Review: "Baby-Sitters on Board! The Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #1"

Baby-Sitters on Board! The Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #1 by Ann M Martin
3 out of 5 stars

Grr...the holiday on Monday threw me all out of whack. I hope you all had a great weekend though! I read the first BSC Super Special over the weekend and it was an experience lol. First of all, my book is literally falling apart. The spine is half gone, the cover comes all the way off and the pages are in 2 separate sections! o.O I really enjoyed this one as a kid apparently. I also took offense to the dedication, because I marked it out in crayon and pen beyond recognition. And then I decided to rewrite and check off most of the names on the first page. But not all of them. I guess I didn't like them. Hmm...

The Super Specials are fun because they're a lot thicker than the regular books and they are narrated by more than one person; in this case all the BSC members (including Mallory although technically she's not a member yet in this one?) plus Karen & Byron. And there are usually cheesy illustrations in it too lol...also, plenty of outfits! :) (I improvised quite a bit)

I [Claudia] put on my new blue-and-white bikini and over that, a pink sundress with spaghetti straps at the shoulders and big blue buttons down the front. Then I accessorized. I tied a pink-and-blue scarf around my waist, knitting it in the middle, added my snake bracelet and feather earrings, wound my hair up on top of my head, and finally put on these white sandals with long laces that you crisscross up your legs and tie in a bow.

This is the outfit Claudia helped me [Dawn] to choose: [for her date with Parker] a white tank top under lavender overalls, lavender push-down socks, lavender high-top sneakers, and a beaded Indian belt, which we looped droopily twice around my middle. In my hair we put lavender-and-white clips that looked like birds.

Okay, now on to the actual plot. This is just so ridiculous, it's not even funny! Mr Pike won a contest at work and they sent him and his whole family on an all-expenses paid trip on a cruise to Disney World. I bet they are really regretting not putting some stipulations on that trip now. They invited along Mary Anne & Stacey as baby-sitters again. Then, Watson heard about it and, in an effort to suck up to Kristy and her brothers, decided to take his whole clan on the trip too. AND! He paid for the remaining BSC members, because it wouldn't have been a very good book if Claudia and Dawn were left behind. That just seems...odd to me. I mean I know Watson is a nice guy and all, but it's not like he hangs out with Mr & Mrs Pike (do they have first names? Hmm...). Why would he horn in on their vacay? There are lots of little subplots and each one is more far-fetched and crazy than the last. Let's run them down, shall we?

-Kristy befriends this old guy (like grandpa-old) and spends all her time with him. He's super cranky and lonely after his wife died and for some reason, agrees to hang out with K.

-Mary Anne has this odd semi-crush on some hot girl she sees on the boat. She had masses of dark, wavy hair that cascaded over her shoulders and partway down her back, and she was wearing one of the skimpiest bikinis I'd ever seen. Even though she looked just a little older than me, she had a figure that filled out the top of the bikini nicely. "Wow," I said softly. I was highly impressed. Ooookay.

-Claudia has this creeper stalker that keeps buying her ice-cream and pearl earrings and following her around on the islands.

-Dawn falls in LUV with some guy she just met who pretends to be a stowaway on the ship.

-Stacey meets a kid in a wheelchair who has a heart problem and uses him to get to the front of the lines at Disney World. (Okay not really, but I bet she thought about it!)

-Mallory just finished reading Harriet the Spy and of course decides to spy on people. Who didn't do that after reading that??

-Karen becomes even more of a spoiled little rich kid and gets her nails done (while Kristy is waiting for her btw) and "charges it" to Watson's cabin. I'd beat her butt if she was my kid.

-Byron and the other boys find a copy machine diagram in a different language and automatically assume it's a treasure map.

You know what my biggest problem with this book is? The BSC members are 13, yes? Mallory is 11. The triplets are 10. And yet, their parents have no problem letting them run around this giant ship and on the islands BY THEMSELVES. Are they INSANE??!! I went on a cruise with my parents and sis in 2004 and we all went everywhere together. I'm 30 now...no, I'm 31! lol...and I wouldn't go off by myself on the excursions. What were they thinking?? Ahh...BSCLand. The place where no one gets kidnapped or injured and if they do, it's all better in 200 pages or less.