Baby-Sitters Club: Dawn and the Impossible Three #5

As the cold New England winter sets in, the Baby-sitters Club have two changes to address. The first is whether to allow their summer camp helper Mallory into the club as a full member, with all the privileges and responsibilities that entails. The second is a new family to babysit, one with three

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boisterous children and two parents going through a very messy divorce. This family loves Dawn the best, but she's not sure she can handle the responsibility of being the most stable part of the children's lives. Meanwhile, Dawn is still working on fitting in as the "new kid" in town.

This book is the fifth in a graphic novel series based on the middle-grade novels of the same name. Having read the originals years ago when I was a tween myself, I can no longer remember enough about them to make a point-by-point comparison, so this review will be about the graphic novel as a standalone work.

This book picks up a little bit after the previous one, moving from the summer to the winter through spring. Although I suppose you could pick up this book on its own, it certainly stands up better as part of the series. The focus has shifted now to Dawn as narrator, and we see the majority of events from her point of view. That being said, other characters still have growth and development, such as Mary Anne exhibiting increased individuality as her dad slackens on his strict rules some.

Dawn and the Impossible Three gets a little more serious with its problem. The title and cover illustration may imply its the children that are the issue but in actuality, it is their parents. Dawn maturely faces her responsibilities as well as her limits, but the same can not be said for the parents. In one horrifying episode, a child goes missing on Dawn's watch because the semi-estranged father picks him up and drives away without informing anyone. Usually, the books in this series manage to tackle heavy issue with a light touch, but the idea of family kidnappings is rather scary and even the characters acknowledge it as such. However, the rest of the book is in line with the more light-hearted tone of the previous titles.

Starting with this title, there is a new illustrator for the series, but she manages to retain enough of the previous look for the characters to be entirely recognizable, while adding in a bit of her own style. As with the earlier titles, the illustrations help to convey a lot of emotion throughout the story.

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It's just not the same without Raina. This isn't bad, but the spark of the earlier volumes is gone. Partly, that may be due to the really heavy subject matter of this particular outing, as it deals with the fallout of a nasty divorce and fractures within the Baby-Sitters Club. Also, the cast seems

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to be growing too fast and some core members of the club get pretty much ignored this time. I'd certainly give Galligan's work another try if she sticks around for volume six, but in glancing at Wikipedia I'm worried at how long I'll stay interested as Martin's novel series seems to expand the club to quite an unmanageable size.

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I do not care for Galligan's drawing style (which reminds me of Archie comics) after having enjoyed Telegmeirer's interpretations for the first 4 books. I'm probably more bothered by this than I should be.