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A review by finesilkflower
Abby and the Best Kid Ever by Nola Thacker, Ann M. Martin
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.