The BSC calendar has circled back to winter again, which means it's time for the annual WINTER CARNIVAL up in Vermont! Why have they never mentioned the Winter Carnival before? Because the author just thought of it, of course! But the baby-sitters totally went last year. They go every year. Their whole SCHOOL goes every year. Teachers, too! MADNESS.
Every Super Special is bookended by one of the baby-sitters, and this time it's Mary Anne who gets the job. She gives us the setup: A wealthy couple, Mr. and Mrs. George, own a humongous ski lodge, and they invite schools and groups to spend a week there. They always invite Stoneybrook Middle School for some reason... and everyone's cool with sending their kids to the mountains for a week every winter. Ah, but there's sad news: Logan, Mary Anne's boyfriend, can't go on the trip... his family is going to be vacationing in Aruba that week. So it's just the seven Core Sitters for this one.
We also learn that besides spending a week at the lodge and doing fun wintery stuff, Stoneybrook Middle School also puts on something called a Winter War every year. There are five events, pitting one half of the school (the randomly-assigned "red team") against the other (the "blue team"). Whichever team wins the most events gets bragging rights. And a pizza coupon.
Enter Kristy. Super-competitive Kristy. She has somehow been granted the right to be in charge of the entire Winter War... scheduling, keeping track of scores, etc. And she's also the captain of her team. Meaning she's biased. But also in charge. This... is not going to end well.
Another strange thing we learn early on -- Claudia has volunteered to judge one of the events, the snow sculpture contest. As a member of the red team, she's not an impartial judge. But she's doing this to get extra credit in school.
"I'm wondering if I made a mistake," Claudia says to Stacey at one point. "By agreeing to judge the snow sculpture contest instead of enter it. I really want to make a snow sculpture, but if I did, I couldn't be the judge. It'll be hard enough trying to judge without being partial to the red team."
"I think you made the right choice," Stacey replies. "The teachers really need you to be the judge." Stacey then adds to herself: What I didn't say was that Claudia really needed the extra credit she'd earn.
This extra credit thing baffles me. Wow, you did a really good job judging those snow sculptures, Claudia! You get 10 extra points in every class! That might just help you pull a C-minus in math this semester! Thank goodness for your snow-judging skills.
Why not ask literally anyone else at the lodge to judge the contest? They could go in and get the cook and be like, "Hey, Sir, please put on a scarf and boots and get out here pick your favorite, would ya?"
But no. It's a kid who has to do it. And you KNOW this is going to cause drama.
I can't decide if the Stoneybrook Middle School staff are just clueless/careless, or if they're the masterminds behind a carefully-organized social experiment.
Perhaps that remains to be seen.
So we get to the lodge and the girls are shown to their dorms. Panic ensues on Jessi and Mallory's end when they realize they will be separated from their eighth-grade friends. But as soon as the older girls get settled (there's drama about who is "bunkies" with who, and horrified faces as Kristy is forced to bunk with Claudia's spacey, artsy friend, Ashley Wyeth -- oh no!), they go back to the 6th grade dorms to retrieve Mallory and Jessi. Then the older girls give the younger girls a tour of the lodge. Claudia introduces them to all the vending machines.
They have just reached the common room, the main hub of the lodge, when... OH NO! The front door to the lodge burst open, blowing snow onto the carpet, and two nearly frozen people, a man and a woman, staggered inside. The man immediately collapsed on the ground.
"Oh, my lord!" cried Claudia.
Hotel workers rush to help. Questions are asked. Finally, the woman said, "You've got to help us. Please. We had an accident about two miles down the road. Our bus overturned."
We then learn that these are two teachers from Conway Cove Elementary. They're chaperoning sixteen kids who are supposed to spend a week at the lodge. The kids are still back on the overturned bus, along with the injured bus driver.
Ambulances and rescue workers are called. Mrs. George says she and her husband will take an old bus they have and go pick up the kids. Who would like to volunteer to go with them?
