The Baby-Sitters Club Fan Edition: Baby-Sitter Summer
type: Product
description: The Baby-Sitters Club series began with author Ann M. Martin’s first volume in 1986 and has spawned dozens of sequels and spinoffs, plus television and film adaptations. This “fan edition” was collectively written by Martin and six other authors, including Becky Albertalli, whose other works include the young adult titles Imogen, Obviously, a Stonewall Honor Book, and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (the basis for the film Love, Simon), among other queer-inclusive books. If you suspect that there might be queer inclusion in Baby-Sitter Summer, you’d be right. All of the founding members of the Baby-Sitters Club are here, plus several others from the original series. Mary Anne and Stacey are spending the summer in their (fictional) hometown of Stoneybrook, Connecticut, while Kristy, Claudia, Dawn, Jessi, and Mallory are traveling far and wide. Alternating chapters tell each girl’s story, focusing, like the earlier titles, on relatable social and personal challenges. This edition feels particularly thoughtful around issues of identity. Claudia, who is Japanese American, connects with her heritage through her art, her grandmother, and a visit to Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. Irish American Mallory visits cousins in Ireland. Jessi, who is Black, goes along to her mother’s college reunion at an HBCU (Historically Black College/University). She and her mother talk at one point about the value of having a place where most of the other people look like you, in contrast to Stoneybrook, where Jessi is “the only Black kid in the whole sixth grade”. And yes, one character, Kristy (who is White), comes out as queer, through a crush on new character Rowan. It is perhaps not surprising that Kristy, long a softball-playing tomboy in the series, evolves in this direction, although the book tries to balance that stereotype by specifying that Rowan doesn’t like sports. The story handles Kristy’s dawning realization that she “might like Rowan as more than a friend” with a light and po…
additional property: Author/Creator/Director
  type: PropertyValue
  value: Ann M. Martin, Becky Albertalli, Coe Booth, Emma Straub, Jahnna N. Malcolm, Peter Lerangis, Sarah Kuhn
additional property: Publisher
  type: PropertyValue
  value: Scholastic Press
additional property: PubDate
  type: PropertyValue
  value: 2026
offers: Offer
  price currency: USD
  availability: https://schema.org/InStock
  item condition: https://schema.org/NewCondition

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