The Baby-sitters Club Super Special #6: New York, New York!

Apparently SMS is having a two-week vacation and Claudia discovered some famous art school that’s open to anyone. Take classes when you want, drop out when you want and you can be any age, as long as you pay. Stacey offers to let her stay with her dad when she goes and then Mallory wants to take classes there too. Before long, the whole club is going and staying with either Mr. McGill or Laine.

Claudia takes classes and her teacher is this famous artist she calls Mac. He keeps telling her to slow down or spend more time on her artwork, so she constantly pouts. She even makes comments about how he’s the only teacher who never complimented her art. He does like Mallory’s work, so she gets pissed at her, makes rude comments and ignores her. On the last day of class, Mac tells her that she’s a talented artist and he pushed her to make her better. Of course.

Mallory is a total brown noser who spends the whole book sucking up to Mac, talking to him about his daughter and being the perfect person. Then she whines and can’t figure out why Claudia is so pissed off. When Claudia makes up with her, she asks Mac about her own art and he tells her flat out that she won’t ever draw like Claudia, nice. She decides it doesn’t matter because she just wants to illustrate kids’ books.

Jessi meets this dancer named Quint and they spend a lot of time together. His teacher wants him to audition for Julliard, but he’s afraid because all the guys in his neighborhood pick on him. Jessi convinces him to audition and even goes with him to talk it over with his parents. He gives her a kiss, which is her first kiss and eventually reveals that he did get into the school.

Kristy finds this stray dog and sneaks it into Laine’s apartment. She thinks they can’t have pets and Laine thinks she’s hiding the dog from her parents. Watson tells her she can’t have the dog, but she keeps holding out hope that he’ll change his mind. Mrs. Cummings finds the dog and convinces her to put up flyers around town. Kristy names his Sonny, for Son of Louis because he reminds her of her old dog, and she spends most of her money on him. She finds a great home for him at the end.

Mary Anne and Stacey babysit for these two super rich kids, Rowena and Alistair, who’s parents are foreign diplomats. Mary Anne acts like the know it all she always does. They start noticing that this guy keeps following them and come up with all kinds of crazy theories. Mary Anne thinks he wants to kidnap them and Stacey thinks he hid something in their backpack. It turns out that his name is Bill and he’s actually the kids’ bodyguard.

Dawn flips out because being in the city is so crazy and don’t you know that people are murdered there every day. She meets this guy Ritchie that lives in the building and is stuck inside because he broke his ankle. He gets a walking cast and takes her on a tour of NYC, which includes eating from a street vendor and sampling Godiva chocolate.

*Jessi gets pissed when Laine won’t let her just wander over to Quint’s house and she thinks it’s because she’s 11. Um no, it’s because you’re in the big city now and can’t just disappear.

*Kristy does the exact same thing though! She just goes over to the apartment of the people who want the dog. She does tell Mrs. Cummings the address, but seriously, they just let her go over there on her own.

*Dawn’s behavior in this book seems kind of…out of character? She literally stays inside all day by herself and cleans or organizes Ed’s apartment because she’s too afraid to go outside.

*Laine takes them to Mythology so they can see the laughing mirrors. I love it when there’s a little callback to another book! Plus they get a limo and Mr. Cummings gets them free tickets to a Broadway show.

*Speaking of the show…does anyone really buy that a bunch of early teens and pre-teens would really have fun going to Tavern on the Green and a Broadway show?