Review: "Dawn Saves the Planet: The Baby-Sitters Club #57"

Dawn Saves the Planet: The Baby-Sitters Club #57 by Ann M Martin

2 out of 5 stars

For the love of Ben Brewer's ghost, this book is boring! I'm really starting to dislike Dawn's books. Look how snooty she looks on the cover. That just tells you everything right there. But I guess we should go a bit further than that or there wouldn't be any point to these reviews would there?

Okay, it starts out with Dawn in science class and her teacher asking them if they think kids can save the planet. Of course, Dawn says yes and then we get a huge lecture (one of many) on all the ways we're killing the planet. They get an assignment to come up with a project that will help save the planet and Dawn's little blonde Cali brain gets awhirling.

"Guess what?" "I'm going to save the planet."

Claudia just blinked her dark eyes at me and said, "It's about time."

[Kristy] "I was going to save it but I have a big softball game this afternoon."

We don't even have any Claudia outfits in this book but luckily Stacey steps up her A-game. Today she was wearing floral leggings, a pink shirt with big sleeves, and a long vest covered in antique pins. A black fedora with a red cloth rose was perched on top of her shoulder length hair. (I had to add those shoes, those were quintessential 90s girl shoes lol.)

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Dawn is baby-sitting for the Barrett kids (Marnie doesn't even make her "ham face" jeez) when she gets the idea for her project: teach an after-school ecology class to the kids they baby-sit for. Because you know, everything revolves around these kids. That generation is going to be the most spoiled, entitled citizens of Stoneybrook ever. She asks Stacey to help, since she has the same teacher, and they get the okay from their teacher. The girls hug in the hallway at school when they get the news and Brent Jensen and Todd Long nudge each other, smirking. Are they thinking what I think they're thinking? For shame, ghost writers, for shame.

The girls decide to do six weeks of lessons, each focusing on a different aspect like air pollution, recycling, etc...and have a Green Fair at the end. Because it's not a real project/idea unless it ends in a festival held in someone's backyard. The girls are so excited they immediately start calling kids to get them signed up. Luckily, they start with Kristy and David Michael because she quickly kills their mood by pointing out they haven't worked out any of the logistics. She's such a bummer all the time.

So they get 13 kids signed up and start their classes with making everyone put on KIDS CARE badges. So people can identify them in public and stuff. They get a little sidetracked when they say pollution is invisible, like ghosts, and that sets off a rumble with the smaller kids like Andrew. He looked over his shoulder and muttered, "I don't like ghosts." The kids are all gung-ho about their special projects and everything is going great.

Until Dawn starts to get a little bossy and Miss-Know-It-All. She gets to the next BSC meeting early and sees Claudia making dough earrings (not cookies) shaped like dogs and cats that she can paint. But then Claud pulls out some candy and Dawn freaks out on her because it's over-packaged, all individually wrapped. "I'm making art," Claudia replied, "and Dawn's giving me a lecture about garbage."

She just keeps getting worse from there and there's really no point repeating it all. So here's some random stuff to keep it going:

-The Ohdner kids have the measles. But it's okay, because we've never heard of them.

-Jessi is taking a special ballet class with Frederick Duvall (foreshadowing?).

-Dawn wants to turn the middle school into a recycling center for the town. She berates Mary Anne in front of everyone for only writing on the front of her paper.

-The Pike kids go overboard as usual and turn into the Green Meanies and make their parents and siblings take ecology lessons.

-Shawna Riverson's locker is a pigsty, with month old hamburger wrappers. Gross.

-Woody Jefferson (who are all these new boys??) and Trever Sandbourne bring brie cheese, pate, and a bottle of sparkling cider to lunch and enjoy a picnic with tablecloth, silverware, and wine glasses.

Dawn takes her recycling idea to Mr Kingbridge, the vice-principal. Do we know who the principal is? Mr Kingbridge is always mentioned as the head honcho. He likes the idea, of course, but wants to make sure there is enough student interest so he puts it to a vote. Dawn starts campaigning but pushes way too hard and even makes Mary Anne stalk off in a huff. The recycling project gets a huge vote yes from students, but they vote the science teacher as the project leader instead of Dawn and she's super upset about it. Then she overhears that cow Cokie Mason talking to her sidekick Grace Blume and they call her obnoxious and that just pushes her over the edge. She basically decides she wants nothing else to do with it now, because she's a big baby, not laid-back and chill at all.

The recycling center opens with a big hoopla, Dawn gets no credit at all for it, and whines about it a lot. She pushes people away even more with the kids' Green Fair, assuming all the other BSCers will help out when they already have plans. Stacey finally blows up at Dawn, telling her what a recycling cow she's been, and Dawn's like "oh". She realizes that they were all right, she was being a cow (except she doesn't eat meat, so she was being...tofu?) She calms down, the kids' fair goes off great, Stacey & Dawn turn in a 30 PAGE REPORT for their class (printed twice and you know that crap wasn't double-sided), her teacher asks her to co-chair the recycling program if she can tone down the obnoxiousness, and it's all good. And when you work together, you can do almost anything. Even save a planet.