It's a perfect time to read and review Baby-sitters' Winter Vacation (BSC Super Special #3) because, I swear, it's snowed here just about every other day for the last two weeks and we just got a couple more inches last night (during the time I was writing this, that is!) Everything is covered in snow, to my dismay. Now, if I didn't have to go anywhere and had all the food and toilet paper and supplies I needed, then I'd be like, bring it on! Bring on the snow! But when I have to drive in it? Nuh-uh. Don't enjoy it at all. But right now, I'm perfectly happy sitting in my apartment working on this review on my laptop while I drink a vanilla latte from Starbucks (Starbucks is less than five minutes from where I live; so I can venture out as long as the streets have been cleared) and eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (Claudia would be so proud) while my cat keeps trying to crawl all over me and around my laptop (Mary Anne would be so touched).
So let's begin the review! Our girls are going on a mandatory school trip to Leicester Lodge in Vermont. I'm not quite clear why this trip is mandatory other than they go during when school is in session because they mention if the trip is cancelled due to bad weather, they'd just go to school. For some reason, I always just assumed this took place during the week of their winter vacation (probably because of the title!) But, no, according to Mary Anne, who is our "host" for this Super Special, this trip is mandatory for all the students at SMS unless you already had a family vacation planned to Aruba like Logan's family does. This is another reason why I thought it took place during their winter vacation; why are Mr. and Mrs. Bruno pulling their three kids out of school when it's still in session? I guess Logan doesn't really matter since he'd just be skiing and ice-skating and throwing snowballs and drinking hot chocolate in the lodge, so he's not really missing any schoolwork. I guess I can't be too judgmental, because my parents have pulled me out of school to go on trips and this was when I was in elementary school and the teachers would just give you your homework in advance.
Now, I've never been to Vermont (or anywhere in that area of the U.S.) in my life (yet!), but the destination I would visit with my family and another family when my parents would take me out of school? Colorado! Yes, they'd take us out of school so we could go skiing in Cooper Mountain, Keystone, or, my personal favorite, Breckenridge. Maybe I'm biased, but I think Colorado is the best place to ski. Of course, it's the only state I've skied in, except when I skied for about an hour in Washington when we went there one Christmas, but after years of skiing in Breckenridge, I was more used to that.
But back to this being trip being mandatory for the SMS students, again, WHY??? I could understand if they were still going to have school and learn at the lodge, but all they do is participate in the Winter Carnival/Winter War and make snow sculptures, ice skate, and ski. Mary Anne mentions that they don't even have to pay for the trip, just make a "small donation" to the Winter Carnival Fund (whatever that is). I'm also confused as to how many students go to SMS. Is it 1200? Is it 600? 300? I have no idea. Why not just make this trip optional and have all our girls go, plus some of the students we've already gotten to know. We do see some familiar faces make appearnces like Ashley Wyeth and Alan Gray and Dori Wallingford and Rick Chow, but there's also students we have never heard from before and will never hear from again!
Leicester Lodge is described as being a gigantic hotel in the mountains (like the hotel in The Shining) and this place must be huge because not only are they hosting all the SMS students (plus a few teachers), but also 8th graders from a school in northern Vermont (hmmm, how come it's only the 8th graders?), and 7th and 8th graders from New Hampshire (I guess Mal and Jessi are lucky they live in Stoneybrook, otherwise they wouldn't have been invited!) and a group of 16 elementary school children in Maine. Not to spoil anything, but we won't meet any of the other middle school students (except for one person), but we will be spending lots of time with the elementary school kids. Because they're the Baby-Sitters Club! Again, I'm not sure how many students there are from the Vermont and New Hampshire schools. Not only are all those students there at the lodge, but also the people who are just staying there for a skiing holiday. I guess that's how Mr. and Mrs. George, the couple who own the lodge, make their money. They seem to let school children come to their lodge for their experience and it sounds like they (or their parents) pay next to nothing since the Georges' already have it covered. We are never given an age of the Georges', but they've had the lodge for twenty years, so I would guess mid-50s or early 60s. They seem to have a lot of people working for them in their 70s; in fact one woman tells Mary Anne that she's worked there since 1930. (This book was published in December 1989).
