Published in 1996, around the same time as Kristy's Great Idea
Ghostwriter? Yes, David Levithan. Kim Dooley, Janet Vultee, Veronia Ambrose, Olivia Ford, and Charles Agvent also help fact-check.
The 347-page book is divided into fact-filled sections on the club, the club members, their family members, their clients, other people in Stoneybrook, the city itself, different kid-related things specific to the series, and people and other things encounter by the club outside of Stoneybrook. I'm going to skim through them and see how they compare to what I gleaned from my re-read of the series that I began over a decade ago when I started this blog! The book is FAR more detailed, so I'll mention things that stand out.
The sections on the club and its clients includes details about individual items different members have in their Kid-Kits. It also has information on different events the club has organized, such as the fundraiser for the Zuni children in Dawn and the Big Sleepover. The Guide includes client families that I didn't: ones they won't work with again like the Gardellas who accused Stacey of stealing a diamond ring in Stacey and the Missing Ring or one-off families. There's a TON of information on each family! I counted BSC families, like the Pikes, while the Guide doesn't. I also included the Ohdners, who are mentioned but never featured in the books.
Kristy's section includes her full name, Kristin Amanda Thomas, and birthday (August 20 at 4:00am). According to the Guide, her mom wanted to have another biological child, but she and Watson opted for adoption due to her age. Ben Brewer (yes, the ghost) has an entire paragraph and Karen and Andrew's mother Lisa has a long one, but their stepfather Seth only has seven words in two sentence fragments.
Claudia's section includes her full name, Claudia Lynn Kishi, and birthday (July 11 at 4:36am). The Guide was published just before Claudia gets sent back to seventh grade.
Stacey's section includes her full name, Anastasia Elizabeth McGill, and birthday (April 3 at 2:22am). Strangely, her quitting and rejoining the BSC is omitted.
Mary Anne's section includes her September 22 birthday, but not a time. There's no acknowledgement of her mother's name changing from Abigail to Alma.
Dawn's section includes her full name, Dawn Read Schafer, and her February 5 birthday, but not a time. The Guide was published before her baby sister was born.
Abby's section is titled Abigail (Abby) Stevenson, with no middle name specified. It includes her October 15 birthday, but not a time.
Jessi's section includes her full name, Jessica Davis Ramsey, and her June 30 birthday, but not a time. There's no mention of her parents' fertility struggles and two late miscarriages/early stillbirths. It does include a list of ballet terminology.
Mallory's section makes no mention of a middle name. Her birthday is May 2. Her hair is described as chestnut brown, and it often is in the books, but it's always depicted as red in the illustrations and on TV and film. Even in this book, about fifty pages after her hair is first described as chestnut brown, Mallory is mentioned as the Pike with hair that's more reddish than anyone else's. The once-mentioned cat Sarge has a brief entry, and is confirmed to be deceased.
Logan's section makes no mention of a middle name. His birthday is January 10.
Shannon's sections includes her full name, Shannon Louisa Kilbourne, and her birthday is March 17. Her parents' strained marriage is omitted.
None of the baby-sitters were born in the same month as another, and none were born in November (I was, though!). The entries include their addresses, and their adult family members are listed very formally (e.g.; Dawn's stepmother is Ms. Carol Olson). The sections on the club members' family include extended family members if they were mentioned in the books.
The entry on Stoneybrooke Middle School lists a few teachers I missed: Mr. Bailey (English), Mr. Bellafatto (substitute), Mr. Drubek (helped with the school production of Peter Pan), Ms. Flood (unspecified), and Mr. Leavitt and Mr. Mills (track and field coach and football coach, respectively--although you don't need to be staff or faculty to coach, so maybe?).
I also missed these students: Jennifer Abrams, Roger Bucknell, Madeline Carver, Franklin Enell, Jason Henderson, Bobby Henson, Andrea Kirkland, Francie Ledbetter, Beverly McManiman, Terry Morgan, Darcy Morgan, Rodge Somerset, Amelia White, Correen ?, Danni?, Sean?, and Tallie ?. It seems I missed students and teachers mostly in Baby-sitters' Winter Vacation, Starring the Baby-sitters Club!, and Kristy and the Copycat.
Mariah and Miranda Shillaber have a combined entry.
After the information on the faculty, staff, and students at SMS, the Guide lists other middle-school-aged characters the BSC comes across in the books, like the students in Jessi's ballet class. It then moves on to other Stoneybrook area residents. It does NOT list information about the school itself that I did, like its start and stop times and that Mallory and Jessi met on the playground which mysteriously disappears in later books. The next section has some more details about SMS but not those ones.
Next is a section about Stoneybrook itself, including locations. The back of the book folds out into a map!
Absolutely tons of information in this book! Being published when it was, it doesn't include the last 31 regular series books, the last two Super Specials, mysteries from #27 on, about half the Portrait Collections, half the Super Mysteries, or any of the California Diaries or Friends Forever books. But it's still an interesting and thorough resource.
But there's no list of the types of candy in Claudia's room.
