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bangel_ds's review
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
bibliotequeish's review
As a kid my best friends sister had the whole BSC series on a book shelf in her room. I thought she was so grown up. And I envied this bookshelf. And would often poke my head into that room just to look at it.
And when I read BSC, I felt like such a grown up.
And while I might have still been a little too young to understand some of the issues dealt with in these books, I do appreciated that Ann M. Martin tackled age appropriate issues, some being deeper than others, but still important.
And when I read BSC, I felt like such a grown up.
And while I might have still been a little too young to understand some of the issues dealt with in these books, I do appreciated that Ann M. Martin tackled age appropriate issues, some being deeper than others, but still important.
impybelle's review
3.0
I don't remember ever having read this one before, which isn't all that surprising since I'd pretty much outgrown the BSC by the time Abby appeared.
It takes Abby entirely too long to figure out what's wrong with Lou, and I found myself interested more in Sean Addison's attitude problems anyway.
It takes Abby entirely too long to figure out what's wrong with Lou, and I found myself interested more in Sean Addison's attitude problems anyway.
peachani's review against another edition
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
finesilkflower's review
2.0
Lou McNally, formerly the Worst Kid Ever ([b:Kristy and the Worst Kid Ever|1383112|Kristy and the Worst Kid Ever (The Baby-Sitters Club, #62)|Ann M. Martin|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327414647s/1383112.jpg|1507668]), moves back to Stoneybrook with her family. (You’ll recall at the end of her first book, she left the Papadakises’ foster care when her aunt and uncle were located, and she was reunited with her brother there.) Abby’s never met Lou, but she’s heard reports, and she’s alarmed when she meets an incredibly quiet, polite, docile child. Lou seems super-controlled. Even her brother Jay is weirded out.
Abby gets neighborhood kids involved in her school project, in which she’s directing a video play about the Underground Railroad for Black History Month. Lou throws herself into helping, but her efforts generally backfire--she puts away books Abby still needs, for example, and she brings Abby a drink while she’s filming, ruining the shot. Lou is highly-strung, freaking out with apologies when she inadvertently causes trouble. But when Abby tells her to lighten up, she seems to get pissed, and reverts to her “bad kid” ways temporarily, stirring up chaos with the kids in the video.
Eventually, with no real help from Abby, Jay gets Lou to admit that she’s scared her aunt and uncle will send her away if she’s not perfect. Lou is crying in Abby’s arms when her family returns home and Abby leaves it to them to sort things out.
Abby’s video gets a standing ovation when she presents it, and she pays lip service to learning not to be so controlling, because it wasn’t as important for her video to turn out perfectly as it was to have fun, but really it seems like the lesson is that being controlling is awesome because your video turns out great.
There is also a subplot in which Corrie and Sean Addison are moving away, and Sean believes the BSC will be glad to see the back of him. They try to convince him that he’s wrong, even though it’s kind of true. We also get a few glimpses of the Nicholls family who will be moving into their house, including Mr. Nicholls, who yells at his kids a lot for minor infractions. I sort of feel like they sometimes work in elements from the next book in the series because they can, without thinking through the implications. For example, Mr. Nicholls’ kids are pretty clearly nervous all the time because their father is mean, and if you’ve read the next book, you know he’s abusive. Situated in this book, it plants the seed in your mind that Lou is being abused, which is the opposite of the point they’re trying to make.
It’s interesting to see Lou again and a story in which she is now super-careful because she believes that happy, apparently stable family situations are inevitably fleeting is a cool idea. I’m not sure why this was Abby’s book (why not Kristy or Mary Anne, who have established emotional connections to her?) As I mentioned, Abby’s plotline would have been more powerful if she actualy learned a relevant lesson about control, e.g. by having all her actors quit when she was too hard on them. Instead, she spends a huge amount of time dithering about what she wants her project to be, while Kristy warns her she needs to shape up and come up with a plan. All this seems to come to nothing and have little to do with the plot. It just feels like stalling, as if the writer were coming up with the story in realtime and then not editing...hey!
Lingering Question: Jay is eleven, the same age as Mallory and Jessi, so why do the McNallys hire a baby-sitter? Jay doesn’t need one himself, and you’d think he could look after his eight-year-old sister if he’s not particularly interested in baby-sitting as a career choice. He seems perfectly responsible and he has a close, protective relationship with Lou. It’s not like Lou is particularly rambunctious these days.
Cover Art Oddity: The cover shows Lou sitting primly in a white dress, which made me wary that (like the first book did, to a certain extent) this book was going to shore up the lame correlation of boys’ clothes = bad kid and girls’ clothes = good kid. However, Lou’s “good kid” clothes in the book aren’t particularly feminine. She wears headbands, but other than that it seems to be tidy rugby shirts and corduroys in matching colors. (Her “bad kid” clothes aren’t described.) At one point, though, she’s described as wearing Jenny Prezzioso’s style, and then the outfit that follows isn’t like Jenny at all, so maybe there were last-minute edits changing frilly dresses to clean playclothes, because some blessed soul in the writers’ room had my exact concern.
