Buckle up, because the lack of style from last week is MORE than made up for by the presence of our second school dance so far in the series, the Remember September dance.
But first - Logan Bruno. He's the new kid in school, hailing from Louisville, Kentucky (speaking of Kentucky - justiceforbreonna.org). He also just happens to be the spitting image of teen heartthrob Cam Geary, Mary-Anne's #1 Crush. She likes him. And, as is evident by the title, he likes her back.
I'm sorry, can we just address this cover for a second? Logan looks like he's sixty years old wearing a Boris Johnson wig. The UK/Ireland cover art never seemed to accurately depict the characters, Stacey and Dawn look nothing like they're described and Claudia is continually whitewashed. But this poor Logan guy takes the biscuit. I can almost hear Brad Mondo shouting "T-18 won't do shit!" at that yellow hair. Also, I had that jacket.
So - because Kristy moved to a new neighbourhood when her mother married Watson, she now has access to a whole new babysitting client list. Unfortunately, she gets a little too over-enthusiastic with her advertising and the girls end up with too much work. Enter Logan - he was a sitter back in Kentucky, but can the girls really take a boy into the club?
In the end, they agree that Logan will be their official alternate, taking up any jobs the girls can't do, but he won't go to the meetings because of the awkwardness they all felt when he was in Claudia's room when someone said the word "bra".
Mary-Anne turns thirteen in this book, and as you can tell from this cover, she's over the MOON about it - the girls throw her a surprise party, and in true Virgo style, she walks out. In Ann M. Martin's letter to the reader, she talks about how Mary-Anne was the last of the group to turn thirteen, and thirteen they would all stay from that point on. She didn't want them to age out of the series, and she also wanted the shyest, most quiet girl in the group to be the first one to have a boyfriend.
My favourite thing about this whole book was that one of the boys Mary-Anne and Logan sit for has a pet grasshopper, who is a boy, and who is named Elizabeth. And everyone is just completely accepting of it. Another pet makes his debut, with the arrival of Mary-Anne's first ever pet cat, Tigger.
My second favourite thing is that we see the return of the Klondike number, when we learn that Logan's number is KL5-1018. I'm going to link this Washington Post article about the Klondike-5 phenomenon again, because I adore the whole concept of there being an alternate universe in which phone numbers are this simple.
The Remember September Dance prep kicks off with a shopping trip for Mary-Anne, who also has a pretty cute birthday outfit (presumably she's wearing trousers too).
For the dance: A full white skirt with "London, Paris, Rome" and illustrations of landmarks on it. A pink shirt, baggy pink sweater, and white slip-ons with pink and blue edging.
The outfit game is also strong with the other girls, apart from our Queen Claudia who only has one outfit mentioned this time (but it's a cracker).
The Dance: Stacey wore a white t-shirt under a hot pink jumpsuit. Dawn wore a green and white oversized sweater and stretchy green pants. Kristy wore a white turtleneck shirt, pink sweater, and blue jeans.
Gumdrops and pretzels hidden in her pillowcase.
Doritos.
Did you know that Doritos only came to the UK (and by extension, Ireland) in 1994?! This is what the logo on Claudia's bag looked like in 1988:
Honourable mention for Dawn's lunch - strawberries, granola & yogurt, dried apple slices.
I'm 99% sure that I didn't know what granola was until I was about 25.
The movie Meatballs is mentioned. Released in 1979, this was the first film to feature Bill Murray in a starring role.
Paddington Takes the Air, Dr. Seuss' Happy Birthday to You and Tik Tok of Oz are books that appear in the Kid-Kit. I love how many real childrens books the author references.
Until next week (I promise, I have it drafted already)
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