Each grade is divided by gender and they all sleep in huge rooms that have two rows of fourteen bunk beds. However, we are also told the lodge has suites because that's where the teachers sleep. (I should hope so! Can you imagine being an adult and having to bunk with 28 other adults in the same room? Ugh!)
There's lots of shade thrown against Camp Mohawk; so much, in fact, that I don't think the girls enjoyed their camping experience that much! Mallory and Jessi are worried that the food is going to be terrible, but the other girls, who went to the lodge last year (they did?) assure them the food is so much better than it was at Camp Mohawk. Also, while they have bunk beds at the lodge like they did at Camp Mohawk, they also have dressers and mirror and rugs and adjoining bathrooms. I mean, I would also rather go to a ski lodge in Vermont than summer camp. Of course, I wouldn't want to be baby-sitting while I was there, but that's exactly what our girls end up doing. Because they're the Baby-Sitters Club and they always end up baby-sitting wherever they go. When they go on a cruise and to Disney World? They're baby-sitting! When they go to summer camp? They're baby-sitting! When they visit Stacey for a weekend in NYC? They're baby-sitting! And when they go on a school trip to Vermont? They're baby-sitting! What happens is that the bus with the sixteen kids from Maine is an accident and the two teacher chaperones have to be taken to the hospital (they're fine) and Kristy pretty much volunteers the BSC to take care of them. The seven of them end up moving into a smaller dorm with the kids. The other members seem to be okay with this arrangement, but for just once I'd like one of the other girls to put her foot down and say they DON'T want to be baby-sitting while they're on vacation. Enough is enough!
So let's talk about each Baby-Sitter and what they do during their "winter vacation":
Mary Anne presents this book as a journal for Logan since he's unable to attend. She pretty much spends 90% of the book mooning over him and worrying that he's met a hot girl in Aruba that he's kissing and snorkeling with. As an adult re-reading these books, one thing I find disturbing about Mary Anne is how much Logan defines her. Have you ever noticed that once they're together, he's often a big part of the plot of her books? Obviously, we see them meet in Logan Likes Mary Anne! In Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery, he's the reason Cokie sends her that "bad luck" necklace. His sister is the one who took her cat in Mary Anne and the Search For Tigger. I actually don't remember him playing a big role in Mary Anne and the Great Romance, but doesn't Mary Anne rub it in Dawn's face that she has a boyfriend in Dawn's Wicked Stepsister? Then, I don't remember how he fits into Mary Anne and Too Many Boys, but for sure he's one of the "boys". Then you have the break up and the re-uniting of the couple in Mary Anne vs. Logan and Mary Anne Misses Logan. Then it's Mary Anne + 2 Many Babies where she and Logan are pretend married and take care of an egg baby. And of course he played a big part in the last Super Special when they were at Camp Mohawk and she tried to sneak around the lake to see him. It's like every Mary Anne book, it's Logan, Logan, Logan!
Mary Anne doesn't have any plans to participate in the Winter War, but she did volunteer to be the "trip historian" and write a report on the history of the lodge for extra credit. Is it me or does that sound more like something Mallory would volunteer for? Apparently this is the first time ever someone volunteered to research the lodge, so I guess it isn't assigned or anything. When she' doing her research, (the only thing she does when she's not pining for Logan), she find out there may be a ghost haunting the resort, but it doesn't really go anywhere (the story, not the ghost!). This is when Mary Anne talks to all the workers who are in their seventies who may be able to tell her about the supposed ghost. The only person who will really talk to her is Mr. George who tells her a not-so-liked visitor was found dead in the bathtub in 1930 (they don't give his age) and that when his relatives heard the news, they were relieved he was dead. Nobody claimed his body so he was buried in the woods outside the hotel. Weird things and weird noises started happening soon after and that's how the legend of the Leicester Lodge Ghost was born.