Timing: February (Black History Month)
Revised Timeline: Because the presentations end up getting shown at the Community Center, there’s no particular reason the video has to be a school project, but I’m not sure why else Abby would do a video. Maybe, in an effort to figure out her calling while working some lame job, Abby is taking a continuing ed video production class. That would explain why she has access to a camera and editing equipment and knows how to use them, which facts are just assumed here.
Abby gets neighborhood kids involved in her school project, in which she’s directing a video play about the Underground Railroad for Black History Month. Lou throws herself into helping, but her efforts generally backfire--she puts away books Abby still needs, for example, and she brings Abby a drink while she’s filming, ruining the shot. Lou is highly-strung, freaking out with apologies when she inadvertently causes trouble. But when Abby tells her to lighten up, she seems to get pissed, and reverts to her “bad kid” ways temporarily, stirring up chaos with the kids in the video.
Eventually, with no real help from Abby, Jay gets Lou to admit that she’s scared her aunt and uncle will send her away if she’s not perfect. Lou is crying in Abby’s arms when her family returns home and Abby leaves it to them to sort things out.
Abby’s video gets a standing ovation when she presents it, and she pays lip service to learning not to be so controlling, because it wasn’t as important for her video to turn out perfectly as it was to have fun, but really it seems like the lesson is that being controlling is awesome because your video turns out great.
There is also a subplot in which Corrie and Sean Addison are moving away, and Sean believes the BSC will be glad to see the back of him. They try to convince him that he’s wrong, even though it’s kind of true. We also get a few glimpses of the Nicholls family who will be moving into their house, including Mr. Nicholls, who yells at his kids a lot for minor infractions. I sort of feel like they sometimes work in elements from the next book in the series because they can, without thinking through the implications. For example, Mr. Nicholls’ kids are pretty clearly nervous all the time because their father is mean, and if you’ve read the next book, you know he’s abusive. Situated in this book, it plants the seed in your mind that Lou is being abused, which is the opposite of the point they’re trying to make.
It’s interesting to see Lou again and a story in which she is now super-careful because she believes that happy, apparently stable family situations are inevitably fleeting is a cool idea. I’m not sure why this was Abby’s book (why not Kristy or Mary Anne, who have established emotional connections to her?) As I mentioned, Abby’s plotline would have been more powerful if she actualy learned a relevant lesson about control, e.g. by having all her actors quit when she was too hard on them. Instead, she spends a huge amount of time dithering about what she wants her project to be, while Kristy warns her she needs to shape up and come up with a plan. All this seems to come to nothing and have little to do with the plot. It just feels like stalling, as if the writer were coming up with the story in realtime and then not editing...hey!
Lingering Question: Jay is eleven, the same age as Mallory and Jessi, so why do the McNallys hire a baby-sitter? Jay doesn’t need one himself, and you’d think he could look after his eight-year-old sister if he’s not particularly interested in baby-sitting as a career choice. He seems perfectly responsible and he has a close, protective relationship with Lou. It’s not like Lou is particularly rambunctious these days.
Cover Art Oddity: The cover shows Lou sitting primly in a white dress, which made me wary that (like the first book did, to a certain extent) this book was going to shore up the lame correlation of boys’ clothes = bad kid and girls’ clothes = good kid. However, Lou’s “good kid” clothes in the book aren’t particularly feminine. She wears headbands, but other than that it seems to be tidy rugby shirts and corduroys in matching colors. (Her “bad kid” clothes aren’t described.) At one point, though, she’s described as wearing Jenny Prezzioso’s style, and then the outfit that follows isn’t like Jenny at all, so maybe there were last-minute edits changing frilly dresses to clean playclothes, because some blessed soul in the writers’ room had my exact concern.
Timing: February (Black History Month)
Revised Timeline: Because the presentations end up getting shown at the Community Center, there’s no particular reason the video has to be a school project, but I’m not sure why else Abby would do a video. Maybe, in an effort to figure out her calling while working some lame job, Abby is taking a continuing ed video production class. That would explain why she has access to a camera and editing equipment and knows how to use them, which facts are just assumed here.
sammah's review
2.0
This was so boring I was falling asleep reading it, which is horrible. It was just completely dull, and I could care less about Lou moving back or the Addisons and their book burning sociopath child moving away. It was just awful.
xtinamorse's review
Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blog/abby-and-the-best-kid-ever
ssshira's review
1.0
this is my first time reading this book.
