Kristy's Worst Idea is the 100th book in The Baby-Sitters Club series by Ann M. Martin.
Back Cover Summary[]
What's going on with the BSC? Meetings have never been like this before. Members are showing up late, arguing about jobs, even pushing to get rid of Friday meetings. Extra schoolwork is making everybody tense, too. Then a favorite charge gets hurt, right under Kristy's nose.
It feels like the last straw to Kristy. Maybe she's not such a good sitter — and maybe the Baby-sitters Club isn't such a great idea. But Kristy wouldn't disband the club...would she?
Main Plot[]
Kristy and her family are back from Hawaii, and she's ready to get back into the swing of things with the Babysitters Club. The trouble is that she's seems to be the only one in the group who's ready to get back into the swing of things. The other members grumble when Kristy insists on holding a meeting on Labor Day; Claudia had to leave due to her leaving for Claudia's family barbecue early to be there, and Jessi couldn't be there at all because of her own family party. She sends some news along with Mallory, though, that makes Kristy even more annoyed: her ballet classes are being switched to Fridays. Kristy is ready to make Jessi choose between quitting the club or quitting ballet, but the other members convince her to try moving the Friday meetings to Thursdays.
In order to breathe some life into the club, Kristy comes with an event for them to put on for the community: the Fall Festival Block Party. She wants to close off McLelland Road and hold all sorts of fall-related activities, such as hay rides, apple picking, maple sugaring, etc. Kristy's the only one who wants to make the event happen, though, and when she finds out that Stoneybrook is holding its own fall celebration on the day she wanted to have hers, the whole idea falls apart. Kristy's pretty annoyed and conflicted at this point; she just doesn't get what's going on with the BSC or the club's fate. Members are showing up late, no one wants anything to do with her patented Kristy ideas, and she starts to feel like she's the only one who cares about the club anymore.
Things come to a head during a sitting job for Jackie Rodowsky. He climbs a little too high in a tree, falls, and injures his ankle. Kristy feels guilt, if she'd been watching, and if she'd been a better sitter, Jackie wouldn't have fallen. Kristy's bad mood continues right up to the BSC meeting the next day. To make matters worse, no one at the meeting is paying any attention to BSC business. Half the club is doing their homework, and Mary Anne and Abby aren't present, because Abby is buying a new dress with Mary Anne at a shop. Then, Mallory announces that she wants to join this writing group at the library, which meets on Wednesdays from 4:30 to 6:00. Now, everyone wants to change the Wednesday meetings to Tuesdays to accommodate Mallory. Kristy having enough of all this, suggests that the BSC just breaks up. To her surprise, the other members (even Mary Anne, Dawn, Abby, Logan, and Shannon) agree with her and the club is officially disbanded.
Kristy fully expects everyone to be miserable about the end of the BSC. As it turns out, Jessi and Mallory are the only ones, other than Kristy herself, that are truly upset over it. Everyone else is generally much happier. No one begs Kristy to reconsider, and everyone seems to be moving on just fine. Eventually, even Kristy starts to adjust to life without the Babysitters Club. Then, slowly but surely, reminders of their BSC days start to make the club members wonder if they'd made the right decision after all. Abby isn't sitting much since none of the clients ever call her, Claudia is stuck explaining the break up to all the upset former BSC parents, and the kids themselves are unhappy because their parents are hiring non-BSC sitters. Life in Stoneybrook sure seemed simpler with the BSC around.
One day, Kristy is playing football with her brothers when Stacey runs into the yard. Jackie Rodowsky fell off his bike, hit his head, and is in the hospital. Abby's already waiting in the car so Maureen McGill can drive them over to see him. As it turns out, Jackie had been riding his bike (without a helmet) near Kristy's house because he wanted to deliver a letter to her. In it, he promises to try harder not to be such a klutz so the BSC can get back together. The ex club members try and make him see that the break up wasn't his fault, just like his first accident wasn't Kristy's fault. She goes home and thinks hard about the situation. After some consideration, she finally comes to the epiphany that just maybe breaking up the club wasn't the right thing to do after all. She calls all the club members, and they agree to meet at Claudia's. Just about everyone (even Dawn, Logan, and Shannon) is in favor of trying again, provided that there's a little more flexibility when it comes to other activities. Kristy agrees (but still expects everyone to put the BSC first), and the club is back.
Subplot[]
Kristy tries to organize a fall fair but no one wants to do it, because Stoneybrook has their own one.