Before anyone could answer, [Kristy] stepped forward and opened [her] big mouth. "We'll go... the Baby-Sitters Club will go."
So the seven BSCers, along with Mr. and Mrs. George and three SMS teachers, go off to rescue the children.
A quick note: this book serves as a bridge between Super Special #2: Baby-Sitters Summer Vacation (in which Dawn and her cabinmates get lost in the woods) and Super Special #4: Baby-Sitters Island Adventure (in which Dawn, Claudia, and four children get stranded on a deserted island). Here, we have not one, but TWO bus accidents. First there's a minor off-road skid during the Stoneybrook kids' bus trip to the lodge. And now this elementary bus has overturned.
So when the BSCers get to the scene of the accident, each of the girls pulls aside 2 or 3 little kids and calms them down. They all get back on the Georges' bus. Then, when everyone's safe and sound back at the lodge, the question arises about what to do with the kids, because their bus driver has a broken leg, the female teacher has a broken arm, and the male teacher has cracked ribs. They have officially entered the "useless adult" state that we have seen oh, so many Stoneybrook adults fall into.
The BSCers, ever heroic, offer to bunk with the little kids.They also agree to include the kids in their activities throughout the week. Mrs. George is touched, and offers to pay them for their services. Kristy speaks for all of them when she says: "That's okay. We don't need to be paid. We're still going to have a great time here. Besides, every year, you and Mr. George let our whole school come visit and I know we never pay you enough for it. The least we can do is help out some of the other kids you're giving a treat to."
Thinks Claudia, who's narrating this chapter: Well, Kristy should know better than to say something like that to an adult. Of course Mrs. George began to cry because she was so touched. Us BSC members decided it was time to hightail it out of there. (LOL.)
So the BSC ladies move out of their other dorms (leaving Ashley Wyeth with a bunk to herself, bless her) and into a tinier dorm with all the Conway Cove kids. And I suddenly see why Ann M. Martin had to ship Logan off to Aruba for this book. As an associate BSC member, Logan wouldn't have been able to NOT help with the kids. But he couldn't share their dorm, because scandalousness, so... better send him 2,000 miles away instead.
One important thing to note is that one of the Conway Cove kids, Pinky, hurt her foot in the bus accident, so she's going to have to take it easy for a day or two.
The first full day at the lodge, Mary Anne starts working on her volunteer, extra-credit-for-school "job," which is Trip Historian. She's supposed to do a report on Leicester Lodge and the town it resides in. She heads to the lodge's library, reads a few books, and discovers there might be a ghost haunting the lodge. But also, she misses Logan, and instead of actually writing about the lodge, she writes Logan mushy letters.
Remember in Super Special #2 when Mary Anne wrote a sappy letter for Logan as a farce? And her cabinmates discovered it and it actually ended up delivered to Logan? Now she's writing them for real.
For your consideration:
My Dearest Logan,
You can't possibly know how much I miss you. My thoughts are with you and only you every second of every day. During the night, you fill my dreams. I cannot bear to be apart from you.
By the time the letter ends, it's 6 pages long. Page 6 is all Xs and Os.
She also keeps fantasizing about Logan being in Aruba with hot girls that aren't Mary Anne.
Mary Anne isn't the only one having terrible thoughts in this book. In the next chapter, we learn that Jessi has talked herself out of trying any winter sports because of what might possibly happen. I can't go skiing. I'm a dancer. I could break my arm or a leg. Come to think of it, I couldn't very well go skating. What if I broke an ankle? Suddenly even the snowball fight didn't seem too safe. Suppose I got frostbitten and had to have my toes removed. I couldn't dance without my toes. I need them for balance.
Jessi needs her toes, guys. Don't argue.
Looking for any excuse to not go outside and therefore lose her limbs, Jessi volunteers to stay indoors and watch Pinky, the girl who hurt her ankle. Jessi tries asking Pinky questions, but Pinky's in a bad mood and is rude to Jessi.
