Kristy’s Great Idea – Baby-Sitters Club

This book made me feel guilty.  As a little soon-to-be gay boy in the 1980s, I watched my older sister devour the Baby-Sitters Club series.  She just ate them up.  And I learned at a young age it wasn’t “appropriate” for young boys to like the same things as their sisters.

“Michael, take off those Madonna gloves!”

When I picked up the first of the super-popular Baby-Sitters Club series, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of guilt.  Kristy’s Great Idea is book #1, and about Krsity Thomas’ idea of forming a Baby-Sitters Union…only they call it a “club.”  They come together for pointless meetings, vote on matters, and collectively bargain for prices and advertising space.

It was pretty obvious to me why these books were popular.  They had everything a young-adult wants to see in a book: kids making money without relying on their parents, Kristy’s hate for her mother’s fiance, Stacey’s eating-disorder-that-turns-out-to-be-diabetes, Claudia and her frustrating older sister, Mary Anne’s over-protective father.

It was obvious from this first book that this is a series that many great kid’s series used as the prototype.

If I was going to complain about something, I might point out how each of these girls is a walking character-type, but I’ll see how that unfolds in the next 9 books (I’ve made a commitment to read the first ten in the series).

It feels really great to look at a book series like this one that brought my older sister so much joy and to finally be able to get excited about these books publicly.  The Corey Haim fascination I secretly shared with her 20 years ago, however, will never be acted upon.

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
• Paperback: 153 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic (September 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0590224735
• Amazon Link