Stacey vs. the BSC

The Baby-Sitters Club #83

by Ann M. Martin

Stacy finds herself caught between loyalty to old friends who suddenly seem immature and her boyfriend Robert and new friends--and forced to make a choice that could mean quitting the Baby-sitters Club. Original.

Genres: Middle Grade, Fiction, Childrens, Young Adult, Juvenile, Contemporary, Collections

150 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1995

About the author

Ann Matthews Martin was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane. After graduating from Smith College, Ann became a teacher and then an editor of children's books. She's now a full-time writer.

Ann gets the ideas for her books from many different places. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. But many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.

Ann has always enjoyed writing. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. They inspired her to become a writer herself.

Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.

After living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/annmma...

Reviews

[Ciara · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is the first volley in everyone's favorite babysitters club arc: when stacey quits the club. there has been some foreshadowing in previous books about stacey being late to club meetings & asking the other babysitters to cover her jobs at the last-minute without explaining why. there's a whole lot more of it in this book. stacey is spending a lot of time with her boyfriend, robert, & sometimes loses track of time & ends up at a meeting late, or would prefer to go out with robert & his friends than go on a babysitting job. she still likes babysitting & everything...but she is getting really wrapped up in her new friendships & wants to spend time with her new friends.

one night she & her new friends are having dinner at a burger place when kristy, mary anne, & dawn show up to have dinner as well. they sit a different table, but stacey is paying way too much attention to what they are doing & talking about. she feels secondhand embarrassed when kristy puts straws up her nose, or when dawn giggles too shrilly when a cute buy walks by. her new friends notice the babysitters' behavior as well. one of them says, "they're in eighth grade?" he feels they are behaving in a pretty immature manner for 13-year-olds. stacey just kind of cringes. she thinks they're being really immature as well...but then she castigates herself for being snobby & judgmental about some of her best friends.

she's is supposed to sit for the pikes one night when robert calls & invites her out for pizza instead. stacey does some fast thinking & gets mary anne to cover the job at the pikes' house. then she has her mom drop her off at pizza express. she's having a great time...until she realizes that dawn is spying on her from behind the jukebox. she confronts dawn, who yells at her for "lying" to mary anne (stacey had no explained why she wanted a sub for her job at the pikes'). alan gray is sitting nearby & starts making fun of their fights. dawn storms out & stacey thinks about how stupid dawn looks in all of her winter layers, like nanook of the north. she returns to her table & her friends are all, "man, those babysitters take themselves really seriously." stacey is torn. on the one hand, babysitting in a responsibility she has chosen to take on, & she knows it's important that she be conscientious about it. on the other hand, she just wants to have fun & chill out with her new friends. she is getting really sick of all the rules in the babysitters club & thinks that the members of the babysitters club are really a lot more immature than her new friends.

but she does feel bad for misleading mary anne, & at the next meeting, it's clear that mary anne's feelings are hurt. stacey invites mary anne out shopping to make it up to her. that cheers mary anne up & she says something about how they will always be "bestest friends". this makes stacey cringe inwardly, as does the fuzzy sticker on mary anne's backpack, which reads, "i <3 my kitty." she again thinks that the babysitters club girls are really immature, & then wonders if thinking that is snobby.

robert decides to have a party one weekend. their little friend group is really pumped. then they ask stacey is she's going to invite the babysitters club. stacey agrees not to because she knows the babysitters won't really mix that well with her new friends...with the exception of claudia. stacey calls claudia to invite her to the party & claudia is excited until she finds out she is the only babysitters club member invited. she points out that this puts her in the middle & that the other girls will feel betrayed by both stacey & claudia if claudia goes. but she agrees to attend anyway because the party is at robert's & so they can play it off like it was robert's decision.

then robert's parents won't let him have the party & it gets moved to stacey's house. claudia is even more iffy then. there's no way to pretend the other babysitters aren't being excluded when stacey is the one hosting the party. but she agrees to go.

