Claudia and the Great Search is the 33rd book in The Baby-Sitters Club series by Ann M. Martin.
Back Cover Summary[]
It's no secret that Claudia and her sister are different. For one, they don't look alike at all. Claudia loves her wild clothes and funky jewelry, and Janine dresses...well, kind of nerdy. Janine is a genius, and Claudia brings home C's — when she's lucky.
Claudia opens the family photo album to see what she and her sister looked like when they were little. But there are hardly any baby pictures of Claudia! And when she goes searching for her birth certificate and birth announcement in the newspaper, Claudia can't find them.
Is Claudia Kishi who she thinks she is? Or has she been...adopted!
Summary[]
Claudia's family has a ton of baby pictures of Janine, and not nearly as much of her. This leads to her wanting to find out whether or not she was adopted.
Subplot[]
Emily Michelle has begun to have some emotional problems. Her family is worried because she seems more like a baby than a two-year-old. Claudia begins teaching her basic things that most two-year-olds know.
Characters[]
Claudia's Family
Extended Family
BSC Members
Kids
- Emily Michelle Brewer
- David Michael Thomas
- Laura, Myriah and Gabbie Perkins
- Jamie Newton
- Hannie and Linny Papadakis
- Jackie Rodowsky
- Haley and Matt Braddock
- Timmy Hsu
- Claire and Vanessa Pike
- Charlotte Johanssen
- Max Delaney (mentioned)
Teenagers
Adults
- Nannie
- Dr. Dellenkamp (mentioned)
- Elizabeth Thomas-Brewer
- Miss Wilson - Dr. Dellenkamp's secretary
Locations[]
- Stoneybrook Middle School
- Stoneybrook High School
- Kishi House
- Brewer/Thomas House
- Unnamed bank
- Dr. Dellenkamp's office
- Perkins House
Pop Culture and Real-Life References[]
- Green Eggs and Ham, Find a Stranger Say Good-Bye (books)
- Don Ho - Hawaiian singer
- Sesame Street
Continuity and Inconsistencies[]
Continuity
- Claudia references her leg getting broken from Claudia and the Bad Joke on page 38.
- On page 109 Claudia talks about how she used to like Trevor Sandbourne.
- Karen just turned 7, so this book takes place after BSLS #7.
Inconsistencies
- In Claudia and the Sad Good-bye and Kristy is excited about how quickly Emily Michelle is learning to speak English, however in this book she's "language-delayed." But Kristy says Dr. Dellenkamp says Emily isn’t making as much progress as she hoped. So she is making some progress.
Ann M. Martin's Dear Reader Letter[]
Dear Reader,
My sister and I are very good friends now, but when we were growing up, like Claudia and Janine, we couldn’t have been more different. I excelled in school, and Jane excelled at sports. She was outgoing, and I was shy. I took piano lessons and art classes, while Jane took acting and appeared in plays. We didn’t even look alike — I looked like my father, and Jane looked like my mother. But what I realized later is that there are all different kinds of families. And the biggest thing about any family is not how similar the members are, but how they celebrate their differences.
Trivia[]
- Some printed ads have the title of the book as Claudia and the Mystery of Stoneybrook, which later became the title of a Stacey book.
- On the dedication page it says "this book is for Jane, who is my sister (I think)".
- Janine has been taking classes at the community college for two years now.
- Gabbie Perkins is a little older than Marnie Barrett.
- Claudia initially thinks that Peaches and Russ can't have kids, which later gets disproved when Claudia tells her friends that she's pregnant in Mary Anne and the Memory Garden.
- Mary Anne lines up 4 jobs at the first BSC meeting in this book.
- Claudia and Stacey are on the phone with each other during a sitting job which is later a rule that a sitter won't do.
- Hannie hasn't been sat by Dawn much, which leads her to double check Dawn's name in chapter 6.
- It takes Claudia two days to read a book unless she's rereading a Nancy Drew mystery.
- There's a few kids that Claudia goes to school with that has birthday around hers.
- On page 108 Stacey mentions that she has to take it easy, foreshadowing her feeling bad and going to the hospital in Stacey's Emergency.
- Claudia hopes that Bart and Kristy start dating.
- It’s unclear why Claudia never thought of asking Peaches if she was adopted.
- In chapter 1 when Claudia leaves school early to go to the awards ceremony, she just walks out to her dad’s car. But since she’s a minor, her dad most likely would’ve had to sign her out of school.
- In the 1990s Reprint the tagline is changed to “Claudia’s not sure who she is anymore.”
- When Claudia is on her way to Dr. Dellenkamp’s office, she tries thinking of stories to explain why she’s asking questions about her birth. One of the stories she considers is telling Dr. Dellenkamp that she’s been assigned to write her autobiography. This later does become a school assignment.