Jessi is suddenly reminded of her racist neighbors back in Stoneybrook. Pinky is acting rude, just like the racists. Hmmm. Jessi tries playing board games with Pinky, but the child is so unpleasant that eventually Jessi just goes and gets a book for Pinky to read and leaves her alone.
Stacey gets the next chapter. First she helps gets a bunch of the Conway Cove kids dressed and ready for a ski lesson.
Then she hands the kids over to a teacher and goes out on the ski slopes, where she meets a boy of French origins named Pierre.
In her notes for Mary Anne (oh, did I mention Mary Anne is writing a book for Logan about their adventures at the lodge?) Stacey writes: Pierre has these deep brown eyes that twinkle. I mean, they're really sparkly. And his voice is starting to change, which is so cool...
Voice changing = dibbly fresh.
After a day of skiing with him, Stacey decides Pierre was the nicest, the most fun, and -- if things went my way -- probably my first meaningful crush. Any past crushes suddenly didn't count.
And just like that, Scott, the middle-aged lifeguard from Book #8, is Eternally Sunshined out of Stacey's brain. And good riddance, I say!
On Wednesday, Mrs. and Mrs. George announce that they're hosting a dance on Friday evening. Mallory hears the news and proceeds to freak out. Thinks she: I'm afraid of dancing and of boys. See, I don't know how to dance. And I hardly ever spend time with boys except my brothers and boys that I baby-sit for, and they don't count. Not in the Game Of Boys.
Hey, guess what, Mal? You don't have to go to the dance! (She... doesn't have to go... does she?)
Meanwhile, Mal has brought her journal to the lodge, and just like she did in Super Special #1, she's spying on people/making observations and writing them down. This will help her be a writer someday, she thinks.
Her observations include:
*Mary Anne is constantly writing mushy notes to and about Logan.
*The cook is sprinkling something mysterious in the soup. Is he trying to poison everyone?
*Pinky doesn't seem to get along well with the other kids.
*Mallory saw Stacey and Pierre kissing. (Well that relationship is moving along quickly.)
Boy, thinks Mallory, was my journal ever juicy.... If my little brothers or sisters ever found this, they would read things that are far too mature for them.
Dawn gets the next chapter, and she is in a state of shame and woe. She participates in the Winter War ice skating competition, and falls down. Then some seventh graders laugh at her. Then she falls again and drops the baton during the relay race. More jeers.
After this she joins in the "practice snowball fight," but classmate/doofus Alan Gray is a total jerk to her, so she decides to go skiing... then she falls trying to get on the ski lift. When she gets laughed at again, she gives up on outdoor activities entirely.
Back at the lodge, Dawn encounters Mary Anne, and begins to pour her heart out about all her misadventures. But when she's through talking, Mary Anne says: "Do you have any idea how far Aruba is from Hookset Crossing?" Dang girl's thinking about Logan again.
Dawn loses it. Then Mary Anne loses it. Then they fire each other as bunkmates. Dawn goes up to their dorm and removes her things from the bunkbed she's been sharing with Mary Anne and places them on the bunk below Pinky's.
Mary Anne, meanwhile, has "problems" of her own. For one thing, in case you weren't aware, she misses Logan. We're still a dozen+ books away from the BSC book actually titled "Mary Anne Misses Logan," but it'll come. Mary Anne also isn't getting much done on her historical report. She decides to interview some of the lodge's staff members. She starts with Marie, the head housekeeper, who has droopy earlobes and claims to have worked at the lodge "since nineteen-thirty." Mary Anne then pursues the head cook, who, she realizes, is missing a tooth. This irks Mary Anne, who is a firm believer in dentures. Mary Anne is utterly brutal, I've gotta say. Also nobody wants to talk about the alleged lodge ghost. What gives?