the party is going great...until a few hours in when the doorbell rings. it's dawn & mary anne. they'd heard about the party at school & knew they hadn't been invited & were coming by to catch stacey in the act & confront her. when they see claudia in the background, they are even more hurt & storm away home. this makes claudia angry with stacey, for putting claudia in the position of jeopardizing her friendship with their mutual friends, & she storms off as well. stacey is so embarrassed & confused, she doesn't attend the BSC-organized talent show the next day, even though she had promised whiny little charlotte johanssen that she would, to support charlotte while she played piano. charlotte realizes stacey isn't there, bursts into tears, & has to be taken home by her parents. this makes claudia even more angry with stacey. she calls stacey & is all, "i understand why you were too gutless to face the other BSC members, but did you have to hurt charlotte's feelings in the process?" stacey feels awful & goes straight over to the johanssens' to apologize.

at the next BSC meeting, everyone dogpiles on stacey for being late to meetings, blowing off jobs, hurting charlotte's feelings, & throwing a party without inviting them. kristy calls it like it is & asks if stacey thinks the BSC members are too immature for her now that she has her cool friends to fall back on. stacey snaps & starts yelling about how kristy is bossy, everyone in the club is baby-ish, & she's sick of all the rules. jessi points out that no one is making her stay. stacey quits the club & kristy simultaneously fires her.

the book closes on another friday at 5:30pm. rather than heading to a babysitters club meeting, stacey is one her way to charlotte's first piano recital.

peter lerangis ghostwrote this one, & as usual, he does a great job capturing the actual confusing emotions of a teenager. as a reader, you can understand how stacey is being a jerk, but also how she is embarrassed by her babysitters club friends. she really is growing up a little faster than they are & none of them knows how to handle it. it also lampoons the rigidity of the club & creates a little catharsis for the adult reader in that respect.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to break freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee........

That's Stacey McGill's theme song bahaha. I liked this book a lot as a kid, because it was SO INTERESTING to see one of the sitters actually leave the club and escape the cult. I mean really you would always expect it to be Stacey, or maybe Dawn, but ultimately Stacey was proven to be the one. She had valid reasons for leaving, and while it won't last forever at least for this one moment in time she was her own person!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

oh no she didn't

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was scandalous, America!

I..repeat.. SCANDALOUS!

Stacey doesn't like the Baby-Sitters Club anymore!

What a biotch..

Okay, I get it, Kristy is annoying, Dawn is a tree-hugging pain in the butt.. Mary Anne was wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt, it's all relative..

Still though, reading this book now as an adult, I now have to see where this feud continues! Will Stacey go on a rampage and destroy the entire club and stuff their remains in a Kid Kit?

This was fabulous..

[Renata · Rating 3 out of 5]

omg I never read this far in the series when I was a kid! And then I started reading Stacey and the Bad Girls for the podcast and it was like "Stacey left the Baby-Sitters Club so now--" and I was like "wait wait she did WHAT?" so I went back and read this and I was like "aaaa"

Like it does make SENSE character arc-wise but also AAAAA

[FIND ME ON STORYGRAPH · Rating 5 out of 5]

in this installment by ghostwriter Peter Lerangis stacey continues to get closer to her boyfriend robert (see Stacey and the Cheerleaders) and his friends at the expense of being a good bsc member: she shows up late for meetings, cancels sitting jobs last-minute, etc. her cool new friends (robert's friends) decide to throw a party, and it ends up having to be at stacey's house. she invites claudia but no other bsc members, and OF COURSE they find out. they're upset, but stacey is also mortified by their childish behior/commitment to the cult that is the bsc. eventually, stacey quits and kristy pulls a "you can't quit, you're fired!" move. nice try, kristy. in a subplot, the bsc kids have a talent show and charlotte has stage fright.

highlights:
-when mary anne says of babysitting for the pikes that it's like watching a show, jordan says the show is called jordan and the shrimps. adam responds with his suggestion, "adam and the ants."

