Baby-Sitters on Board! (Baby-Sitters Club Super Special, 1)

In the first super special edition, the members of the Baby-SItters Club take a vacation together. Through a complicated chain of events that could only happen in fiction, the girls find themselves the lucky recipients of a cruise followed by a few days in Walt Disney World. They are ecstatic, and

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plenty of adventures follow. As with other books in the series, the events and other surprises that are featured are exciting but never too dangerous, and often end with good moral lessons. The kids think they see a stowaway on the ship, but it turns out to be a boy that gets a kick out of hiding and dodging around, even though he is a legitimate passenger of the cruise. Kristy meets a grouchy old man, and uses her warm personality to gain his confidence and help him. Dawn has her first crush. Claudia has a secret admirer, who she of course meets near the very end of the book, and who also turns out to be the boy that the Pike children thought was a stowaway, and who learns his own lesson that he shouldn't be so self-conscious. Stacey befriends a young boy, Marc, who she can relate to because of his medical condition. And Mary Anne is dazzled by the glamour of a sophisticated teenager, only to realize that the girl is not what she seems. Babysitting is not left out, as Mary Anne and Stacey are on the cruise as mother's helpers for the Pike family.

The format for this super special edition is different from the regular series. Instead of being told in the first person perspective of one club member, this book is told by all the babysitters, and a couple of the Pike children and Karen Watson, as well. Each chapter rotates to a different narrator, and they all speak in first person. The justification for the format is that the book is actually a gift for the adults who made the trip happen, and each babysitter and several of the children collaborate to finish the tale. Photographs are also supposed to accompany the story, and these are presented in the book as black and white drawings of photographs.

My enjoyment of the Baby-Sitters Club series sails on (pun intended) as before. I find them fun reads, that are light and remind me of my childhood, and I pass an enjoyable few hours reading them. I don't consider them stellar examples of children's literature, but they are entertaining. The stories always leave a sweet taste in my mind, and they only endorse positive role models and good actions. This larger story has a bit more wish fulfillment involved (a cruise and Disney World!), but it was fun seeing beloved characters enjoy vacation. Employing a myriad of narrators adds interest to the story, providing an element of suspense when we switch speakers before their story is resolved, and adding the fun of comparing the styles and personalities of different characters. The included illustrations were a fun idea, but the drawings were so simple and uninteresting that they were unnecessary. Overall, I enjoyed the book, and expect to like the other super specials that I have in my collection.

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I wanted to finish one more book before December 1st and I've just finished this one with 50 minutes to spare!

I didn't like it very much---and remember not really liking it as a kid, either. Disneyland has never interested me and these girls are wayyyy to young to be hooking up as much as they do.

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Ugh.

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