Book Review: Baby-Sitters at Shadow Lake

Title: Baby-Sitters at Shadow Lake (Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #8)

Author: Ann M. Martin

Author’s web page: http://www.scholastic.com/annmartin/

Date: 1992

Publisher: Apple/Scholastic

ISBN: 0-590-44962-3

Length: 236 pages

Illustrations: drawings by Angelo Tillery

Quote: “Just now we are in the process of rewriting our wills, and we were wondering if you would like the cabin.”

Kristy, the Baby-Sitter whose stepfather is a millionnaire, wants her mother and stepfather to inherit the cabin. (A big one, comfortably furnished, of course.) Stepfather Watson Brewer has some doubts, so in order to make up his mind about how much the blended family of five children need the cabin, he invites ten of their friends, including all of the active Baby-Sitters at this point in the story, to join the family vacation at the cabin by the lake. Of course the cabin is part of a vacation community, so the kids meet some more affluent young friends.

The younger children, boys (David Michael’s friends) and girls (Karen’s friends), find the caretaker’s “shack” unoccupied and squabble over whether it should be called “the playhouse” or “the clubhouse.”

Jessi finds a barre where she can practice her ballet exercises, and a cute boy who’s not quite as congenial as her friend Quint.

Mallory finds out that she has the local mosquitoes’ very favorite kind of blood.

Stacy and Sam (Kristy’s brother) find that they really are attracted to each other.

Mary Anne finds that it’s sometimes useful, toward managing the younger girls, to pretend that they’re the baby-sitters.

Dawn finds a local ghost story that keeps her deliciously scared when the kids camp outdoors overnight.

Claudia finds a way to decorate a boat for a contest.

Kristy finds a way, after pushing everyone else so continually that if this weren’t taking place in the Alternative Universe of Nice you know somebody would slap her, to persuade her parents to accept the cabin. Or do they accept it in spite of her pushing?

It’s the Baby-Sitters Club, so you knew that a good time would be had by all. In order to preserve a little suspense, however, this review will not disclose the final outcome of the debate about the smaller house, what happens between Jessi and Daniel, or who wins the boat-decorating contest.

Baby-Sitters at Shadow Lake is recommended to anyone who wants to complete a BSC book collection, or start one. To buy it as a Fair Trade book, send $5 per book + $5 per package (you could probably get five more Baby-Sitters Special Editions into a package) to either address at the very bottom of the screen.

To order a unique doll dressed to match one of the characters on the front cover, send $20 to either address at the bottom of the screen.