It’s the first second BSC book! Okay, that sounds really awkward. What I’m trying to say is that each of the five current members of the BSC have told their story in one book and Kristy is the first member to tell the second part of her story. It’s also one of Ann M. Martin’s favourite books of the series.

While this wasn’t one of my absolute favourites growing up, I did love it, mostly because it introduced me to Nannie. I love the grandmothers in this series. Nannie is Kristy’s maternal grandmother and she’s so much fun.

We meet her when she shows up in her car, the Pink Clinker. I’d never heard of anyone naming their car before and thought it was brilliant. Nannie is the reason I name my own cars and one of Ann M. Martin’s other books, ‘Ten Kids, No Pets’, is the reason my first car’s name started with an A, my second car’s name started with a B and my current car’s name starts with a C. Wow, this author has shaped my life in so many ways …

This is a happy-sad book. It’s a joyous occasion because Kristy’s mother and Watson are getting married. In the process, Kristy gets a new stepsister (Karen) and stepbrother (Andrew). She adores them. Watson is a good guy, he’s a millionaire and he makes Mrs Brewer happy.

It’s sad as well because the new blended family will be living in Watson’s mansion. Don’t get me wrong; the mansion itself is not a bad thing, unless you think living next door to a rumoured witch is a problem.

No, the reason it’s sad is that for her entire life Kristy has lived next door to her best friend, Mary Anne, on Bradford Court, and Claudia has always lived across the street. Kristy and Mary Anne’s bedrooms even have windows that face each other so they can communicate by torchlight at night and pull faces at one another when they’re in a fight. Understandably, Kristy doesn’t want to leave her childhood home.

It’s also bad news because in order for Kristy to attend BSC meetings once she’s living at Watson’s, she’ll need to pay her brother, Charlie, to drive her. Charlie’s a great guy and we assume he will be a safe driver so he’s not the problem. It does mean that the BSC members will need to pay more club dues each week. So far, so good. No one is whinging about having to pay them yet but if memory serves me, the obligatory groaning whenever Stacey collects the dues is coming fairly soon.

I’m liking Kristy more as an adult so far than I ever did as a kid. In this book she does do a few decidedly un-Kristy-like things, though.
* She arrives at a BSC meeting at 5:36pm. That’s almost as bad as not attending at all, like she did in book 4. She did have a good excuse for being late so we’ll forgive her this time.
* She gets excited at the thought of wearing a bridesmaid dress. Kristy, excited about a dress? I never thought I’d see the day.
* She’s also happy about wearing heels. Okay, that’s just wrong. You can’t play baseball in heels, Kristy.

We babysit for Jenny (our angel) Prezzioso, Claire and Margo Pike and David Michael Thomas.

Then, in the lead up to the wedding, we babysit for 14 kids at once: Karen and Andrew Brewer, David Michael Thomas, Ashley, Berk, Grace and Peter (Aunt Colleen and Uncle Wallace’s kids), Emma, Beth and Luke (Aunt Theo and Uncle Neal’s kids), and Katherine, Patrick, Maura and Tony Fielding (their father, Tom, is Watson’s best friend). Jamie (Hi-hi!) Newton also drops by one day but, hey, what’s one more at this point.

Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. 14 kids. 5 babysitters. I could easily imagine a room in hell looking just like this. It must be time for an emergency BSC meeting. We haven’t had one of those in a while.

In 1987 I couldn’t fathom the Thomas’ living in a house that had three bathrooms, and that was before they all go across town to live in a mansion with nine bedrooms!

In the kids’ practice wedding, “holy matrimony” accidentally becomes “holy moly”. I loved that as a kid and it still got a chuckle out of me during my reread.

This book’s school dance: the Final Fling, the last school dance of the year.

Movie in a book: ‘Mary Poppins’, which I decided I liked even more as a kid when I learned it was sophisticated, former New Yorker Stacey’s favourite movie. Actually, I seem to remember finding parts of it fairly boring before Stacey convinced me to fall in love with the entire movie, not just the dancing penguins, chalk paintings and catchy tunes. (I was so proud when I learned how to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. It’s one of those really useful things that’s burned into my brain.)

Stoneybrook Central Time: It’s June when we join Kristy on this adventure. Kristy’s mother and Watson are getting married in two and a half weeks. The Thomas’ need to have moved into Watson’s mansion before 15 July because the people who bought their house need to move in by then. We began this entire adventure on the first Tuesday of seventh grade. Google tells me that this is probably some time in August or early September.

About the cover: The shoes Kristy and Karen will be wearing to the wedding are special because you can dye them to match your dress. On the original cover, Karen’s shoes are black, not yellow.

Up next: Claudia and Janine came to an understanding during the whole Phantom Phone Call jump scare. Something tells me it’s not going to last.