in this book by ghostwriter [a:Nola Thacker|133114|Nola Thacker|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/f_50x66-6a03a5c12233c941481992b82eea8d23.png], two new families are moving to town with kids that are bsc client ages: the nichollses (whose father seems abusive, foreshadowing [b:Claudia and the Terrible Truth|558169|Claudia and the Terrible Truth (The Baby-Sitters Club, #117)|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387739127s/558169.jpg|545347]) and the mcnallys. does that name seem familiar? yes, lou mcnally from [b:Kristy and the Worst Kid Ever|1383112|Kristy and the Worst Kid Ever (The Baby-Sitters Club, #62)|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1444961319s/1383112.jpg|1507668] is BACK, and now she’s trying to be the best kid ever and failing miserably. she keeps overdoing it while trying to help and accidentally making things worse -- like when someone comes to a party at your house and insists on helping you clean up even though you tell them you can handle the cleanup and then they use a scouring pad on your nonstick pan and then your nonstick pan is irretrievably damaged (not like I’m speaking from personal experience or anything…). abby has decided to include the bsc kids in her black history month extra credit project, which gives lou even more chances to ruin things for abby with her good intentions.
abby has no focus and no idea what she wants to do for her project, and eventually after kristy sideeyes her a couple times for her lack of organization she decides to focus on stories about white saviors helping black enslaved people escape through the underground railroad. because black history month is obviously about white people, right? eventually lou cracks and makes it clear that she’s scared her adoptive parents (her aunt and uncle) will give her up. they tell her they love her unconditionally. so that’s resolved. the subplot is that sean addison from [b:Mary Anne and the Library Mystery|433227|Mary Anne and the Library Mystery (Baby-Sitters Club Mystery, #13)|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387742600s/433227.jpg|422170] and [b:Claudia, Queen of the Seventh Grade|558346|Claudia, Queen of the Seventh Grade (The Baby-Sitters Club, #106)|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387743875s/558346.jpg|545523] freaks out because he thinks that the bsc won’t miss him when the addisons move away. because he is one of those kids who pours salt on snails and will grow up to do worse things, possibly because he has some of the most neglectful parents in the entire bsc universe (see [b:Claudia and the Sad Goodbye|1965695|Claudia and the Sad Goodbye (The Babysitters Club, #26)|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1509624129s/1965695.jpg|2227699]).
highlights:
-soapbox feminist abby, on presidents day and mlk day: "where is a day for the women? why don't we have susan b. anthony day? or sojourner truth day?"
lowlights/nitpicks:
-abby suggests that since philadelphia is the city of brotherly love, there should be a city named philasororia for city of sisterly love. but that would be combining greek and latin roots. the greek word for city of sisterly love would ALSO be philadelphia, because adelphi means sibling (and in actuality philadelphia means the city of siblingly love). can you tell I’m married to a classicist?
-abby says "easy as pie" and stacey says "pi? r squared?" but that's nonsense. pi r squared is the function for solving the area of a circle, but a true math nerd wouldn't have brought that function up out of nowhere and would instead have said, "3.1415926?" or "archimedes' constant?" or something. can you tell I'm a math nerd?
-lou knocks over a cart when trying to take a book from it. sounds like that library has flimsy carts. a lawsuit waiting to happen, cause a kid is DEFINITELY gonna get injured by it. it’s not lou’s fault at all.
-like the simpsons episode where the whole black history month project is about lisa trying to convince people that her family were white saviors, i.e. making bhm about white people, abby portrays all of the white people saving the black enslaved people in her 60 minute video project. I guess you can’t portray the actual enslaved people when you live in a town as white as stoneybrook, but still...smdh
-abby claims her movie is a documentary, which it's clearly not. or I guess one aspect of it is the making of the movie itself, which I guess could be a documentary, but that's only one part of the movie
outfits
claudia outfit:
-"She had on a red tunic with an orange-red braided belt (that she had made herself, naturally). Her leggings were a rose-pink color, and she had on black shiny flats with tiny rosettes on the toe. She'd pulled her hair back with a large red silk scarf that matched the tunic. Her earrings were silver snowflakes, also homemade."
stacey outfit:
-"Stacey was wearing a cropped sweater in dark blue-green that looked good with her blue eyes. She also had on a short skirt (black faux suede), pale blue tights, and very cool-looking black suede boots that came to just above her knees. Tiny gold knot earrings completed her ensemble."
snacks in claudia’s room:
-m&ms (n.s.)
-chocolate trail mix (n.s.)