We get a judge-y moment from Mary Anne when she's interviewing the cook and she notices one of his teeth is missing (just ONE, mind you) and she's all like," I can't stand when adults have teeth missing. I am a firm believer in dentures." It's a weird and petty character trait that seems to come out of nowhere. She also gets into a fight with Dawn when Dawn has had a bad day and when she tries to talk to Mary Anne about it, Mary Anne is just moping about how far away Vermont is from Aruba. They do end up making up, of course. There's tears and hugging. This book takes place right before Mary Anne and the Great Romance and it's mentioned how Mary Anne's dad and Dawn's mom are seriously dating and that Mary Anne and Dawn decide to share a bunk for "practice" if they eventually become stepsisters. I don't understand this since I'm pretty sure neither of them have a bunk bed of their own.
I was not a fan of Kristy in this book. She's just so competitive with the whole Winter War thing and she's pretty rude to the students who aren't as athletic as she is. As someone who has never been athletic and has been berated by people like her when I miss a kick or shot or whatever it is, she just brought back bad memories. I think this is a big reason I've never been able to relate to Kristy and I would have never been friends with her in real life. So the Winter War is a competition between the Red Team an the Blue Team. The students are divided up randomly. Kristy, Mary Anne, Stacey, and Dawn are on the Blue Team and Claudia, Mallory, and Jessi are on the Red Team. There are five events the teams will be competing in:
1) ice-skating (which is more like a speed skating because they're judged on how fast they can skate; not any technical ice-skating moves).
2) snow-ball fight (there's a Capture the Flag element to this where each team has a tennis ball that the other teams needs to claim).
3) snow sculpture contest
4) downhill skiing
5) cross-country skiing
What, no curling? Well, I guess they aren't in Canada!
Kristy is very ambitious. Not only is she the captain of the Blue Team (Rick Chow is the captain of the Red Team), but she's also organizing the entire thing - she has to schedule the practice sessions, ask kids if they want to compete (shouldn't they know who's going to participate for what event in advance?), and help keep score. Um....why? WHY is one eight-grader in charge of the whole winter competition? Shouldn't this be a teacher's (or several teachers') duty? I could see them asking for help from a few students and they could help organize different events and what not, but why is it only just Kristy? And why would they let the captain of one of the teams do it? You'd think she'd be busy with those duties! And on top of that, she's busy with her baby-sitting responsibilities! I found this to be a bit ridiculous and totally unrealistic.
The Blue Team loses the first two events (ice skating and snow sculpting) which greatly upsets Kristy. She berates everyone who doesn't help their team win (including Dawn who falls during the skating competition). They manage to catch up in the next two events and are pretty close to winning when it's only the cross-country competition left. She tries to recruit more people and goes around telling people "if they can walk, they can cross-country ski" and this is how she gets a few (reluctant!) students to join. There was one moment that made me LOL when a bunch of students exclaim, "We can't walk yet!" before she can even recruit them. Despite having a bunch of people entered, they still suck and one student ends up breaking his ankle. The Blue Team ends up losing and Kristy is pretty sour about that, but she also feels bad about pushing the kid who broke his ankle into entering the competition.
Oh, in case you were wondering, the winning team of the Winter War all get a coupon for a free slice of pizza. Whooo!