stand and deliver your money or your life
-it's actually really interesting how stacey is portrayed as sympathetic but also kind of a jerk. same with the bsc members, particularly mary anne. they are hurt that stacey thinks they're immature (honestly, it's kind of like stacey's reaction to laine's too cool for school 'tude in Stacey's Ex-Best Friend). nobody is in the wrong or in the right here. of course it's normal for stacey to want to have a life and not give her everything to what is essentially a full-time job working with a culty, non-unionized business that masquerades as a club.
-kristy, when announcing charlotte at the talent show, says she will be performing a song by "one of the great musicians of all time" without knowing who it's by, so finally she guesses at the composer's name: stephen songheim. did she perform everything's coming up songheims ?
-stacey does in fact say "you don't want to be my friends. you want to control my life." and it's pretty valid. the bsc is kinda bonkers and culty, and I can't help but think about wendy the "bad" babysitter (from Jessi and the Bad Baby-sitter) who they consider to be a "bad" babysitter because she doesn't like going to meetings on time.
-because stacey is able to spend more time with robert since quitting the bsc she gets to see his flaws and appreciates it. she had been seeing him as perfect, but she starts to recognize and appreciate things that are less great about him. it's kind of a nice detail that I wouldn't expect for a bsc (read: unnuanced) book.
-the book ends with stacey actually going to charlotte's real recital (not the talent show) and sitting front row, center. this is nice closure. I hate when stacey and charlotte the almost-sisters don't get along.

lowlights:
-stacey asks mary anne to take one of her sitting jobs last minute, stating that something important came up. mary anne tells dawn that stacey was having an emergency. dawn follows stacey and discovers that she had just been on a date, and they confront stacey about lying about a supposed emergency. but stacey didn't say it was an emergency, just that something important came up. MARY ANNE is to blame here, not stacey.
-stacey really drops the ball a couple times, and while it's well done it really bums me out (because she's one of my favorite characters). first, she is babysitting at the newtons and spends the whole time on the phone with robert, while jamie is upstairs calling for her and barfing all over the place because he's sick. second, she doesn't show up for charlotte's performance at the talent show because she doesn't want to see the bsc members. this after she promised char she would be there. char, of course, doesn't perform and is really upset. my note while reading this was this: "I'm sort of sympathetic towards stacey but for real dude, she is being such a turd."

claudia outfit:
-"That day, for example, she was wearing this supper-baggy man's shirt that must have once belonged to a sumo wrestler, enormous light wool black trousers gathered at the waist with a silken sash, and old work boots. Her hair was pulled back with a barrette in the shape of a set of teeth."

dawn outfit:
-"With her hood, her six-foot knit scarf, her down coat and L. L. Bean boots, she looked like Nanook of the North."

snacks in claudia's room:
-twinkies (n.s.)
-sesame-seed pretzels (n.s.)
-goobers behind books on her bookcase
-pretzels behind her bed
-pretzels (n.s.)

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

i’m sure that when i read this in middle school, i was rooting for stacey to change her mind but now i’m glad this ended the way it did. stacey should have been at her babysitting commitments and definitely more considerate
of her friends’ feelings, but damn! everyone but claudia (of course because claudia is the best) is mad that stacey has a life outside the BSC. for once, this book felt true to the 13 year old experience and i’m glad that stacey stood up for herself and quit the club, even though i know she’ll be back. this is the part when she says i don’t want you, she’s stronger than she’s been before. this is the part where stacey breaks free!

[Nicky (burialshroud) · Rating 3 out of 5]

So check it out, this is the one where Stacey dramatically leaves the Babysitters’ Club. I missed this one when it was released because much like Big City Stacey McGill I’d outgrown the Babysitters’ Club and had moved on to Point Horror and the Making Out series. It was great. It’s a Peter Lerangis joint so you know you’re in for a treat. Stacey spends much of this volume trying not to be embarrassed by her friends in the BSC but it’s really hard and I felt for her a little bit. Kristy is a complete blowhard, Dawn is a lunatic (that’s her on the cover spying on Stacey, bundled up like she’s in The Thing) and Mary-Anne’s face is permanently covered in tears and kitten stickers. Things come to a head when Stacey has a party at her house and invites everyone in her class except Kristy, Dawn and Mary-Anne. Dawn and Mary-Anne show up anyway to make Stacey feel bad. The next day Stacey breaks a promise to a child and alienates Claudia too. Stacey quits the club at the next meeting. Never one to be not calling the shots Kristy redundantly fires Stacey. I did not know Kristy had the authority to do that I thought the chairman role was mostly a title. There’s one more book in the Stacey quits the BSC arc but I still want more. I think there’s a Logan-and-Mary-Anne breakup arc, is that any good? Might just re-read all the ones where they go to Sea City.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is genuinely great and makes the lackluster books in this series that much more frustrating. I’m a huge Stacey apologist, but part of the reason is because her books actually feel like true YA books. This book is relatable, complicated, and well-written. Even the dreadfully boring BSC talent show b-plot pays off! I empathized with everyone in this book, because they all made mistakes* and they all got hurt, and no one was totally right or wrong.

