Friends Forever Super Special: Graduation Day

It’s time for the oldest living middle school students in the world to finally graduation from eighth grade. Even Dawn, Abby, Jessi and Mallory make appearances in this one. I found it a little hard to read because it kept shifting between each member, former members and even the kids they sit for. It didn’t blend as well together, as it does with the BSC super specials.

So Kristy is feeling all out of sorts. She keeps noticing that the other club members are changing and she doesn’t like it one bit. Kristy decides that they need a ton of projects to keep busy with the kids during the summer, before everyone goes off to high school. She’s shocked to learn that Stacey and Claudia both want to cut back on their jobs because Stacey plans on being in NYC a lot and Claudia wants to work on her art. Even Mary Anne wants to stop sitting for the summer and spend some time with Dawn.

The school has a tradition, where students have the option to write a letter to their future self. The school sends the letters back to the kids, when they graduate high school. Kristy works on a bunch of drafts herself, many involving her dad. She finally writes one about the BSC and how it changed her life. She kind of realizes that things are changing, but sometimes change is good.

Stacey spends the whole book freaking out because her dad and Samantha are coming to graduation, as is her mom. The only thing she really cares about is what’s going to happen and worries that they’ll have a fistfight. Of course everyone shows up and gets along fine. She also brushes over her and Claudia’s relationship, thinking that it might work out for the best.

Mary Anne keeps thinking about Logan and feeling bad about their breakup. She says that they talked things over after the breakup and realized it was the right choice, but it still feels unfinished because they don’t talk to each other and ignore each other in the halls. They meet for pizza and don’t get back together, but they do talk things through and she feels better about it. She decides that it’s best for them to go into high school, being able to date other people.

Claudia decides to throw an all BSC party right after graduation. Unfortunately, she has to pass all of her classes first. Stacey tutors her in math, but then she gets a D on her last science assignment, so she has to help her with that too. She gets passing grades in all of her classes, but fails science. The school lets her walk down the aisle with her class, but she has to take summer school and pass science class to get into high school.

Mary Anne is thinking about the letter, when she sits for the Pike family with Mallory. She tells the kids and they want to do something too, so she suggests a time capsule. Then she decides to make a large time capsule with their favorite charges. They bury it in her backyard, with plans to open it when the Pike triplets and other 10 year old charges, are about to graduate high school.

*Claudia’s science project was on what type of music helps a plant grow faster. Did she steal that idea from Charlotte, who did it in one of the earlier books? No wonder she failed, she did an elementary school science fair project!

*SHS supposedly has 1,000 students and I find that really, really hard to believe. Kristy says that kids from other towns and school districts have their own middle schools, but share a junior high. That still seems highly implausible.

*Kristy puts the original BSC flyer in the time capsule, Dawn puts in a copy of the newspaper, Jackie opts for a baseball and Claire donates her favorite teddy bear. They have to dig up the time capsule when Claire flips out that night over losing her bear. I swear that I read this exact storyline before or saw it on TV.

*So Dawn has to send her time capsule item back to Stoneybrook because she won’t be there when they bury it. Yet the next day, she’s there when they dig it up. Plus, she’s there that morning when Mary Anne gets the call from the Pikes. Um, couldn’t they wait like two hours or a single day for her to get back?

*I know that schools let out at different times, but it’s kind of ridiculous in this book. Dawn comes back a few days before graduation and Mallory is back like two weeks before.

*Charlie gets his own letter back from the school, but it’s mainly about his dad leaving. He also has a lot of wishes for his mom, like hoping she meets a good guy.

*The letter writing thing is kind of ridiculous too. What, does no one ever move or change addresses? How would the school track everyone down? Plus, you’re talking about hundreds of letters!

*I don’t know about you guys, but my end to middle school was nothing at all like this. We didn’t do the caps, gowns, tassels, walks , speeches, valedictorian or anything like that until I got to high school. When I finished middle school, I think I got a pat on the back from my parents.

*Jessi got picked to do some special international dance tour with a group from NYC. Yeah, I totally see an 11 year old girl going around the world with a ballet troupe. Speaking of Jessi, she writes about intolerance and how it’s totally affected her life and made things so hard. So says the girl who gets to tour the world.

*All in all, I was kind of disappointed by this book. I kind of wanted to see something more, but it felt rushed and confusing. There was too much back and forth between characters and too much focus on the time capsule. The girls didn’t really even spend a lot of time together until the last chapter. And even then, they only talked about sitting for a few minutes. On the plus side, they agreed to meet up in 12 years, when they all graduate from college. It’s sweet, but Claudia probably needs like 15 years!