the state of the babysitters' union

Here we subscribe to certain unalienable truths regarding the Baby-Sitter's Club (BSC) series:

• The best member of the BSC is far and away Abby Stevenson. Kristy Thomas is also an acceptable answer. (Additionally, Abby and Kristy may be in eighth grade love. See: Abby's Un-Valentine.)
  
• The best babysittees, better known as charges: a toss-up between the Pikes and the Barretts (or, even better, the Barrett-DeWitts).
• Stacey has diabetes, and if she eats an M&M she may die. (I know this is false and that diabetes doesn't really work like that. It's just how Ann M. Martin makes it seem.)
• Mallory is the worst. She is better, however, when in the presence of Jessi.
• KAREN IS THE WORST CHILD EVER IN THE WORLD
  

Okay, seriously, I'm sure many of these things are just my opinion... but they are opinions that I have developed over a LONG period of time. I've been reading the BSC since I was six, and my mom gave me my first real chapter book, Karen's Rollerskates. The Karen books aren't really part of the BSC--they're part of a separate spin-off series, called the Baby-sitter's Little Sister (BSLS) series (referring to the fact that Karen Brewer, the narrator of these books and one of Watson Brewer's two young children from a previous marriage, becomes Kristy Thomas's step-sister in the series). I devoured every single one of them that I could find, and around the age of nine or ten I graduated to the real BSC. By the time I was fourteen--at which point, yes, I was still reading them, although I would have never admitted it--I had owned around 50 of the 122 BSLS books, and around 100+ of the BSC books (including mysteries, super specials, etc).

Unfortunately, my family suffered a house fire at that point, and I lost my entire library, from my BSLS/BSC books to my myriad of teen romances to this really great book that even now I can remember little about (but that's a whole other blog post). And I realize that line break makes it sound like the world's worst tragedy, but let's be honest, at 14 I was more concerned with losing my collection of pictures of Usher than I was about losing my collection of books about twelve-year-old girls who only talk about baby-sitting. Besides, I had been deep into a Sarah Dessen book when the fire happened, and Sarah Dessen was waaay more sophisticated than Kristy Thomas. More sophisticated, even, than--dare I say it--Stacey McGill. I was sad, of course, but more about losing stuff in general.

Around the age of eighteenish, I dropped the whole thing where I carried around Salinger books and whined about how only dead white guys who made no sense really understood me (which--what, self?? I'm a biracial, 20-year-old girl BUT WHATEVER), and really began to embrace the fact that I really and truly enjoy children's books and YA lit more than any other genre. I mean, I've always known that--I always managed to sneak in the newest Georgia Nicohlson and rereads of A Little Princess even as I declared that A Separate Peace--a book that, I must say, I still do like--was the be-all and end-all of literature. I really began to miss all of the books I had owned when the fire happened, because I had just begun getting into some really great stuff for children and teens... and I really missed my BSC collection. So at the end of my first year of college, I visited the local library book sale, and bought Kristy's Great Idea and Karen's Ducklings.

Ever since that fateful day, with the help of my friends and parents, who for some reason support this bizarre thing I've started even to the point of buying me BSC books when they see them, I've been hunting down every copy I could find of the BSC, BSLS, and California Diaries (which I had never even read until I was 19) series, reading them whenever I can, and indulging in a world where the biggest concern is, "Will Jackie Rodowsky fall out of another tree and break his other arm?"

To which the answer is always, "Yes."