Yeah, Stacey is awful in this book, but I think I’ve mentioned before I find the BSC to be a cult. This book was so culty I actually analyzed it through Steven Hassan’s BITE model. The things the BSC does to Stacey in this book score a 14/19 on behavioral control, 3/6 on information control, 7/11 on thought control, and 7/8 on emotional control. YIKES.

*The asterisk is for Dawn. Dawn is unwell, and someone needs to let these girls know. Everyone else acts like a cringy immature teen girl in this, but Dawn is so beyond that. She is just very socially maladjusted and frankly creepy. Hiding behind a jukebox? Making a wall of menus to hide from meat? What?

[jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It makes me sad that it took 83 books for one of the babysitters to decide she wanted to be a normal eighth grader.

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh the BSC :)

[Nikki Glassley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stacy gets the wrong end of the stick in this book. She is 100% right- thirteen year old girls should not have their lives dictated by the whims of the dictator of their baby-sitting club.

[Michaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Completely unrelated to the book but I just know Stacey would love Taylor Swift.

[Lianna Kendig · Rating 1 out of 5]

(LL)
Stacey went from being one of the best characters in the whole series to being the worst character and a terrible person. Honestly, there is no reason to make someone outgrowing their friends have to be this aggressive. It’s fine that someone wants to leave the group, as that does happen in real life, but this was not written well at all. Stacey ignores two kids for her boyfriend and his friends and the kids end up get hurt (one physically and one emotionally.) Stacey doesn’t include the BSC (except for Claudia) in things because she’s embarrassed in front of her boyfriend and his friends, yet she had no trouble doing that same stuff literally a week before, so now that other people are involved suddenly the BSC is the problem? All Stacey had to do was tell the BSC she wanted to hangout with her other friends sometimes and they would have understood. Plenty of people have different friends groups without any overlap. I’m so disappointed in the way Stacey as a character has been treated in this series.

[A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part of my re-read of the BSC series.

I don't actually recall if I read this book when I was a kid, but if I had, I'd forgotten most of it. I liked that the story highlighted the tensions kids sometimes experience between groups of friends with different interests, and how maturity levels can vary at the same age from kid to kid (and the same kid can exhibit different levels of maturity in different situations). No one is really dealing with the problem in a mature way, and well, the BSC is full of 11 to 13-year-olds. Of course their conflict resolution is going to be hit or miss. I think some of Stacey's behavior is understandable--she's going to school, working as a babysitter, managing having a chronic illness, and trying to juggle time with her boyfriend and his friends, and she's only 13. She does let her difficulty with navigating all these competing aspects of her life hurt Charlotte Johansen's feelings really badly, and that's disappointing, but it does feel like natural consequences of her actions and inactions.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully complex emotional story for Stacey. She does let some people down (Charlotte, Mary Anne, the Newtons) and rightly gets called out for it, but I can also see how the BSC structure can feel way too rigid. Like as an adult, I wouldn't commit to that many meetings outside of work time, yikes! And side-eye to Dawn who in California had a MUCH more relaxed structure with the We ❤ Kids Club, but suddenly now she's judging Stacey for wanting more flexibility in her schedule?

The only snag for me is that I feel like the author exaggerated the other BSC members' immaturity for story purposes. Like they're not as cool as Stacey, but Mary anne's Mickey mouse shirt and Kristy putting straws up her nose and Dawn and Mary Anne giggling "tee hee hee" at the sight of a cute boy were all a bit much.

