Perhaps the most important book series in the lives of young girls in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Ann M. Martin’s The Baby-Sitters Club made young girls everywhere wish they were babysitters. It all started with Kristy’s Great Idea, and 131 books (and several spinoff series) later club members Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia and Stacey, and later Dawn and junior members Mallory and Jessi, had seen it all. There were ghosts and house fires, birthday parties, boyfriends and breakups, absent parents, summer camps and kidnapped cats, all carefully documented in the journals the club members kept and the books’ lucky readers enjoyed.
Today, the babysitters would be pushing 40 and there are so many questions. Did Mary Anne and Logan reconcile and get married. How is Stacey doing with her diabetes? And does she still dot her I‘s with hearts? Is Dawn a vegan now? Did Claudia ever kick that junk-food habit? Does Kristy still coach Kristy’s Krushers? How did Jessi’s ballet career turn out? And what about Mallory? Is she selling children’s books somewhere? Clearly, we need a “Baby-Sitter’s Club: Where Are They Now?” Ann M. Martin, are you listening?