Book Review: Mary Anne and Miss Priss

Title: Mary Anne and Miss Priss

Author: Ann M. Martin

Date: 1994

Publisher: Scholastic

ISBN: 0-590-47011-6

Length: 141 pages

Quote: “[Jenny had] acted so prim and proper and had been so fussy about the food she ate and the clothes she wore, that we’d often call her Miss Priss.”

Four-year-old Jenny can seem more appearance-conscious than her thirteen-year-old Baby-Sitters. The Baby-Sitters feel relieved when Jenny can be persuaded to wear trousers. Then she suddenly reverts to wearing only frilly dresses and doing only things in which she can keep her dresses tidy. Mary Anne soon finds out her secret: Jenny and baby sister Andrea are working as TV models. Again.

There are more modeling jobs for babies than there are for four-year-olds. Jenny is as drained by auditions and as crushed by not being chosen as an older actress, too, and even feels jealous envy toward Andrea.

Fortunately, neither envy nor any other Deadly Sin can survive very long in the Baby-Sitters’ World of Nice. Mary Anne and Jenny’s mother decode Jenny’s fancier fashion statement fast and, since the Baby-Sitters Club books aren’t really novels so much as teaching stories about how a problem in baby-sitting can be resolved, everyone lives mostly happily ever after...although some subplots form, among Mary Anne’s half-dozen best friends, setting the stage for the next few volumes in the series.

The intended audience for these stories are in grades five through eight. The reading level might be an easy challenge for grade three. The stories are a quick, light, nostalgic read for any adults who still want one. While some publishers like to hustle books on and off store shelves for their own profit, as opposed to those of writers, readers, or booksellers, Scholastic keeps its books available through school book clubs. As a result, they report, although the Baby-Sitters Club would be older moms by now if they were real people, their adventures are still selling well. Other publishers who want steady streams of revenue could profit from Scholastic’s good example.