Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls

Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls by Ann M. Martin

There is a phantom phone caller burglar in nearby cities. The babysitters are freaked out. They are also obsessed with boys and an upcoming dance. Things get even scarier when somebody in town is robbed. The police think this may be a copycat, but girls are still scared. Things come to a head during one babysitting experience when they get strange phone calls, and then hear sounds from outside. The babysitter calls the police and they find the perpetrator. It is the "annoying boy" who was trying to get the girl's attention to ask her to the dance. She is happy to be liked, even though she has been so annoyed by the boy. Another girl finally hears a call from the boy she likes. He had been afraid and hanging up many times. They are happy and going to the dance. The criminal is later arrested - but it appears the one in town was a copycat. It is a lighthearted story of girls starting to like boys and having the relationships be up near the top of their concerns, even as other real-world events are occuring.

Kristy's Great Idea (The Baby-Sitters Club #1)

Kristy's Great Idea (The Baby-Sitters Club #1) by Ann M. Martin

Four 7th graders form a club to better manage babysitting. The advertise a time that potential customers can call up to schedule babysitting appointments. The club meets during that time and organizes the babysitting. This makes it easier for everyone. The girls get lots of babysitting gigs. There are also challenges in their personal lives. One girl's mom gets engaged to another divorcee. One girl is hiding her diabetes diagnosis and trips to the doctors. Everything gets resolved at the end. It is a fairly simple story that is most appealing to tween girls.

Good-bye Stacey, Good-bye

Good-bye Stacey, Good-bye: A Graphic Novel (The Baby-Sitters Club #11) (The Baby-Sitters Club Graphix) by Gabriela Epstein and Ann M. Martin

Stacey's dad is being located back to New York. She realizes things will be different when she gets back. She also misses her friends. Her friends help her have a big yard sell and later throw a big going away party for her - complete with games and all the kids they babysit. There are plenty of sentimental going away things. It all feels very cliché. 

Jessi's Secret Language

Jessi's Secret Language: A Graphic Novel (The Baby-Sitters Club #12) (The Baby-Sitters Club Graphix) by Ann M. Martin and Chan Chau

The twelfth babysitters club graph novel explores the deaf, ballet and sign language. Jessi is in a new ballet class and is one of the better kids in the class. Other kids feel jealous of her. She feels it may be because she is the youngest and newest girl. (The fact that she is the only black girl in the class is never mentioned.) However, she continues to work and gets a lead role in the upcoming ballet. Meanwhile, she also gets the job of babysitting a new family. She goes twice awake and learns sign language to communicate with a deaf boy and his hearing sister. The sister struggles with being looked down on because she is always helping her brother. Jessi helps her to overcome this. She also helps both to get good friends. She is also able to communicate with the deaf sister of a girl in her ballet class. For the opening performance, Jessi invites all her friends and the deaf class. They all enjoy the ballet. This one is a nice positive message that seems to have fewer false dramas than other BSC books.

Kristy's Big Day

Kristy's Big Day: A Graphic Novel (The Baby-Sitters Club #6) (6) (The Baby-Sitters Club Graphix) by Ann M. Martin and Gale Galligan

Stylistically, the illustrations on this Babystitter's club has a much more "manga" style than the early books. The eyes pop out, and it feels Japanese. It is very clearly a different artist. Kristy's mom will be marrying Watson. They will then be moving into his mansion. Originally, they had planned to tie the knot in September. However, due to her mom getting a good offer on the house and having an upcoming business trip, they move it to the early summer. There is a lot of work to handle in a short time. Many kids come in from family. The entire babysitter's club comes together to help babysit all the kids. In the end, the wedding goes off well, and Kristy gets to wear her fancy dress and take part in the wedding. The girls also get paid well for the babysitting. It was a lot of work managing small kids  suddenly grouped together. After the wedding, the "big brother" takes over for watching the new blended family. He is intentionally lax.

The Truth About Stacey: A Graphic Novel

Mary Anne Saves the Day: A Graphic Novel (The Baby-Sitters Club #3) (The Baby-Sitters Club Graphix) by Raina Telgemeier and Ann M. Martin

The Babysitter's club series continues to be adapted for new media. The graphic novel is fairly faithful to the original book (while the Netflix series seems to make a lot more significant changes.) This story starts out fairly straightforward. The girls meet and get some clients. Then things go downhill. The girl the answers the phone for a job babysitting a baby immediately takes it. This makes everyone mad. They have difficulty even communicating together. Because of this spat, Mary Anne eats lunch by herself. Luckily, this gives her the chance to meet Dawn, the new girl from California. They become good friends. They also discover that their parents (Dawn's divorced mother and Mary Anne's widowered dad) dated each other in high school. As part of a babysitting job, Marry Anne has an emergency with a 104 degree temperature. Dawn comes to help her after she couldn't get in contact with any of the emergency numbers. They end up going in an ambulance to the hospital and both end up getting paid. (Seems they didn't bother to update this "telephone no-contact" problem to the days of cell phones.) Mary Anne ends up getting more privileges from her father after this experience.

The babysitter club girls work together for a kid's birthday party and nearly ruin the party. After that experience they finally agree to make peace. (Mary Anne had written apology letters to help make peace. She even wrote one to Dawn after having a falling out when Dawn discovered that Mary Anne had lied about her friends.) Dawn joins the club and everyone is happy. It is a simple message of how a simple conflict can get out of hand - and be hard to resolve. Often it requires a big stressor to realize how bad the problem is.

The Truth About Stacey: A Graphic Novel

The Truth About Stacey: A Graphic Novel (The Baby-Sitters Club #2) by Raina Telgemeier and Ann M. Martin (based on the 1986 book)

Stacey has diabetes. Her parents keep trying to seek different treatments for her, including TV doctors in New York. She doesn't want to do all that. Meanwhile the babysitters club has competition with older kids that take their jobs. It turns out the older kids are poor sitters, and eventually this spreads after bad behavior and upset kids. Meanwhile the diabetic girl uses doctor connections to find an alternate doctor to see that helps her grasp the underlying psychological issues. She later makes peace with her old friend in New York (who she had a spat with) and things are all happy in the end. The graphic novel is well illustrated and has a simple, positive message. Sometimes it pays to be subtle in working through solutions to problems the slow way. (Though there are risks involved.)