Kristy's chapter is up next, and while you might think she has enough to do with A) Participating in the Winter War, B) Heading up her team, C) Organizing the entire Winter War, and D) Helping out with the little kids, she apparently also has time to 1) Antagonize Claudia and 2) Organize a snowman-building contest for the Conway Cove kids!
The kids build all kinds of sculptures and have a lot of fun. Claudia judges this contest, and in the end gives every participant a prize -- she snaps their photo with her Polaroid camera and creates a display for the Lodge's common room. The kids love it. Thinks Kristy: I had to hand it to Claud. For someone who thinks she isn't smart, she sure comes up with good ideas.
A fine concession, Kristy!
But then comes the afternoon snow sculpture contest, the one the middle schoolers are doing. Claudia is once again the judge, and in the end she manages to piss off a lot of people. WHO WOULDA THOUGHT? Jessi & Mallory are annoyed that their ballet shoe sculpture didn't win. Ashley Wyeth, who is arguably the best artist in school, is miffed she didn't win. And while Kristy doesn't seem to think the sculpture she, Dawn, and Stacey scraped together, is anything much -- the fact that Claudia chose someone from her own team as the winner -- well, that sucks.
Yeah. It sucks that Claudia was put in that position. Your whole Winter War system sucks, Stoneybrook Middle School! FIX IT!
So then Claudia and Kristy both go take some skiing lessons to get even better at their craft. Kristy tries to mess with Claudia while they're going down the hills.
Jessi, in her chapter, has something really thoughtful to say about Kristy (as she watches her being super bossy while running the snow sculpture contest) and about friendship in general: One thing I've learned is that everybody, even the people you like best in the world, have faults, or do things that bug you. If you want to remain friends with those people, then you choose to overlook their faults. I overlook Kristy's bossiness and love of rules. After all, she let me into her club at a time when a lot of people in Stoneybrook didn't like our family.
Jessi is heading up the talent show (oh yeah, there's a talent show) and the auditions are that afternoon. (The show is set for the next evening.) Jessi watches a bunch of auditions, then has to crush a few dreams. But even the kids that don't get to put on their own act can still be in the show -- Jessi has written a skit AND a dance number for them!
I just have to say, if Jessi's getting the same amount of "extra credit" as Mary Anne OR Claudia, and not tons more, I'm heading to Connecticut to lodge a formal complaint.
The auditions crack me up, though. Nearly every potential act rings of old-timey entertainment. Alan Gray and his friend want to do a vaudeville act. A girl tap-dances to Singin' In The Rain, and trio of girls impersonate the Andrews Sisters. Even Jessi is guilty of it -- the group dance number she's prepared is to a fifties song that I like a lot called "Chains Of Love." Go have yourself a listen to THAT song and tell me you think it'll bring down the house lodge.
The Conway Cove kids want to be in the talent show, too. It's agreed that they'll do a skit where they pretend to be their teachers. (I swear there's a BSC book later on where the middle-schoolers do this, but oh well.) Only Pinky thinks it's a bad idea, and gives Jessi a narrowed-eyed look. Jessi mentions to Mallory that she thinks Pinky is prejudiced. Mal says, "I really don't think that's the problem this time." But Jessi isn't hearing it.
Dawn and Mary Anne are still at odds because of their fight from the day before, and they keep making snippity remarks at each other. Claudia implores them to cool it in front of the kids.
Later, Dawn walks into a restroom and finds Pinky in there, crying.
Dawn and Pinky have a heart to heart and it comes to light that both of them are experiencing homesickness, and they're both finding it awkward to be away from home WITH a bunch of kids that they know, who might hold them accountable for their mood/actions when they go back to school.
Dawn then apologizes to Mary Anne, which... okay. Yay they're friends again.