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, but felt the baby sitters club was selectively being immature in this book, and Stacey's narrative towards them changed for this book alone compared to other ones before. She skipped baby sitting to hang out with her friends for pizza, and Dawn spied on her. Then she went for burgers and some of the baby sitters were at another table, acting immature. With the exception of Claudia, Stacey felt she was outgrowing the BSC and her friends and even her new friends felt they were immature. They even showed up to a party they weren't invited to to tell Stacey off, it's like they had poor boundaries overall. On a side plot, the BSC are throwing a talent show for the neighbourhood kids and Charlotte Johanssen is learning piano.

[Devon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's funny that it took over 80 books for one of the ghostwriters to wonder if one of the BSC members would eventually get so tired of the super strict rules and the necessity of giving up most of your free time, that they wanted to quit. On one hand, I'm sad that it's Stacey because she pulls some jerk moves in this book. But on the other hand...it makes sense she would be the one to "grow up" first. There's some interesting mirroring between this book and the one with Stacey's BFF breakup with Laine, and some great scenes of Stacey being a jerk, which made this one feel a little more mature and polished than others.

[Andrew Dittmar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, MAN!

There's a scene in this book where the entirety of the BSC confronts Stacey over her lack of commitment to the group, as well as some other genuinely nasty things she does over the course of the book. And Stacey laughs.

Oh, it's perfect.

This series is so wholesome, it's about time we got a real, genuine, unapologetic b*tch moment. And the fact that Stacey just doubles down on it! It is so oddly cathartic.

I've been trying to read this series in order, but early on, I read the first super-mystery book, which is actually around book #205 in publication order, so I knew a blow-up was coming, but I didn't expect to be so oddly satisfied by the drama.

Anyway.

[Gabrielle S · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the winner in terms of plot. Stacey, being a normal teen with a boyfriend, wants to hang out with said boyfriend. She doesn’t want her life controlled by babysitting and dares to ask people to cover for her.

Having a party and not inviting the 8th grade BSC members who aren’t Claudia is mean but I get it. Dawn’s character is always all over the place. She’s supposed to be this individualist but in this book she comes across as a creepy weirdo.

There’s a dramatic fight and Stacey is free from the BSC.

The subplot is a talent show and Stacey breaks Charlotte’s heart but makes up for it later.

[Sayo -bibliotequeish-]

As a kid my best friends sister had the whole BSC series on a book shelf in her room. I thought she was so grown up. And I envied this bookshelf. And would often poke my head into that room just to look at it.
And when I read BSC, I felt like such a grown up.
And while I might have still been a little too young to understand some of the issues dealt with in these books, I do appreciated that Ann M. Martin tackled age appropriate issues, some being deeper than others, but still important.

[Maeve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stacey is becoming closer to her boyfriend Robert and all of his popular friends...and as a result, Stacey begins to lose interest in the Baby-Sitters Club. She bails on sitting jobs, is late to meetings, and starts judging her fellow baby-sitters' behavior. When she and Robert host a party and don't invite her baby-sitting friends, Stacey creates a huge rift. Finally, Stacey decides to quit the BSC.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this, I imagine I would have been quite devastated had I read it when I was a teen but I’d given up on the BSC books just a few earlier than this. I feel for Stacey, life can get boring doing the same thing over and over, why can’t she have other friends? I thought Kristy was a big jerk for firing her after she quit.

[Cassandra Doon · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was 10 I joined a readers club/group where we got a new book every week. I chose The babysitters club.
The books are fantastic! So enjoyable. I loved getting the book every week. They are super quick reads and I was able to read it in one day.
Highly recommend for young teenagers to read or even younger if they are able too read well.

[Jennifer Baratta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review on www.Audible.com

[Christina]

Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: https://www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blo...

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sure, Stacey's a snob, but the BSC are pretty cringey in this. I'd choose hanging out with my boyfriend over planning a kids' talent show any day.

[Krista · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never understood the Stacey hate when I was younger but damn now after reading this I can agree that Stacey is the WORST

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alex's dad THREW a TOASTER?!

[Jamie (TheRebelliousReader) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars. 10 year old me was Team Stacey and 33 year old me is STILL Team Stacey.