Claudia does not enter the snow sculpture contest, but is a judge for it, along with a teacher. They end up picking a sculpture of the Cheshire Cat which was made by two people who are on the Red Team. Now I am willing to give Claudia the benefit of the doubt and trust that she picked what she believed was to be the best sculpture, but perhaps subconsciously she was looking for the best sculpture on the Red Team? This, of course, pisses off Kristy, as well as Ashley Wyeth (who is on the Blue Team), who I guess thought Claudia would pick hers since they share an artistic bond. Personally, I thought it would have looked way more shady if Claudia HAD picked Ashley's (or any member of the BSC) even if they were on the opposite team. Hey! Here's an idea: why didn't they just have a blind judging? Claudia is sequestered while they make the sculptures, then when she goes around to judge them, she has no idea who made them. This seems like a pretty good solution and pretty obvious. I am honestly surprised they let her judge when she was already on the Red Team.
This is the third Super Special where Claudia falls in love! By this rate, she has more Super Special love interests than Stacey! She falls for her ski instructor, a French-Canadian named Guy (rhymes with "ski", appropriately!) who happens to be twenty-five and Claudia is sure that he likes her, you know, like that. She even tells Stacey, "My ski instructor has a crush on me." Um, no, Claudia, he does not. You are a literal child. He is a twenty-five-year-old man. If he wanted to date you or be in a romantic relationship with you, he would be in jail. So apparently we are told that Claudia is a champion skier and that she is the best skier at her school even though we had no evidence of this before this book and I'm pretty sure this doesn't come up in later books. Guy is just impressed with her skiing skills and encourages her to be even better.
Of course, Claudia's dreams of her and Guy riding on a gondola in Venice, walking along a beach holding hands during sunset, and having an intimate dinner with him by candlelight all come crashing down when he introduces Claudia to his wife and two children. Yeah, who didn't see that coming?
Jessi has the task of overseeing the entire talent show the school is putting on the last day at the lodge. (Seriously, what is the point of putting on a talent show? You'e got plenty or other entertainment when you're there!) It's not as big as being in charge of the entire Winter War, but, again, why doesn't SMS just ask for three or four student volunteers? Why just have ONE sixth-grader be in charge of the whole thing. These girls are way too overly (and obnoxiously!) ambitious at times. Not only that, but she plans to do a dance from Swan Lake (which she will kill and will get a standing ovation).
Jessi doesn't participate in any of the outdoor activities except for the snow sculpture contest (she and Mal sculpt a pair of ballet shoes, which, I think sounds pretty cool) because she's worried she will break a bone and her dance career will come to a screeching halt. Instead, she volunteers to stay at the lodge and watch over Pinky, this bratty girl from the elementary school who was in the bus accident. Pinky, who is probably 7 or 8, sprained her ankle and can't do anything physical. She's also just a total Debbie Downer and none of the kids want to bunk with her, so she's the only one to have a bunk bed to herself. When Jessi tries to make conversation with her the girl is pretty rude to her. Jessi think it's because the girl is racist (or "prejudiced" is the word she uses), but since we've seen other examples of Pinky being bratty to her other peers, the reader isn't supposed to jump to that conclusion. Jessi ponders if it had been Kristy or Mal watching her, would Pinky have acted the same to them? Come to think of it, I can't remember any examples of Pinky being rude to the older members of the BSC and she seemed to respect teacher authority. I can see Pinky being a brat to Mal, though. Being that Jessi is only three years older than her, she probably saw her as a fellow peer who was annoying her. If I were in Pinky's shoes, I would be a bit annoyed if an eleven-year-old took it upon themselves to baby-sit me while I was in a lodge with plenty of things to keep my occupied (not to mention plenty of people). Jessi says it's "her job to entertain Pinky". No, it's not, Jessi. You're here on a school vacation. Go have fun with your friends; stop worrying about this girl who clearly doesn't want to do anything. Let her be someone else's problem.
Jessi compares Pinky to her racist neighbor who lives across the street, which, honestly, I think was a bit unfair to Pinky. Yes, this girl is a total brat, but we will later learn why she's acting this way. I remember we met this horrible neighbor in the book when we first meet Jessi; she's the one who didn't want her daughter playing with Becca and has threatened to move. I don't remember if we ever hear from her again, so hopefully she did move. For a second, I did wonder if this is the same woman from Keep Out, Claudia. I remember she had three kids and (I believe) the oldest was a girl, but I don't remember how old she was. Also, I'm pretty sure Jessi would have immediately recognized the address and warn the other girls not to baby-sit for that racist c**t.
