Rereading My Childhood - The Podcast

The Baby-Sitters Club #31: Dawn's Wicked Stepsister

• Amy A. Cowan

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This book review features Ann M. Martin's The Baby-sitters Club: #31: Dawn's Wicked Stepsister, in which two families morph into a passive-aggressive fusion, a convoluted plan results in light janitorial work, and a vengeful god attempts to eliminate the Pikes.

Get the Book: https://bookshop.org/a/80100/9781546179252

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Should you read this book?

★★★★★ - This book was written specifically for me.

★★★★ - Absolutely.

★★★ - If you enjoy this genre, this is something you should try.

★★ - It’s difficult for me to recommend this book even for its intended audience.

★ - No. Just no.

I’m a bookish nerd on a mission. I’m rereading the books of my ‘90s childhood: The Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street, and writing a summary and review. I’m Amy A. Cowan and this is Rereading My Childhood - The Podcast.

Rereading My Childhood is written by me, Amy A. Cowan. For a list of every Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street book review I have written or subscribe to the Substack, go to RereadingMyChildhood.com. To listen to the official podcast, visit the website or search for “Rereading My Childhood” in your favorite podcast app. For more information about me, visit AmyACowan.com.

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Main: http://RereadingMyChildhood.com

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In which two families merge into a passive-aggressive fusion, a convoluted plan results in light janitorial work, and a vengeful god attempts to eliminate the Pikes.

Things have changed in Stoneybrook. Mrs. Schafer and Mr. Spier got married in the previous entry, #30: Mary Anne and the Great Romance, and it ended on a cliffhanger. Will Mary Anne catch the bouquet at the end of the wedding, signifying an impending child marriage, or will Dawn catch her own mother’s bouquet, signifying another child marriage? Can the merging of these disparate families transcend their inherent peculiarities and create a blissful family unit? Will Dawn finally have the sister she’s always wanted?

The answers are Mary Anne, no immediate child marriage, eventually, and sort of. The newly formed Schafer-Spier clan has some growing pains to contend with. Growing pains that could have been easily resolved if Mr. Spier and Mrs. Schafer had actually talked to each other before the wedding. Seriously, what were those two doing on their dates? Wait a minute. Don’t answer that question. That’s none of my business. But it sure seems like they rushed into this marriage. It’s not like Mrs. Schafer is pregnant and her father is nudging Mr. Spier with a shotgun at the altar. They could have talked a little bit more before the wedding.

But I digress. The largest problem with The Baby-Sitters Club #31: Dawn’s Wicked Stepsister is that we’re reverting to an old BSC trope - infighting, and everyone is annoying in their own special ways. All their problems could be resolved with a bit of structured therapy with a professional and a willingness to use the space in their giant, ‘80s house. But if they did that, then we wouldn’t have a book, nor would we have one of the most needlessly convoluted solutions to an issue that was already solved in a previous BSC book.

On the other hand, while I may not have liked the A plot, the B plot involving the Pike children delighted me. The ancillary members of the BSC shine here and remind me why I’m reading this series. If there were a way to pluck out just those chapters, I would gladly recommend it. But there isn’t, so I must judge the entire book.

It’s frustrating when the central conflict of a book is so easily solved. If the adults had acted responsibly and discussed their different lifestyles before getting married, they could have avoided a lot of unnecessary drama. Geez, adults, just go to a love hotel instead of rushing into a marriage. And if Mary Anne and Dawn had remembered what happened with one of their regular charges just last week (i.e., the Arnold twins dilemma), they could have also avoided unnecessary drama. And maybe if these people didn’t take their gigantic space for granted, a silly plan involving the weakest haunting ever concocted could have been avoided. This is a big change for the usual familial structure of the BSC, but this one can be skipped.

2.75 ★/5

Quick Summary: The newlyweds Spier move in together into the Schafer house, and that means that Dawn and Mary Anne move in together. They are excited, especially Dawn, and she invites Mary Anne to share a room with her. Pretty quickly, personalities clash. Mr. Spier makes breakfast for Mrs. Schafer (er, Mrs. Spier), and even though she doesn’t eat meat, he keeps including bacon. Mary Anne doesn’t like that Mrs. Spier (I will not get used to that) is ambivalent about Tigger the Cat, and that she’s kind of messy. Mary Anne follows Mrs. Spier around to clean. In Mary Anne and Dawn’s shared room, they have conflicting study styles, leading to a fight wherein Mary Anne retreats to the “sewing room.” Dawn gets this idea to get Mary Anne to permanently stay in the sewing room, so one night while Dawn is supposedly “out”, she uses her secret entrance to trick Mary Anne into believing that the room is haunted. She plays spooky sounds from the hallway and leaves a chicken bone and a rose on the desk. Mary Anne does exactly what Dawn wants, and the sewing room is now Mary Anne’s dormitory. The new Spier clan has their first family meeting, and they set some rules for living together. The B-plot involves all the Pike children, and eventually the adults, succumbing to various illnesses and injuries as if the god of pestilence has it out for the family. There are shenanigans. Everyone gets over their various ailments.

That was the most ridiculous way to solve the bedroom problem. Did they just forget about the Arnold twins? In the previous entry, #30: Mary Anne and the Great Romance, the Arnold twins get separate rooms. There was probably supposed to be a parallel between each set of sisters, but then the B-plot of #30 should have been the B-plot of this book. Putting it in the previous book makes it look like Dawn and Mary Anne have severe amnesia, which seems like a bigger problem, or they are derelict in their duty to read the BSC Notebook. Either way, the solution should have been obvious from the beginning. Hey, Dawn and Mary Anne, your house is huge. Mary Anne moved from one gigantic house to another. Why would either one of them think that sharing a room when they don’t have to is a good idea? My sister and I got along much better when we weren’t in the same room.

And instead of just remembering the Arnold twins, Dawn does this whole thing wherein she leaves garbage all over Mary Anne’s desk and plays wind sounds in the passage. While I was reading it, I thought Mary Anne knew that Dawn was playing a prank on her, decided that it was a good opportunity to move out of Dawn’s room, and played along. That is certainly not the case. Mary Anne does not indicate that she knew it was a prank. I give Mary Anne more credit than she deserves. This sitter actually believed the lie that a girl with the unlikely name of Gozzy Kunga, who was in a plane hijacking, is attending school in suburban Connecticut. This is on me, really.

For a progressive woman, Mrs. Schafer isn’t very progressive at all. She uses the “Mrs.” and she changes her name when she gets married to Mr. Spier. She should have reverted to her maiden name, which is Porter. I will call her Ms. Porter. I will also forget to call her Ms. Porter in subsequent reviews.

I loved the B plot about the Pike children succumbing to multiple ailments at the same time. When Jessi fulfills a special breakfast request for Clare, she causes the rest of the Pike children to make special requests. That was the most real thing in the book. Even Mallory warns her that it’s a bad idea. That was pretty funny. Again, I like how Mallory and Jessi seem to like each other and don’t spend all their time fighting.

I also thought it was funny when the Pike adults also got decommissioned. Although Mr. Pike’s only injury was his hand. I’m sorry. You’re the father. You can still take care of your offspring with one hand. How useless is this man if he’s all, “Oh no, my hand has an ouchie. Guess I have to hire the local seventh-graders to watch my tens of children.”

And I must reiterate, I don’t like infighting. It’s always more interesting when the girls are working together, or it’s focused on one of the girls, and the others are playing background characters. Whatever the next story is, I hope none of the girls are fighting. And I especially hope it doesn’t showcase a problem that could have been solved in the time it takes to watch an episode of Goosebumps.