-garlic nugget pretzels (n.s.)
in this book by ghostwriter [a:Nola Thacker|133114|Nola Thacker|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/f_50x66-6a03a5c12233c941481992b82eea8d23.png], two new families are moving to town with kids that are bsc client ages: the nichollses (whose father seems abusive, foreshadowing [b:Claudia and the Terrible Truth|558169|Claudia and the Terrible Truth (The Baby-Sitters Club, #117)|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387739127s/558169.jpg|545347]) and the mcnallys. does that name seem familiar? yes, lou mcnally from [b:Kristy and the Worst Kid Ever|1383112|Kristy and the Worst Kid Ever (The Baby-Sitters Club, #62)|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1444961319s/1383112.jpg|1507668] is BACK, and now she’s trying to be the best kid ever and failing miserably. she keeps overdoing it while trying to help and accidentally making things worse -- like when someone comes to a party at your house and insists on helping you clean up even though you tell them you can handle the cleanup and then they use a scouring pad on your nonstick pan and then your nonstick pan is irretrievably damaged (not like I’m speaking from personal experience or anything…). abby has decided to include the bsc kids in her black history month extra credit project, which gives lou even more chances to ruin things for abby with her good intentions.
abby has no focus and no idea what she wants to do for her project, and eventually after kristy sideeyes her a couple times for her lack of organization she decides to focus on stories about white saviors helping black enslaved people escape through the underground railroad. because black history month is obviously about white people, right? eventually lou cracks and makes it clear that she’s scared her adoptive parents (her aunt and uncle) will give her up. they tell her they love her unconditionally. so that’s resolved. the subplot is that sean addison from [b:Mary Anne and the Library Mystery|433227|Mary Anne and the Library Mystery (Baby-Sitters Club Mystery, #13)|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387742600s/433227.jpg|422170] and [b:Claudia, Queen of the Seventh Grade|558346|Claudia, Queen of the Seventh Grade (The Baby-Sitters Club, #106)|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387743875s/558346.jpg|545523] freaks out because he thinks that the bsc won’t miss him when the addisons move away. because he is one of those kids who pours salt on snails and will grow up to do worse things, possibly because he has some of the most neglectful parents in the entire bsc universe (see [b:Claudia and the Sad Goodbye|1965695|Claudia and the Sad Goodbye (The Babysitters Club, #26)|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1509624129s/1965695.jpg|2227699]).
highlights:
-soapbox feminist abby, on presidents day and mlk day: "where is a day for the women? why don't we have susan b. anthony day? or sojourner truth day?"
lowlights/nitpicks:
-abby suggests that since philadelphia is the city of brotherly love, there should be a city named philasororia for city of sisterly love. but that would be combining greek and latin roots. the greek word for city of sisterly love would ALSO be philadelphia, because adelphi means sibling (and in actuality philadelphia means the city of siblingly love). can you tell I’m married to a classicist?
-abby says "easy as pie" and stacey says "pi? r squared?" but that's nonsense. pi r squared is the function for solving the area of a circle, but a true math nerd wouldn't have brought that function up out of nowhere and would instead have said, "3.1415926?" or "archimedes' constant?" or something. can you tell I'm a math nerd?
-lou knocks over a cart when trying to take a book from it. sounds like that library has flimsy carts. a lawsuit waiting to happen, cause a kid is DEFINITELY gonna get injured by it. it’s not lou’s fault at all.
-like the simpsons episode where the whole black history month project is about lisa trying to convince people that her family were white saviors, i.e. making bhm about white people, abby portrays all of the white people saving the black enslaved people in her 60 minute video project. I guess you can’t portray the actual enslaved people when you live in a town as white as stoneybrook, but still...smdh
-abby claims her movie is a documentary, which it's clearly not. or I guess one aspect of it is the making of the movie itself, which I guess could be a documentary, but that's only one part of the movie
outfits
claudia outfit:
-"She had on a red tunic with an orange-red braided belt (that she had made herself, naturally). Her leggings were a rose-pink color, and she had on black shiny flats with tiny rosettes on the toe. She'd pulled her hair back with a large red silk scarf that matched the tunic. Her earrings were silver snowflakes, also homemade."
stacey outfit:
-"Stacey was wearing a cropped sweater in dark blue-green that looked good with her blue eyes. She also had on a short skirt (black faux suede), pale blue tights, and very cool-looking black suede boots that came to just above her knees. Tiny gold knot earrings completed her ensemble."
snacks in claudia’s room:
-m&ms (n.s.)
-chocolate trail mix (n.s.)
-garlic nugget pretzels (n.s.)
liannakiwi's review
3.0
(LL)
This one was kind of boring, despite the return of Lou and her incredibly sad story. The main plot of Lou and her being “too perfect” and the subplot of Abby’s big project constantly were taking over each other, so neither plot got the attention it needed to make it that interesting.
This one was kind of boring, despite the return of Lou and her incredibly sad story. The main plot of Lou and her being “too perfect” and the subplot of Abby’s big project constantly were taking over each other, so neither plot got the attention it needed to make it that interesting.
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