When I think of the name Pinky, I think of a dog (perhaps a Saint Bernard with a sibling named Buffy) or maybe a mouse who wants to help his other mouse friend take over the world. Jessi asks an annoyed Pinky about her name and she tells her it's a nickname for Priscilla (don't know how you get Pinky from that, but I guess it's better than being called Prissy! :::shudder::::) Jessi comments she likes "Pinky" better, but Pinky does not. So why does she go by that nickname if she'd rather be called by her real name? I have a name that is pretty straight forward and doesn't lend itself to nicknames (Sara), but isn't the person with the name the one who tells people what they'd rather be called? Unless she was called Pinky when she was younger and didn't have a say in it and it stuck and now she wants people to call her Priscilla, but nobody will because they're so used to calling her Pinky.
So we learn the reason why Pinky is acting like a brat is because she's home sick. That's it. So did the other kids get along with her back at school and they just shunned her on this trip because of the way she was acting? I was a little confused about that.
Dawn is also feeling a little homesick, we find out, but that didn't really ring true to me. We know Dawn, who is from sunny California, who loves sunshine and going to the beach and tanning, does NOT like cold weather or snow or anything to do with winter. Why not have this be her storyline? She's just so miserable through this whole experience. And that's where it seems to be headed when she trips on the ice when she's in the skating competition, then later she falls trying to get on the ski lift. She's just not having a good day. The homesickness thing just seems to come out of nowhere.
She and Mary Anne get into a huge fight when she tries to talk to Mary Anne about her bad day, but Mary Anne is more concerned about Logan. I'm on Dawn's side here. She just wants a sympathetic ear, but all Mary Anne can do is "think about her precious Logan" as Dawn puts it.
While skiing, Stacey meets a "gorgeous guy" named Pierre who is also staying at the lodge with his class from Dixville Falls (is it me or does that name sound a little dirty?) Pierre's parents are from Paris, but moved to the States after the got married and he's always lived in Vermont. He reveals he doesn't speak French, but takes Italian at school (weird that they have Italian as a language at a middle school....you'd think the use the resources for French, Spanish, or German). When Stacey asks him if he speaks any French, he replies with "Chevrolet coupe" (pretend there's an accent mark over the e) and Stacey "laughed so hard [she] nearly fell over". Girl, please. This reminded me of that stupid joke Toby tells her in Boy-Crazy Stacey (I can't even remember what it was) and she laughed like it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard.
Stacey makes a remark about how Pierre's voice is changing and "acquiring that deepness". It made me laugh when she's writing about Pierre in the notebook for Mary Anne (which will eventually be given to Logan) and says, "And his voice is starting to change, which is so cool..." I mean, this is the right age when a boy's voice starts to change and I don't think the subject of puberty has even been brought up in this series which is fascinating since they are in the ripe age for it, 11-13. These girls have never been mentioned as getting their periods, which I find fascinating. Surely, the older member have gotten theirs by now! (Maybe not Kristy; I can see her being a late bloomer).
I rolled my eyes so hard when Stacey thinks about the other boys she's known and she "decided that Pierre was the nicest, the most fun, and - if things went my way - probably my first meaningful crush." Girl, GTFO. Pierre doesn't even make it in the top five of your crushes/boyfriends. What about Robert? What about Ethan? What about Sam? Yeah, yeah, I realize these relationships will happen after the events of this book, but little does Stacey know is that she will barely remember Pierre one she leaves Vermont.
