The Babysitters Club #1: Kristy’s Great Idea by Ann M. Martin

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The Babysitters Club #1: Kristy’s Great Idea by Ann M. Martin

Published by Scholastic: 1986

Novel

Summary:

Young Kristy sees her mom trying to find a babysitter for her little brother David Michael. While watching her mom make call after call Kristy comes up with a great idea – the babysitters club! Kristy, along with her friends makes up the club where parents call with the potential of four babysitters to possibly help. It sure beats making four different phone calls! Babysitting aside, the story also explores the everyday lives of the girls. Kristy’s mom is engaged and she is not sure how she feels about her future family. Between the babysitting club and everyday life these girls sure keep busy.

Response:

I never really read the Babysitter’s Club books as a young girl so I figured now was as good a time as ever to read them. It really is a nice, fun story that I think many girls would enjoy. The story itself is also quite realistic to the struggles and lives that girls today would have. With it being an older series the biggest thing children today reading the series would notice would be the lack of technology. This is not to say than technology is not found in the book, but it has a much smaller presence than we would see today. Personally, I think that is nice as it focuses the reader on the girls and their stories rather than being distracted by additions and the little things.

For the Reader:

I would recommend this book for readers starting around the grade three level. There is simplicity to this book that is really enjoyable and that I think young readers will be attracted to. The main characters in the story are all girls and as such, I strongly feel this book would be much more appealing to young girls than boys.

On a side note, out of curiosity I did a quick search to see how many books were in this series. The answer astounded me – 132! That number is only for the original series and does not include any of the Super Specials, Baby-sitters Club Mysteries, Super Mysteries, Special Edition Reader’s Request, Portrait Collections, or Baby-sitters Club Friends Forever. Talk about super series. Hopefully your child doesn’t get hooked on them or you could be spending a lot of money getting them through this series.