Mary Anne continues to mope over Logan. She also continues to NOT work on her Leicester Lodge history report, but rather writes a skit for the Conway Cove kids to do at the talent show (Jessi super-sweetly, but politely, rejects it.) Then Mary Anne hears her name being paged. She has a long-distance phone call! And it's from Logan! They tie up the lodge's landline for who-knows-how-long, and by the end of it, Mary Anne feels a lot better.
We learn that a big snowstorm is headed toward the lodge. Mallory hopes they can all be evacuated and, therefore, get to skip the Friday night dance. We also learn that Mal's "spying" isn't going so well. At one point she was watching Stacey and Pierre kiss in the library, and they caught her spying! Eek!
She tells us: I thought that maybe if I stood outside and peeked at them through the crack in the door, I could find out just what goes on when a boy and girl kiss. (I've been dying to know.)
Poor Mallory. And here I thought the Pikes owned a TV.
After dinner that evening, everyone gathers for hot cocoa and ghost stories. The first two stories that are told -- and relayed in this book -- don't even feature ghosts, but during one of them, the power goes out for real at the lodge and everyone screams. Afterwards, everyone heads to the grand ballroom for the talent show. Jessi is especially nervous -- not only does she want the event she's organized to go well, but she's planning on doing a ballet routine. In front of the whole school. What will the other kids think?!
The show begins, and we learn that the Stoneybrook Middle School teachers do an act that's a 7-minute medley of 1950s hits. Because of course it is. But they change some of the lyrics to be about school-related things. Cute. They get a big round of applause.
Jessi's dance number goes well, and she also gets a huge round of applause. Thinks she: I felt as if I had finally, really been accepted at Stoneybrook Middle School.
Later, Jessi has a heart-to-heart with Pinky in the bathrooms. (This is the second time in the book that a BSC member has had a talk with Pinky in the bathrooms. Apparently Pinky cries in there a lot.)
Pinky apologizes for being a jerk that week. Also, Jessi realizes that Pinky has been awful to everyone, not just to her. She had thought Pinky was prejudiced, but it turns out that wasn't Pinky's problem. Does that mean Jessi has become prejudiced? Oh no! Jessi plans to have a talk with her parents when she gets home.
On Friday, the middle schoolers turn out for the Winter War downhill and cross-country skiing competitions. Claudia has had a private lesson with Guy (the hot guy) and ends up beating Kristy in their division. But in the other divisions, Kristy's team does better. Now the Winter War is tied, two-to-two, with only one event to go. Kristy is being an absolute monster with her competitiveness. But Claudia couldn't care less, because... well... Guy touched her arm.
But then reality hits. Guy shows up at lunch with his wife and two kids! He wants to introduce his family to "zee wonderful skier I woz telling you about." Guy is MARRIED? Claudia is crushed.
Kristy, desperate for her team to win the Winter War, is trying to recruit more people to join in the cross-country skiing competition. She manages to convince people (including a kid named Jay), who have never or rarely skied, before to sign up. During the competition, Jay falls and breaks his ankle. The other team wins.
Kristy feels terrible. Later, she and Mary Anne have a conversation in which Kristy muses that she's not this competitive with her kids' softball team, so why is she so competitive about the Winter War?
Friday night arrives, and it's time for the dance. To Mallory's chagrin, it's happening after all. She had wished that the lodge would burn down, but fate had other plans. She shares her fears about dancing with Jessi, who is kind of enough to show her a dance move or two.
Then Mallory decides she might be able to alleviate the situation by suggesting the Conway Cove kids come to the dance -- and Mal can watch them. The kids are thrilled to get an invite, and set out to make themselves look good. But when they get to the ballroom, the kids go off dancing, leaving Mallory by herself.
It's awkward until -- lo and behold -- a boy asks Mal dance! They spend the evening together and Mallory wonders why she was ever worried about the dance in the first place.
Stacey's chapter talks about her bittersweet evening at the dance with Pierre. Stacey thinks she loves Pierre, and that he probably loves her. But also, this might be their last night together! They dance and talk and have a wonderful time. At the end of the night, they write each other's addresses on their beloved's hands. Thinks Stacey, I decided I would never wash my hand again.
