The Baby-Sitter’s Club #95: Kristy + Bart = ?

Okay, I have to admit that the majority of this book pisses me off, but I’ll get to all that after the re-cap. So Kristy and Bart have been hanging out a whole lot and spending time together. They get a bunch of kids together for a practice session, but it’s not an official one because it’s still winter and too cold out for a full/real practice. They make plans to hang out together and go to the movies.

When Kristy meets him at his house, he’s standing around with some of his buddies. He introduces her as his girlfriend and it shocks her, but kind of makes her feel good at the same time. At the movies, he keeps leaning over and kissing her, he holds her hand and he puts his arm around her. She thinks kissing him is fun, but she wishes he didn’t kiss her during the good parts. Then he asks her to a big dance at his school.

Cut to a few days later and she’s sitting for Karen, Andrew and David Michael. Bart shows up after she puts him to bed and they start watching a game together. That leads to kissing and Watson catches them on the couch together. Her mom grounds her and she gets pissed at Bart. She spends the whole weekend, fantasizing about him getting some horrible disease. She calls him and tells him that she isn’t his girlfriend, but then feels bad about it.

The rest of the book deals with her wondering if she made the right choice. Every time she sees Charlie and his girlfriend Sarah or Mary Anne and Logan, she feels bad about her choice. She also feels bad because Bart doesn’t call. They finally see each other and she thinks things are fine between them. She’s shocked when he announces that she isn’t going to the dance with him and that he’s taking someone from his school.

Kristy meets with the BSC and rants/raves about what happened. They all point out that she’s the one who ended things. She goes to see him again and they decide to go back to being just friends. When the book ends, she says that the see each other around the neighborhood sometimes and it’s like old times, but she still isn’t sure how she feels.

Here’s what pisses me off about this book…How long have we had to read about Kristy and Bart together? I always just assumed they were a couple, since they always went to dances together and stuff. Now we’re supposed to believe that Kristy just all of the sudden decided that she wasn’t sure he was her boyfriend and needed to think about whether or not she liked him. Plus, she spends a good portion of the book moping over breaking up with him, only to decide it was the right choice all along.

The other plot is that Kristy decides to do a book on funny records made by kids. The sitters get all involved in it too. They have a cereal toss, speed singing and stupid stuff like that. The little kids like Jamie, Jenny and Claire feel left out, so Claudia comes up with easier things that they can do. Of course it turns out to be a big success.

*Kristy is offended when the book has the BSC name in the title, instead of her name because it was her idea. It’s really in-character with her, but kind of bitchy anyway.

*Kristy actually calls Jessi for guy help because she’s worried about asking Mary-Anne. Jessi pretty much just suggests she call her best friend for help.

*Ann’s notes at the end are about how not everyone matures at the same rate and not all girls are ready to date at the same time. I get that, but this book doesn’t seem very realistic.

*Kristy catches Charlie and his girlfriend making out in his car. For some reason the image of this really cracked me up!

*Abby gets hit in the head with a wad of bubble gum and has to have her hair cut, while sitting during a record breaking event at the Pike house.

*Stacey gets stuck sitting for eight kids by herself because Haley invites kids over. To make matters worse, Jamie and Jenny get dropped off when she already has multiple kids and the parents just say thank you. Don’t we constantly hear that two sitters are needed for that many kids??