Characters[]
Kristy's Family
- Kristy Thomas
- David Michael Thomas
- Sam Thomas
- Charlie Thomas
- Karen Brewer
- Andrew Brewer
- Emily Michelle Brewer
- Elizabeth Thomas-Brewer
- Watson Brewer
- Nannie
BSC Members
- Claudia Kishi
- Stacey McGill
- Mary Anne Spier
- Jessi Ramsey
- Mallory Pike
- Abby Stevenson
- Shannon Kilbourne
Kids
- Jordan, Adam, Byron, Vanessa, Nicky, Margo, and Claire Pike
- Buddy, Suzi, Marnie Barrett, Lindsay, Taylor, Madeleine, and Ryan DeWitt
- Scott and Timmy Hsu
- David, Ripley, and Annie - Taylor DeWitt's classmates
- Margaret Dumas - Lindsey's classmate and worst enemy (mentioned)
- Hannie and Linny Papadakis
- Bill and Melody Korman
- Shea, Archie and Jackie Rodowsky
- Scott and Timmy Hsu
- Sheila Nofziger (mentioned)
- Moon Pinckney
- Kyle Abou-Sabh - kid that lives in McLelland Road (mentioned)
- Jamie and Lucy Newton
- Charlotte Johanssen (mentioned)
Teenagers
- Sarah Green (mentioned)
- Janine Kishi
- Cokie Mason
- Alan Gray
- Erica Blumberg
- Lily Karp
Adults
- Russ Benedict (mentioned)
- Peaches Benedict (mentioned)
- Natalie DeWitt
- Jody Andrews - Taylor DeWitt's teacher (mentioned)
- Mr. Fiske
- Mr. and Mrs. Rodowsky
- Mrs. Papadakis
- Mrs. Korman
- Mr. Sobak (mentioned)
- Mrs. Hobart (mentioned)
- Dee Pike
- Cokie Mason
- Mrs. Newton
- Madeleine Prezzioso
- Mrs. McGill (mentioned)
Locations[]
- Kishi House
- Barrett/DeWitt House
- Brewer/Thomas House
- Washington Mall
- Stoneybrook General Hospital
Pop Culture and Real-Life References[]
- Old Yeller, Home Alone (movies)
- Macaulay Culkin
- Swan Lake
- Game Boy
- Parcheesi
- Einstein
- Picasso
- The Lottery, Fall of the House of Usher, Saddle Club (books)
- Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, William Faulkner, Robert Cormier, Marguerite Henry (authors)
- Midas Touch
- Snickers
- Wheaties
- Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream
Continuity and Inconsistencies[]
Continuity
- Kristy mentioned that she's back from Hawaii which is where she was in the previous book.
Inconsistencies
- Earlier in the series BSC members did miss meetings because of either jobs or personal plans and Kristy never had a problem with that until this book.
- At the end of Dawn Schafer, Undercover Baby-sitter, Dawn says that Kristy and her family were going to stop at California and spend the night at her house while in Kristy's Worst Idea, Kristy and her family didn't spend the night at Dawn's house. Instead, they spend the whole day traveling from Hawaii to Connecticut.
- In Ann's letter at the end of the 1995 editions, she writes that the series spun off into three series (Little Sister, Mysteries, and Kids In Ms. Colman's Class) when there was really four series (the super specials).
- In this book, Hannie tells Kristy that her dad builds houses. But in Halloween Parade, her dad works at a store that sells Halloween costumes. However, Mr. Papadakis could’ve changed his job.
- In chapter 2, Kristy says Friday meetings are fun because Friday is not a homework night. But in other books, the BSC members have homework on Friday nights.
- In chapter 7 when Kristy checks the record book to find Mrs. Papadkis a sitter (since Mary Anne and Abby were both late), it’s mentioned finds that Jessi is scheduled for a job around the same time. Mrs. Papadkis needed a sitter until nine p.m. As a junior officer, Jessi can’t babysit at night unless the job is at home. But her nighttime job was with the Hobarts. A curfew for the junior officers is never said, but it seems odd that Jessi had an evening job with another family.
Ann M. Martin's Dear Reader Letter[]
Dear Reader,
It’s hard to believe, but Kristy’s Worst Idea is the 100th book in the Baby-sitters Club series! When I first began writing the series, nobody, including me, had any idea that eventually over 100 books would be in the series. Incredibly, the month that this book was published marks the tenth anniversary of the publication of the first Baby-sitters Club book, Kristy’s Great Idea, back in August 1986. So much has happened since then. The Baby-sitters Club has launched three other series, Baby-sitters Little Sister, the Baby-sitters Club Mysteries, and, most recently, The Kids in Ms. Colman’s Class. The books have been translated into nineteen languages, including Chinese and Hebrew. There have been games, dolls, jewelry, clothing, a CD, and audiotapes. A true fan can also join the BSC fan club, watch the TV series, or rent the Baby-sitters Club movie. These have been ten great years and a hundred fun books. Maybe in the year 2005 we'll be celebrating the publication of book #200!
Trivia[]
- David Michael got a figurine carving from a coconut while he was in Hawaii.
- Kristy tried to surf.
- The Babysitters Club has a meeting on labor day.
- Russ made duck on the grill.
- The treasury only had three dollars in it when Kristy came back.
- Marnie has a huge "crush" on Jessi lately these days.
- Kristy and Mary Anne once told off Alan in the third grade.
- Stoneybrook has their own festival called the Fall Frolic, which was Kristy's idea.
- Mallory has cousins in Pennsylvania.
- Abby says that Jackie has the Sadim touch, which means everything he touches turns into an accident.
- When Kristy was in the third grade, she gave a boy a black eye and his parents came over to her house just to yell at her.
- Logan and Shannon come to meetings, even though they are associate members.
- Mallory joins a writing group at the public library from 4:30 to 6:00 PM on Wednesdays.
- Jessi's dance class is moved up on Fridays.
- Abby bought a dress on a shopping trip with Mary Anne. Then Abby had an allergic reaction to something at the mall; that's why they were both late for a club meeting.
- When the BSC temporarily broke up parents reacted as:
- Linda Arnold started crying.
- Mr. Papadakis offered to pay them weekly.
- Some of the parents don't think to call Abby since she's too new.
- The Newtons called Erica when they needed a sitter.
- Lily Karp was only ever able to sit for her cousins.
- Mrs. Hsu is friends with Cokie's mom, so Cokie babysat the Hsu boys.
- Bellair's has a pre-inventory sale.
- Stacey has never shown Kristy her private journal.
- Mrs. Pike shut the door on Mallory's finger when she was three by accident. Mallory doesn’t remember this.
- Kristy cries in this book, which she rarely does.
- Last time Mr. Hobart called Claudia had him help her with her math homework.