that interaction, combined with the presence of the Pike family (by far my favorite of all of the baby-sitters' charges) and the travel aspect are all the reasons this is the book I have read most often of all of the series.

Third of all, it is hard to refrain from being relentlessly mocking of the characters. I have edited out So, basically, Kristy is a jealous jerk most of the time and Mallory sucks like ten times already.

In other news, I'm cranky because I have a lot of work and I have a cold which is forcing me to miss a lot of class and my room, already gross from lack of time to spend cleaning it, is now full of the remnants of a box of kleenex. Yeah I'm classy.

it's awards season!

I am a sucker for gorgeous gowns and weepy acceptance speeches and academy thanking and all the glamor of Hollywood as much as the next person, but I'm not talking about the Golden Globes or the Oscars or even the Grammys. I'm talking about the dozens and dozens of awarding that goes on in the YA/kidlit scene around this time of year. One of my long-time favorite bloggers, Susan at Chicken Spaghetti, is really good at keeping track of the huge amounts of awarding that goes on and without her I would be completely lost. So I've been reading, and looking forward to having time to read, a lot of newly-awarded books, such as the amazing 2010 Newbery Medal winner When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead or The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (which is one of the ones I'm looking forward to reading, because I've heard so many great things).

The really big reason that I love awards season is because--and I realize this probably makes me a less discerning and critical reader, but I will be a more critical reader once I'm not critically reading every day for school--I don't have enough time to read every book that looks interesting to me, so I sort of have to depend on other people's opinions to tell me what is really worth reading. The problem is that a) taste is subjective anyway, and to be honest, most things that win awards tend to be of a certain type--this is less evident, I think, in children's media than it is with, like, the Oscars (has a happy movie ever won an Oscar? the answer is no)--but it's definitely still there; and b) I miss a lot of great stuff. When I was in high school and it was slightly more acceptable for me to hang around the children's books section of bookstores I was able to pick up a lot of things that I would have otherwise missed, like The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler or even A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray (which, incidentally, is the first of one of my favorite YA lit series ever written--Victorian protofeminist teenage schoolgirls who can do magic and some of whom are even queer!! i.e. everything I have ever wanted from a book). If I had done this critically-acclaimed-only thing back in the day I would have missed out on Georgia Nicohlson, and thus a lot of joy and hilarity. These aren't award-winning, change-Roger-Ebert's-life kind of books, but they're special to me for a lot of different reasons.

I'm not saying I'm disappointed about the fact that I only read critics' favorites nowadays; in fact, I'm pretty happy that I've found time to read for pleasure in college at all, because I know a lot of my book-loving friends at Bryn Mawr don't have the time. And reading critics' favorites have led me to a lot of amazing things even just in the past year or two (which is more or less when I got a little more serious about the YA/kidlit thing)--I mean, here's a list of amazing books I've come across just in the past few months (YOU SHOULD READ THEM): When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer, Graceling by Kristin Cashore, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart... and many many many more--all of which I found out about from some critic or reviewer of some sort, and most of which have received some kind of prestigious award. What I am saying is that I feel like I'm missing out on all those diamonds in the rough that don't get picked up or recommended just because there's not enough people who read them. Not to mention, reading those kinds of books, loving them, and sharing them gives you that unique pleasure that comes from helping someone else discover something that changes them.

SO long story short: I really, really, really want to be a critic of children's literature when I grow up (aka graduate, oh dear), because I want to be able to read all the critically acclaimed stuff in addition to the mediocre stuff, the gems, the guilty pleasures, and everything in between. If it were my job I would have the time! Right?

bsc #104: abby's twin

A lot of BSC blogs (because, believe it or not, there are more than one--there's a few in my blogroll if you want to check them out for some reason) are into reading the books chronologically. The way I've always read them, however, is to only read season-appropriate books at certain parts of the year; for example, I would only ever read Karen's Ducklings at Easter, and no time other than winter will I ever read Baby-sitters' Winter Vacation. Of course, not all the books take place in obvious seasons. When I decided to pick up Abby's Twin the other day, though, I got lucky--it's all about the BSC trying to host a winter carnival! (In my head, the dollar back in the early 90s was about ten times more valuable than it is today. I know this is patently untrue, but it is the only way all of those carnivals and parties and vacations the baby-sitters can afford make sense.)

