Original Publication Date: 1989
Ghostwriter? No
Synopsis:
The BSC (except Shannon, of course. Sigh) is going to Camp Mohawk in New York, as are several charges. The older ones will be counselors-in-training (CITs) and Mallory and Jessi are Junior CITs. Here's what happens:
Stacey gets a cold, poison ivy, impetigo, pinkeye, and lots of mosquito bites.
Kristy has to comfort Charlotte Johanssen, who's in her cabin (and really is acting like a baby: she cries watching a nature film when a bullfrog's puffing out its throat scares her). She also gets made over by the other three CITs who are watching the eight-year-olds with her, in preparation for the dance with the boy CITs (the boys stay on the other side of the camp's lake).
Claudia gets pretty close to a Will Yamakawa, one of the boy CITs. His grandmother also lived with his family, like Mimi, but she died the month before camp. They talk about that some, which is interesting given the book that's coming up next.
Dawn ends up counselor for her cabin briefly when the regular counselor's mother suddenly becomes ill. She also takes her group of eleven-year-olds on an overnight camping trip, during which the quiet girl who keeps to herself is revealed to be a nature expert who saves the day when they're lost (I know, I'm shocked, too).
Mary Anne's three co-CITs are very sophisticated and don't believe that Mary Anne has a boyfriend. She earns their respect by attempting to sneak around the lake one night to deliver Logan a note, and later by allowing them to attempt to pierce her ears (but they don't go through with it).
Jessi and Mallory end up in a cabin with four other stuck-up eleven-year-olds. Among other nasty deeds, they other girls call Jessi and Mallory Oreos (yes, it makes no sense, but it's clear they meant to be racist). As Junior CITs, Jessi and Mallory help the eight-year-olds, including Becca and Charlotte, put on a rehearsal for Parents' Day. Mallory and Jessi cast Becca and Charlotte as twins in their play to teach their cabinmates a lesson (because Becca's black and Charlotte's white). They think the other girls will be mortified, angry, or apologetic. It's a book, so of course things work out (three apologize, the fourth doesn't say a word), but I think in real life the other girls wouldn't have even noticed.
Logan mostly has to deal with his co-CITs teasing him about Mary Anne. She wrote an overly sappy letter, not intending to send it but hoping her co-CITs would finally believe her about her having a boyfriend. Fortunately, all the strangers Mary Anne and Logan will never see are impressed with them to stop questioning their relationship.
Established or continued in this book:
The Girls (and Logan):
Claudia candy: none (she buys some at the camp, but it's not the same)
Dawn watches The Parent Trap every week (which is how she got the idea the BSC should go to camp).
When Charlotte Johanssen is crying, it's Mary Anne who has Kleenex to offer her. That makes sense.
Stacey isn't getting perms anymore, but body waves.
Claudia shouldn't have the top bunk. This is the second Super Special in which she's stepped on the hand of the person in the bottom bunk.
Dawn has trouble finding north. So do I. I can kind of figure it out by the sun if I know what time it is, or by where certain constellations are, but I don't just know like some people. Unless I'm in Canada; I can find you anything you want in Canada.
Claudia expresses an interest in learning to knit, from Mimi if possible.
Mary Anne swears off ever having her ears pierced after her co-CITs aren't able to go through with the ice-cube-and-needle routine.
Ah, this is the book. Stacey lets us know she has to test her urine as well as her blood every day.
Their Families:
So formal with the postcards! They're addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. [father's first and last name]." When I send mail to my parents--even my wedding invitation--the mail's addressed to "Mom and Dad."
There's some hinting at Stacey's mom doing too much shopping, at least partially out of boredom.
Stacey's mom continues to say "Have fun and be careful."
Mimi's mind is continuing to fail.
Jessi's dad is named Alex (but it will later change to John). EDIT: Alex is a funny first name, considering his son is John Phillip Ramsey, JR. Thanks, Nikki!
Claudia thinks her parents will want her to marry a Japanese man.
Hmm. Stacey's parents call her when she's in the infirmary, wanting her to come home. First Stacey talks to her mom, then her dad gets on the other phone and says they think it's a good idea for her to come home. Stacey's mom immediately says that Stacey's probably fine. I wonder...Welcome Back, Stacey is just a few books away. If her parents hadn't been fighting, would her mom have so readily agreed with Stacey? That is, is she saying Stacey should stay just for the sake of disagreeing with her dad?
The Club: Nothing new
SMS: Nothing new
PSA time: Nothing new
Misc:
Are you supposed to pick nail polish based on how well it matches your eyes? Because that's what Kristy's co-CITs do, and it seems odd to me.
