The Baby-Sitters Club universe created by Ann M. Martin (and kept running for quite a number of years by various ghostwriters) contains eleven series and sub-series:
The California Dairies spin-off focused on Dawn Schafer the We ♥ Kids Club, while Baby-sitters Little Sister, its Super Specials, and The Kids in Ms. Colman's Class focused on Karen Brewer. The other series focus on the titular Baby-sitters Club, and, with the exception of Friends Forever, occur during the span of the Club's eighth year of school.
However, the BSC books come with a bunch of timeline problems. The books went on for years, and the girls never aged for most of the run. So each winter, they'd take part in another bunch of winter-themed stories; the following summer, they'd take part in some more summertime tales. Seasons passed, holidays passed, people died and moved away, sitters left and joined the club, but no significant time passed. They were trapped in perpetual eighth grade.
The only way for this to work would be if the books did not occur in the order they were published; this blog, then, is going to be a bit of an experiment to see if it's possible to craft a timeline--as free of plot holes as possible--out of the 300+ books in the BSC universe.
I will be starting with two assumptions:
From there, it's on to reading as many of the books I can get my hands on, and I know already that quite a few of them are going to take some tracking down.
So here's to a long project.
- The Baby-sitters Club
- Baby-sitters Club Super Specials
- Baby-sitters Club Mysteries
- Baby-sitters Club Super Mysteries
- Baby-sitters Club Special Edition Readers Request
- Baby-sitters Club Portrait Collection
- California Diaries
- Baby-sitters Club: Friends Forever
- Baby-sitters Little Sister
- Baby-sitters Little Sister Super Specials
- The Kids in Ms. Colman's Class
The California Dairies spin-off focused on Dawn Schafer the We ♥ Kids Club, while Baby-sitters Little Sister, its Super Specials, and The Kids in Ms. Colman's Class focused on Karen Brewer. The other series focus on the titular Baby-sitters Club, and, with the exception of Friends Forever, occur during the span of the Club's eighth year of school.
However, the BSC books come with a bunch of timeline problems. The books went on for years, and the girls never aged for most of the run. So each winter, they'd take part in another bunch of winter-themed stories; the following summer, they'd take part in some more summertime tales. Seasons passed, holidays passed, people died and moved away, sitters left and joined the club, but no significant time passed. They were trapped in perpetual eighth grade.
The only way for this to work would be if the books did not occur in the order they were published; this blog, then, is going to be a bit of an experiment to see if it's possible to craft a timeline--as free of plot holes as possible--out of the 300+ books in the BSC universe.
I will be starting with two assumptions:
- If there is no evidence to imply otherwise, books occur in the order of publication.
- Unless otherwise stated within the book itself, all books occur during the club's eighth year of school. (I'm sure that this assumption will eventually have to be discarded, but I look forward to seeing how long I can keep it in place.)
From there, it's on to reading as many of the books I can get my hands on, and I know already that quite a few of them are going to take some tracking down.
So here's to a long project.
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