I believe I may have mentioned that Abby is my favorite member of the BSC. Why is this? To be honest, I have no idea, since she didn't exist when I was at the peak of my obsession with the BSC (the first time around?), and didn't appear until book #89 (Kristy and the Dirty Diapers, which I have never read and judging from the title could be either hilarious or stupid--or both, as the BSC so often tends to be). She was basically a replacement for Dawn when Dawn went back to California, so I guess a lot of BSC fans don't like her very much for that reason. So while generally I do have opinions that are popular among older BSC fans (e.g. Mallory sucks, Kristy is probably a lesbian, the Pikes are the best, etc.) my love for Abby is actually pretty weird!

And I don't know why that is! She is unique, independent, awesome at everything, way less passive-aggressive than the rest of the club members, and she doesn't get crazy jealous when one of the BSC has--gasp!--other friends. Plus she has curly hair. Call me narcissistic but I think it is awesome when characters have curly hair. AND there will always be Abby's Un-Valentine, which I unfortunately do not currently own, where Abby and Kristy go to the movies on Valentine's Day in a plot twist that is SUSPICIOUSLY ROMANTIC or so I thought when I was thirteen or fourteen (I have not read it since then, but when I do, dear reader, believe me, you will hear of it). Greer of Stoneybrookite wrote about Abby in her blog and gave even more reasons why Abby is A+.

Abby's Twin makes me love Abby even more, just because it shows that Abby, while being AMAZING AT EVERYTHING, sometimes sucks. Like, in a realistic way. It is always great when that happens in children's books, because in some kidlit (and in other books and media) which I could mention but will not because I am gracious or something, the main character is all, like, "Oh, look at me, I am so smart and funny and pretty and independent and great! Don't compare yourselves to me, though, guys, I'm not that great. Sometimes I fall down stairs or say vaguely mean things which are actually just misunderstandings! P.S. don't you love how charming I am? :)"

But Abby has a buffer against being That Person!

Her sense of humor.

Like, I think she's funny, but I watch a lot of children's television and I laugh at poop jokes and my favorite joke doesn't make sense unless you've seen Finding Nemo. And I was just looking through Abby's Twin for proof that she is hilarious and then I found the following exchange, made after the BSC decides that in order to raise money they'll shovel snow for people in the neighborhood:

Kristy suddenly jumped up from her chair. She pointed toward the window with both hands. "There's our answer!" she cried. "Snow!"

"Uh..." I said, raising one eyebrow. "I don't think we can pay for supplies with snowballs. In the desert, maybe, but not in Stoneybrook."

Kristy laughed. "We'll shovel it! And we'll get or sitting charges to help us."

"Great idea!" cried Mallory.

"That is a good idea," I agreed. "You know what they say--there's no business like snow business."

So, yeah. Her sense of humor sucks. Or rocks, depending how you look at it. So... as far as character flaws go, Kristy is bossy, Stacey has diabetes, Claudia can't spell, Dawn is too much of a hippie, Mary Anne is too quiet, Mallory sucks, Jessi likes horrible pranks, and Abby sucks at telling jokes. These books really make you think about the human condition, you know?

To be honest, though, Abby's Twin is a lot about how because Abby thinks that because the way she sees things works so well for her, that she believes that's how it should work for everyone she knows. Obviously, that blows up in her face. I can relate to this a lot, being, unfortunately, one of those people who thinks she knows best, even when I know that I don't. Oh, Abby, how I know your pain... but I have learned from you that things could work out for the best! All you need is a snow-statue contest and a good hill to sled down.

what is a bizzer sign, anyway?

