Ruby Revealed!

Isn't she pretty?? Many thanks to Kirsten Ulve, artist extraordinaire!

Welcome Back, BSC!

I hope you had the happiest of holidays and that your new year is off to a great start! Mine definitely is, and here's one of the reasons why:

The Baby-Sitters are back.

For the unacquainted, The Baby-Sitters Club, written by Ann M. Martin, was (is!) a series of 130+ books featuring the babysitting trials and tribulations of a group of young teenage girls living in CT. There's tomboy Kristy, shy Mary Anne, chic Claudia, ex-NYC girl Stacey, California transplant Dawn, and junior members Mallory and Jessi. (There may be more; I reluctantly stopped reading around book #70, when I was already much older than the characters!) Every week the girls meet at Claudia's house (she has the secret junk food stash), and take phone calls from parents in need of sitters. They write about their babysitting experiences in a journal, which they all read to stay informed about what's happening with the kids they care for. Throughout the series, they have fun, fight, make up, fall in love, and become even better friends.

Back in the day, I lived for these books. This isn't an exaggeration. I'd save my allowance for the two times a year we went to the mall, load up on the newest titles, read them in a week, and then reread them over and over again until the next mall trip. I loved them all, but some of my favorites were #8, Boy-Crazy Stacey; #10, Logan Likes Mary Anne; #11, Kristy and the Snobs; #18, Stacey's Mistake; #60, Mary Anne's Makeover; and #64, Dawn's Family Feud. The series had a huge impact on my love of reading—and, eventually, writing.

Which is why I'm so excited they're back! According to The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/books/31babysitters.html), Scholastic will soon reissue slightly revised versions of the first two books, along with a new prequel, in hopes of reviving the series.

Happy New Year, indeed!