[Monday Reading] The Bonds Of Sisterhood Among Baby-Sitters As Reimagined by Raina Telgemeier

Myra here.

It’s Monday, What are You Reading is a meme hosted by Jen from Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki from Unleashing Readers (new host of Monday reading: Kathryn T at Book Date). Since two of our friends, Linda from Teacher Dance and Tara from A Teaching Life have been joining this meme for quite awhile now, we thought of joining this warm and inviting community. 

I reviewed the first book in Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novel adaptation of the best-selling The Baby-Sitters Club by Ann M. Martin back in 2015, and really enjoyed it (see here).

For our given reading theme, I just knew that I had to find the rest of the graphic novels in the series to share with you all – for our sisterhood reading theme.

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The Baby-Sitters Club #2: The Truth About Stacey

Adapted by Raina Telgemeier Based On The Novel by Ann M. Martin
Published by: Graphix (2015)
ISBN: 0545813891 (ISBN13: 9780545813891). Borrowed through inter-library loan. Book photos taken by me.

As the title says, this book has Stacey’s story as central to the narrative. I like how each book seems to focus primarily on one character’s story arc. Since I have not really read the original Ann M. Martin versions, I am not sure if this was how she set the series out to be. At any rate, I find it to be ingenious.

The story tangentially touches on Stacey’s “truth” in this instalment: her being a diabetic and what it means for her to constantly watch her diet and seek out specialists for her lifelong condition. Apart from this, the Baby-Sitters Club also has a nemesis to overcome, known as The Baby-Sitters Agency, consisting of a group of older girls who have a network of sitters who can stay out longer during weekdays and weekends.

Hence the club needed to be particularly resourceful in coming up with a number of ideas to keep their customers and to ensure that they don’t go out of business. I especially liked their kid-kit idea, and the fact that they do develop a bond with the young kids under their supervision. These girls would make for wonderful teachers!

It also reminded me of a time when young people are not that overburdened with so many out-of-school activities or too preoccupied with schoolwork, such that they have spaces of time that would allow them to have projects such as these. Life is so different now, clearly. Yet reading Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novel adaptations provides a wistful reminder of how things used to be, and makes me nostalgic for how simple life had been pre-social-media and pre-internet.

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The Baby-Sitters Club #3: Mary Anne Saves The Day

Adapted by Raina Telgemeier Based On The Novel by Ann M. Martin
Published by: Graphix (2015)
ISBN: 054588621X (ISBN13: 9780545886215). Borrowed through inter-library loan. Book photos taken by me.

Since I borrowed this via inter-library loan, I did not realize that I got the black-and-white version of this graphic novel. I think it is a pretty no-brainer that readers would prefer the full-colour one: so why even publish the black-and-white version?

So in this story, the Baby-Sitters Club are in a serious fight: they pretty much hate each other’s guts, are jealous of each other, and can not stand being in the same room without erupting into a huge, full-blown quarrel. The disagreements made me chuckle, and made me think that Ann M. Martin actually waited for quite a fair bit (not until Book 3!) before having the girls get into a conflict – I would have expected it to happen sooner.

I like that it is the responsible, quiet, often-understated Mary Anne in baby-girl-braids who was the focus of this story. I find her guilelessness to be refreshing. There were also several panels in this graphic novel that made me marvel at how good Raina Telgemeier is at what she does. There were pages that did not need any words: just the full expression of the characters conveying emotions that need not be translated into words:

I especially liked how the girls used their baby-sitting journal to document their disagreements and how they managed to babysit together without managing to kill each other or the children under their supervision – well, barely.

I was so enamoured by these two novels that I have just reserved the last two books in the series that are currently available in our library. It is unfortunate that Books 5-7 are not done by Raina Telgemeier any longer, but still looking forward to how Ann M. Martin’s vision is interpreted by Gale Galligan.

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#WomenReadWomen2019: United States of America.