Thing the First

The Bizzer Sign was introduced in BSC #5, Dawn and the Impossible Three, which features BOTH of my favorite BSC families, the Pikes and the Barretts, and so makes this book one of my top five favorites (another post about that later). The Pikes are a family of ten, with eight children between the ages of five and eleven. They are frequently hilarious and always lovable--but, of course, their house is chaos. The Barretts (at least in this book; later Mrs. Barrett marries Mr. DeWitt and their family gets bigger/more chaotic) are three off-the-wall kids and their harried, frazzled, busy, harrassed, poor mother. Dawn gets stuck babysitting the Barretts when they first move to Stoneybrook, and because Mrs. Barrett is SO busy and tired, she never does any of the housework, and the kids are completely undisciplined, so Dawn basically hates her life for a few weeks. (It resolves itself and the Barretts realize how much they love being helpful! and Mrs. Barrett finds time for her kids! and Dawn saves the planet some more! so it all ends up okay.) Anyway, so one day when Dawn is hating her life at the Barretts' place, the Pikes and their two baby-sitters--there are so many Pikes that at any time when more than, like, five kids are around, there have to be two BSC members present--come and hang out, and teach the Barretts the Bizzer Sign. It makes everyone upset and Dawn is about thisclose to moving back to California. (Or is she? Or isn't she? She never really makes up her mind until the California Diaries are published.) The Bizzer Sign is VERY VERY VERY OFFENSIVE (not really, this is the BSC, after all) and every time any of the Stoneybrook kids do it to each other they get upset/angry/annoyed. Claire Pike always cries and Nicky Pike always tattles. Two-year-old Marnie Barrett just giggles, which makes me think she's going to be fantastic when she grows up. Ann M. Martin never really explained what the Bizzer Sign looks like, but after I found out how people in Europe flip each other off (two fingers, not one), I always imagined one of the Pike triplets had seen that in some naughty British film and appropriated it for themselves, their parents never realizing that, effectively, all of their children were constantly telling each other "fuck you." The Bizzer Sign was already really funny; but now because of this I think it's hilarious. Thus the name of my blog was born.

Thing the Second

Smith and Watson write in Reading Autobiography, "Readers often conceive of autobiographical narrators as telling unified stories of their lives, as creating or discovering coherent selves. But both the unified story and the coherent self are myths of identity. For there is no coherent 'self' that predates stories about identity, about 'who' one is. Nor is there a unified, stable immutable self that can remember everything that has happened in the past. We are always fragmented in time, taking a particular or provisional perspective on the moving target of our pasts, addressing multiple and disparate audiences. Perhaps, then, it is more helpful to approach autobiographical telling as a performative act."

I definitely agree! It's impossible to remember everything you ever did, perfectly, chronologically, exactly as it happened, and it's even harder to make those memories into an interesting and coherent story/narrative/text. Coherency is overrated, and, for me, quite rare. The self is a construction; the self's identity/ies are constructions; the actions of conveying those constructions must, then, be different kinds of performance--the performance of coherency, chronology, memory, etc. (Not even the performances can mesh together into c

As for "We are always fragmented in time, taking a particular or provisional perspective on the moving target of our pasts, addressing multiple and disparate audiences"--well, this blog has a very particular theme. Specifically, I am reading the Baby-Sitter's Club series and getting all introspective and personal with them (though, of course, I will only be as personal as I choose to be, so I guess that's a performance of personablity and introspection?); broadly, I'm talking about children's media. My life is about a lot more than BSC and children's media, although I'm sure it seems quite the contrary to people who don't know me well. I could have made this blog about being at Bryn Mawr! I could have made it about t-shirts or cranberry juice or queerness or my friends or about a conglomeration of all of those which would have then made up a blog which was mostly a performative act which is supposed to represent a coherent picture of my life, which of course it wouldn't have, because there would be no way for me to write about every single experience and thought and theme that pops up in my life. I would have forgotten to note things about what it was like having braces for six years or that time I threw up on my third grade best friend, which I'm not sure actually happened. The very fact that I'm coming at this whole blog thing in a very specific way is only more evidence of how we are fragmented in time.