Book Review: Kristy and the Snobs

A Fair Trade Book

Title: Kristy and the Snobs (Baby-Sitters Club #11)

Author: Ann M. Martin

Author's web site: http://www.scholastic.com/annmartin/ (interesting charity on her blog for February 2016!)

Date: 1988

Publisher: Apple / Scholastic

ISBN: 0-590-43660-0

Length: 145 pages

Quote: “They stopped a couple of yards away from me, and the big snob girl flipped her hair over her shoulder, and put her hand on her hip. “What,” she said, pointing to Louie, “is that?” “That,” I replied, “is a dog.””

Early in the Baby-Sitters Club saga, founder and president Kristy’s mother remarries, and Kristy, her mother, and her siblings move into her stepfather’s posh neighborhood. All kids tend to bristle when they meet, even the very, very nice members of the Baby-Sitters Club; this story is about Kristy’s and her new neighbors’ bristling.

Kristy distributes Baby-Sitters club flyers and is invited to baby-sit for some of the “snob” kids, whose parents could have taught them better manners but don’t mind when Kristy and Stacey teach them better manners—their way. In fact, there’s a distinct possibility that Kristy and Stacey are better baby-sitters than “the big snob girl,” who reacts with derogatory remarks about the Baby-Sitters Club and the dog Louie.

Louie, who is about as old as Kristy and thus doesn’t have long to live, probably has other things on his mind than what a stranger thinks of him. Kristy, however, takes all insults to Louie as insults to herself…at first.

Nevertheless, both Kristy and “big snob girl” Shannon are “thoroughly nice,” and in a few weeks they’ll bond. Readers may recall that Shannon becomes an “associate member” of the Baby-Sitters Club in later volumes. Their progress toward niceness is a little faster and smoother than some readers might believe, but then again some readers think books about children should provide good examples. This one does.

Ann M. Martin has gone on to new things--a new series--in recognition of the fact that the original Baby-Sitters Club members would, if real, be over forty by now. Nevertheless, she's still a living writer, active in cyberspace, boosting a charity that should appeal to both the BSC Fans and the BSC Snark communities on Live Journal. (Seriously.) Therefore, all BSC books qualify as Fair Trade Books. Buy them from this web site for $5 per book + $5 per package, and Martin or her charity gets $1 per book. The per-package shipping fee applies to as many books as I can jam into the package the Post Office will let me use, and going by the last package they offered for book mailing rates, the total price for 8 BSC books (or even 10 or 12 if you buy the skinny little "Baby-Sitter's Little Sister" books) would be $45. To buy the books here, send payment to either address at the very bottom of the screen, down past the blog feed widget. (Then scroll back up, please, and check out the blog feed. Don't I find interesting blogs to follow?)