Ew, but also, good for Stacey! This is her first real Super Special romance. In Super Special #1, she spent most of her time baby-sitting. In Super Special #2, she spent most of her time in the camp infirmary. I already know that some unpleasant things are going to happen to her in later Super Specials, so hey... let her have this moment.
During the dance, Kristy dances with Jay (the kid who broke his ankle, who doesn't blame Kristy for his injury) and Guy shows up to dance with Claudia. Claudia seems thrilled about it, but I'm thinking the lodge's owners might need to tell their ski instructor to keep his distance from the teenage guests.
Mary Anne gets the last chapter. She describes the sad good-byes that were had by all at the lodge. She mentions that the boys on the bus on the way home sing a mean song that causes a teacher on board to yell at them so loudly his dentures fell out. We know that Mary Anne is a fan of dentures, so... was this traumatizing? Who can say? Anyway, Mary Anne then proceeds to print the lyrics of this song, which fat-shames one of her classmates, for us.
BRUTAL, this girl is.
After the trip, postcards and letters are exchanged, and Mary Anne reprints a few of them for us. Pinky writes to Jessi. Pierre writes to Stacey. Will (from summer camp) writes to Claudia. Guy writes to Claudia. (SHE GAVE HIM HER ADDRESS!?) Mary Anne also tells us that the day after they got back from the lodge, she reunited with Logan in person. She also finished "the book" for him, illustrated it, and presented it to him.
I hope he still has it to this day.
So that wraps up Super Special #3: Baby-Sitters' Winter Vacation!
Let's take a look at our trusty Super Special tropes checklist...
☑Will someone make an unusual friend who is then never heard from again? Yes, Stacey and Pierre, Claudia and Guy, and the baby-sitters and the Conway Cove kids.
☑Will one of the baby-sitters fall in LUV? Yes, Stacey and Pierre and sort of Claudia and Guy.
☑Will at least one baby-sitter who is supposed to be on vacation/sans children be put in a position where they must care for children anyway? YEP, ALL OF THEM!
☑Will someone have a near-death experience? Two bus accidents and numerous injuries. We'll just check that box...
☑Will someone act like a major jerk, even though they're normally pretty pleasant? Kristy is so competitive about winning the Winter War, she's horrible to Claudia on the ski slopes. She's also pretty annoying. Mary Anne acts ridiculously sappy over Logan. She's done a 180 from her sensible outlook in Super Special #2. And for being a "sensitive" person, she says and thinks some pretty insensitive things.
🗹Will the airplane seats have two seats, then five seats, then two more? Sadly, no airplanes.
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Thoughts on this cover...
Not bad, and I think it's clear who everyone is. But it's just a fantasy, because at no point in the book do they ever have a snowball fight, just the seven of them. In fact, Jessi, Mallory, and Mary Anne rarely even venture outside. But it's a nice picture, and nobody's torso looks horribly shrunken, so I'll call this a good cover.
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RATING!
On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being a rousing Baby-Sitters Club adventure, and 1 being a book I'd send straight to Goodwill, I give Winter Vacation a 7.0. There's plenty to like -- rescuing children, snowball fights, scary stories, hot chocolate, cozy evenings at a lodge in the woods. I liked Jessi's Talent Show plotline and thought it was handled as well it could be for being set in the 1950s (kidding...) Stacey's storyline was nice; Pierre seems cool. I liked the breakthroughs that certain characters had during the week -- especially Dawn's as it related to Pinky and homesickness. On the other hand, Mary Anne was really annoying, pining for Logan and throwing shade left and right. Kristy was overly competitive. The Winter War structure needed a huge overhaul. Mallory, I THINK, is done with her Spy Stuff after this book, unless I'm forgetting something. Props for being the last Super Special (as far as I know) where everyone babysits. "Vacation," indeed!
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