I was SO EXCITED to see Ann M. Martin plans to write more Baby Sitters Club books appealing to younger readers in the NY Times .  Dibbly fresh, as Claudia Kishi would say.

I read a lot as a child, and spent most of my time between the ages of 8 – 10 in Stoneybrook, CT with Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, Dawn, and Mary Anne developing unrealistically high expectations of  my life at thirteen years old and babysitting.

My friends and I traded books, and would read them religiously. As I got older, I realized the silliness of the books.  They were outdated (constant references to perms, leggings, over-sized shirts), lacked subtlety (half the character’s parents were divorced, the ethnicity of every “diverse” character was explained),  and were unrealistic (13-year olds regularly baby sat 10-year olds, always met boyfriends on vacations, had practically no adult supervision ever).

But I still love them, the way I love kitchy, dramatic reality shows.

I shall blog more about some of my favs: Sweet Valley High, Nancy Drew and so on. Oh I’m so happy that even students today are reading the old Baby Sitters Club books. I was in a classroom and I saw one student with the older books and another student with the graphic novels. Hey I say – at least they’re getting the jist of it. I’m game!

Children’s literature has changed a vast amount since I’ve grown up in a positive and negative way. Not all girls and boys want to read about magic. Not all boys and girls want to read about typical lives etc.etc.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 9:54 AM and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.