The camp's doctor is only there certain days. That seems really dumb.
Who else, when reading this, was confused by the sentence "Heather is an Iroquois, which means she can't swim"? It's not really clear that campers are assigned different tribes based on swimming ability...I thought it meant that people descended from the Iroquois were bad swimmers or didn't swim because of a cultural taboo.
Claudia and Will exchange addresses. I wish we could have seen mention of her writing him a letter in the next book (Claudia and the Sad Goodbye) to talk about losing a grandmother.
The numbers:
Starting 8th grade: 1
Halloweens in 8th grade: 1
Summers after 8th grade: 1
BSC Fights: 5
SMS Staff: 13 (2 6th grade, 3 7th grade, 4 8th grade, 2 elective, 1 vice-principal, 1 secretary)
Students: 32 8th graders, six sixth-graders
Clients: 20
Types of candy in Claudia’s room: 35 (bubble gum, Butterfingers, butterscotch candy, Cheese Doodles, a chocolate bar, cookies, Cracker Jacks, crackers, cupcakes, Ding-Dongs, Doritos, gumdrops, Fritos, Gummi Bears, Heath bars, Hershey's kisses, Ho Hos, jawbreakers, licorice, licorice whips, Lifesavers, M&Ms (regular and peanut), Mallomars, marshmallows, mini candy bars, Oreos (Double Stuf), popcorn, pretzels, Ring Dings, root beer barrels, salt water taffy, Snickers, Tootsie Roll Pops, Tootsie Rolls, Twinkies)
Crushes: Claudia-4 (Austin Bentley, Timothy Carmody, Trevor Sandbourne, Will Yamakawa), Dawn-1 (Parker Harris), Mary Anne-2 (Alex, Logan Bruno), Stacey-4 (Toby, Pete Black, Scott Foley, Sam Thomas), Kristy-1 (Bart Taylor)
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8 comments:
I always sympathized with Stacey in this one (a rare thing). I'm a city gal who hates the country. I'm all, "Darling, I love you but give me Avenue A."
Actually, since we've already established Squirt's name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr., my theory is that Mr. Ramsey's name has always been John. And that someone at Scholastic just dropped the ball here.
No idea why I loved this SS so much, but I did!
Oh, CAMP! SO MUCH LOVE
I think Will is my favorite boyfriend of Claudia's. They have all these normal conversations that normal people might actually have.
Actually, I remember this one seeming fairly normal-ish behavior wise, at least in contrast to many others. I liked that there were bitchy girls (uh, because there are) and that some of the BSC members did dumb things and I love, love the use of the nickname "Feeb".
"Heather is an Iroquois, which means she can't swim." That always confused the heck out of me! I thought it meant that like Iroquois people were physically incapable of swimming. They should have made it "guppy" or something, right? (Or "Heather is in the Iroquois swimming group.")
Anyway, don't know if I've commented here before but I recently came across the blog, and I love it! SS#2 is one of my favorite BSC books, too :)
Do people with teh diabeetz typically have such sorry immune systems? If not... what the hell is wrong with Stacey?
The old fashioned (but not bad) rule is to match your lipstick and nail polish vs complimenting eye product to hair and skin. Hopefully, you have the good taste (read *sense*) to compliment those to your skin tone as well. ie: I look terrible in bright red anything. Matching nail to eyes is a terrible idea as you may well end up looking very professional (not to mention classy) with your blue, green, brown, gray or combination thereof nails. Blech.
As someone who worked at summer camp for five years, I can't even begin to approach the ridiculousness of 13 year olds being CITs and most of the counselors seeming to being under the age of 18. Not to mention, it didn't seem like there was any HEAD counselor or someone to help guide the counselors under them. (Unit leader). I did work at an itty bitty girl scout camp...ahem...two counselors...but then again we had the Assistant camp director as kind of our "head." Camp Mohawk SOUNDS fairly good sized.One counselor being assigned to a bunch of kids AND CITS under them? Not to mention it sounded like the CITs had a lot of the responsibility. Real life? No. The youngest counselors I knew were 18. Two of the camps I worked at had at least two counselors per group (Except for the itty bitty camp). The special needs camp you had to at least be 19, and a lot of times there were three counselors for the younger campers, plus live in help. (Specialists like myself were assigned to cabins as an extra hand) One thing that also stood out to me was that the #s seemed to be pretty exact.I can't remember if it was 6 or 8 campers per cabin...but all the cabins seemed to have the exact same number of campers. Damn, that's pretty convenient.
I never did a camp like this (just ones with my girl scout troop), so I wasn't sure if things were off or not, but it seemed like an awful lot of coincidences!
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