Before you get all swoony over Logan Bruno from Louisville, Kentucky (complete with southern accent), make sure you’ve read Kristy’s Big Day, Claudia and Mean Janine, Boy-Crazy Stacey and The Ghost at Dawn’s House as there are spoilers for all of these in the intro.
Mary Anne, the romantic of the BSC, was already pretty swoony about Cam Geary so you can imagine the effect encountering his lookalike at school has on her. It’s essentially love at first drool.
Mary Anne isn’t the only one swooning over Logan, though. All of the BSC members do and if you look at the original cover illustration, it looks like Jackie Rodowsky is a bit swoony as well.
This isn’t the first time Mary Anne’s hormones have kicked in. Remember Sea City? But Logan isn’t a summer fling, even though it would have been all sorts of lovely if he’d been her first kiss.
We babysit Jenny Prezzioso, David Michael Thomas, Karen and Andrew Brewer, Charlotte Johanssen, Buddy, Suzi and Marni Barrett, the Pikes, the Marshalls, Myriah and Gabbie (plus Chewy the dog) Perkins, Jamie (“hi-hi!”) and Lucy Newton, the two Ohdner girls (no, we haven’t met them before), Jackie Rodowsky (the Rodowsky’s are also newbie BSC clients) and four Morgan boys.
Dawn wears a “pretty snappy outfit – hot-pink shorts with a big, breezy island-print shirt over a white tank top.”
Mary Anne comes up with her very own great idea but Kristy comes up with the name “associate member” for Logan. I’d forgotten that he’d said he had some guy friends who might want to babysit for the BSC as well. I don’t remember that ever eventuating.
Claudia serves refreshments junk food. She also almost commits the apparently unpardonable sin of saying “bra strap in front of a boy.”
Stacey does a Porky Pig impressions. That’s all folks.
Mary Anne gets her first bra on the first day of eighth grade. Now Kristy is the only braless BSC member.
Kristy has to take a bus to school instead of walking with ex-next door neighbour, Mary Anne, like every other first day of school. Incidentally, the first day of school is a Thursday.
When I first read this book, I didn’t realise that Chewbacca Perkins was named after someone…
The BSC members hold an emergency meeting (naturally) but this one is called by Claudia. They even cancel a meeting; getting Mary Anne ready for the dance is more important, even for Kristy, who is the one to suggest cancelling the meeting.
“I say we cancel today’s club meeting and go over to Mary Anne’s instead.”
Then Stacey calls a special BSC meeting at Mary Anne’s house on a Sunday. Has Kristy lost all control?
The school cafeteria food includes “a dirty sock that’s been left out in the rain and then hidden in a dark closet for three weeks” and “steamed rubber in Turtle Wax”.
Mary Anne’s classes are English, math, gym, social studies, science, French and she has homeroom, lunch and study hall.
I looked forward to using a folder with looseleaf paper, just like Mary Anne, when I first read this book. At the time it felt like a more mature way of doing school than the exercise books I was used to.
If I was Mary Anne, my favourite birthday present (besides Tigger) would have been the wind-up dinosaur that shoots sparks out of its mouth. Good one, Alan Gray, you pest.
By the numbers: Mary Anne’s locker combination is 132, her homeroom number is 216, the club members each pay $1 per week in club dues, Logan’s phone number (in case you want to call him and swoon) is KL51018, Mary Anne has a 10 minute phone call limit and Stacey has a 5 minute phone call limit when she’s calling Laine in New York (she’s found a loophole, though).
Stoneybrook Central Time: At the beginning of this book, it’s been over two months since the end of seventh grade and it’s the final day of summer vacation. Stacey and her family have lived in Stoneybrook for a year now. Mary Anne, the youngest current BSC member, won’t turn 13 for a few weeks.
Up next: Kristy gets to know some snobs and Ann M. Martin traumatises me for life.
Once Upon a Blurb
It used to be that Mary Anne had to wear her hair in braids and ask her dad before did anything. But not anymore. Mary Anne has been growing up … and the Baby-sitters Club members aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed.
Logan Bruno likes Mary Anne! He has a dreamy southern accent, he’s awfully cute – and he wants to join the Baby-sitters Club.
The Baby-sitters aren’t sure Logan will make a good club member. And Mary Anne thinks she’s too shy for Logan. Life in the Baby-sitters Club has never been this complicated – or this fun!
Schizanthus Nerd 