The Baby Sitters Club: Difference between revisions

There were at least three spinoff series: ''Baby-Sitter's Little Sister'' (about Kristy's seven-year-old stepsister, Karen); ''[[California Diaries]]'' (about Dawn and her friends in California); and ''Friends Forever'' (in which the club was reduced to its original four members). As well as these and the main series, there were additional ''Mysteries'' and ''Super Specials'' books. ''Little Sister'' also had its own spinoff, ''The Kids In Ms. Colman's Class.''

 

* [[Aesop Amnesia]]: A number of examples, but one that stands out in particular is the relationship between Claudia and her genius sister Janine. There were many books where the two of them bonded over junk food, had a heart-to-heart talk, and realized that the two of them were [[Not So Different]]. By the next book, their relationship was [[Reset Button|back to where it was]].

** Also a feature in many Little Sister books, where Karen learns not to be a brat only to promptly forget it by the time the next book comes around.

** [[Teen Genius|Janine]] and [[Book Dumb|Claudia]].

* [[Disappeared Dad]]: Kristy's father, Patrick Thomas, abandoned his wife and four children and almost never calls or writes.

* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]: The whole plotline about Stacey's diabetes and the associated stigma leading to her moving away from New York lest she lose all her friends. In retrospect, the series' origins in the late eighties makes it likely the diabetes stood in for [[The Disease That Shall Not Be Named|something else]].

* [[Drunk Driver]]: One of their classmates, Amelia, is killed by a drunk driver in ''Mary Anne and the Memory Garden''.

* [[Lost Wedding Ring]]: One book involves Stacey being accused of stealing a valuable ring. As it turns out, it was the cat's fault.

* [[MacGuffin]]: In some of the ''Mysteries'' books

* [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane]]: Appears pretty much whenever the girls deal with something weird. They usually get a mundane explanation that covers most--but not all--of what's been going on. Particular examples would include ''The Ghost at Dawn's House'' and ''Mary Anne's Bad Luck Mystery.''

** Also, the first book in the Little Sister series, where the only undebunked evidence Karen has at the end is that she saw the lady she thinks is a witch flying on a broom... and that might have been a dream.

* [[Name's the Same]]: Two characters are named Sabrina Bouvier - a child beauty queen that BSC meets in ''Little Miss Stoneybrook ... and Dawn'', and later a classmate at SMS.

** [[Lampshaded]] in ''Here Come the Bridesmaids!'' where the narrator acknowledges that both the BSC and the W♥KC have a regular sitting charge named Ryan DeWitt, and no, they're not related.

* [[Non-Human Sidekick]]: Several, although Mary Anne's cat Tigger is probably the most frequently showcased -- partly because Mary Anne, unlike the others, is an only child.

* [[No Periods, Period]]: It's plausible for a thirteen-year-old girl not to have started her period yet, which makes a reasonable justification for the trope, but it's decidedly less plausible that ''none'' of them would have started menstruating by that age.

** Presumably it's not mentioned because the target age range for the books was a bit younger than thirteen, and they didn't want to freak out the kids (or their parents). One has to wonder, though, how it was deemed allowable to mention bras and bra shopping.

** Kids would know what a bra is ("It's like a double-barrel slingshot!"), but it would be unlikely that their parents would have had the talk with them. Or maybe they do have periods, [[Too Much Information|but it's just not mentioned.]]

* [[Off to Boarding School]]: {{spoiler|Mallory}}, although this was actually HER decision.

* [[Official Couple]]: Mary Anne and Logan. Kristy and Bart are an official sort-of-couple, and Stacey's part of a few.

* [[Teen Genius]]: Claudia's sister Janine

** Janine suffers from most [[TV Genius]] symptoms, including [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]], [[Intelligence Equals Isolation]], [[Nerd Glasses]], and [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist]], and she [[Improbably High IQ|has an IQ of 196]].

* [[Theme Twin Naming]]: Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold, Abigail and Anna Stevenson, Mariah and Miranda Shillaber, Terri and Tammy Barkan, Ricky and Rose Salem. Averted with the Pike triplets Adam, Byron, and Jordan.

* [[Token Minority]]: Jessi.

[[Category:Long Running Book Series]]

[[Category:Children's Literature]]

[[Category:Literature]]