What's interesting about the Stacey chapters is that she has two pretty close to the beginning, then doesn't get her last chapter until much later in the book. The other girls note that Stacey's sort of been off doing her own thing (i.e. making out with Pierre) and they don't see her that much. She narrates chapters 2, 8, and 22, so that's a pretty big gap! I thought that was pretty clever to have her "hide" out for awhile since that's how the other members of the BSC perceived her at that time. There's a big dance for all the students at the lodge and of course Stacey is in LUV as she dances with Pierre. They exchange addresses and he does send her a postcard where he writes "I love you" on it which is a bit weird considering they're only 13 and he's only known her for three or four days, but whatever. Out of all Staceys' five billion romances, Pierre has to be one of the least memorable.
There's this weird line where Stacey is talking about them saying their good-byes and she narrate, "Then the buses would leave, and Pierre would go back to Vermont and I would go back to Connecticut." Um, how can Pierre "go back" to Vermont if he's already in the state?(!) Why not just say he'll be going back to the town in Vermont he's from? IDK, that kind of annoyed me.
Stacey claims that New York doesn't get much snow and her "personal theory is that the city is too warm for snow." Um, didn't NYC get a huge blizzard a couple years ago? Now I don't know if that is rare for the city or if New York never had that much snow back in the '80s, so she just never lived in a New York where it ever snowed much. She even says "There is very little for for a blizzard in New York City." Just give it a couple decades, Stacey. Never say never.
She volunteers to help one of the teachers get 15 kids ready to ski. This includes dressing them up in their winter gear, which is a feat all on its own. It takes them 30 minutes, then the kids have to use the bathroom (of course they do!) and they realize there's a lot of mismatched mittens and forgetting to put on their sweaters under their snowsuits. That takes an extra 20 minutes to get everything fixed. However, the worst part of this still hasn't happened: they need to fit 15 children for skis, boots, and poles. Oh. Dear. FUCKING. God. This would be my absolute nightmare. I remember going with my parents and older brother and having to get all that stuff when we went skiing in Colorado and that was such a long and boring process. You have to find ski boots that fit, then you gotta be fitted for the skis and make sure they're secure and blah, blah, blah. Skiing is fun but getting fit for all the equipment is not fun. Come to think of it, Claudia was pretty smart for bringing all her own equipment. I cannot even phantom having to go through all of this with FIFTEEN kids (17 people altogether if you count Stacey and the teacher). Stacey says the process "took nearly forever, and I am not exaggerating." And I believe her. I bet that took at least a couple of hours. This would have been an ideal scenario to have other BSC members there to help out with all of this.
Last, but not least (well maybe a little! (j/k! I love you, Mal!) is Mallory who pretty much has the same storyline of her first Super Special plot where she's spying on people and writing in her notebook. She even makes reference to her trip to the Bahamas and Disney World. Mal vows not to get caught and that she was "going to be a keen observer that [her] journal would be filled only with the truth. [She] would never, ever read something into a situation that wasn't really there." Cut to a series of Mal's journal entries where she's clearly jumping to conclusions such as she thinks the cook is trying to poison them when she sees him putting an unlabeled spice into the food. She also gets caught red-handed (and red-faced too, I'm sure!) when she's peeping through the door trying to spy on Stacey and Pierre making out.
Mallory is super nervous and anxious abut the big dance and thinks she has everything covered when she suggests they invite the elementary school kids and thinks all she will do is watch them, but when they start to dance as well, she can't use that excuse anymore. Everything turns out fine and a boy even asks her to dance.
So that's all the girls' adventures in Vermont. I think this may be my favorite Super Special so far, but we're only three in. I remember California Girls always being my favorite and we're not too far off from that one so it will be interesting to see how that one holds up. Before I go, let's take a look at the cover:
I apologize if this isn't the clearest picture. So here we have all the BSC members having a snowball fight with each other. Shouldn't Claudia be on the side with Jessi and Mal since those were the Red Team members? Also which one is Stacey and which one is Dawn? I think Dawn is wearing the blue hat and Stacey wearing the red hat, but I honestly can't tell.
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