Mary Anne's Book is the fourth of the six Portrait Collection books published by Scholastic from 1994-1997.
Premise[]
Mary Anne, along with the rest of the 8th grade Baby-Sitters Club members, are assigned to write their own autobiography. They may include photos and other memorabilia, but the majority of the project must be written. Mary Anne chooses to write about a variety of events in her life, but the overarching theme is how her mother's death shaped her as a person.
Back Cover Summary[]
Well, we all had to do it. Write our autobiographies, that is. And this is mine. I dug way back in my memory and came up with lots of stories. There was the fateful time in kindergarten when I didn't know whom to invite to our Mother's Day tea party. There was the time I desperately wanted glasses, and of course there were the adventures with my friends Kristy and Claudia. But mostly, I remember my father, because he's always been there for me.
Chapter 1[]
Mary Anne wakes up on a Saturday morning to a quiet house because her father and step-mother had gone grocery shopping. She enjoys the quiet as she makes breakfast and begins to pour over the contents of a box her grandmother Verna Baker sent her from Maynard, Iowa. The most precious piece from the box is Mary Anne's baby book, which her mother started and her grandmother finished. Sharon and Richard come home to find her in tears as she pours through memories she wishes she could remember. After drying her eyes, Mary Anne goes upstairs and begins to work on her autobiography.
Locations
- Schafer/Spier House
Characters
- Mary Anne Spier
- Richard Spier
- Unnamed mail carrier
Part I : From Birth to Six Years[]
Mary Anne reveals that her first memory is from when she was three and she remembers greeting her father when he came home from work. She recounts small memories of her and her father together. When she is around three or four, she starts nursery school where she is in the same class as Kristy and Claudia. She later attends Stoneybrook Elementary School where Mary Anne, Kristy, and Claudia are all in the same kindergarten.
Locations
- Spier House
- Unnamed nursery school
- Stoneybrook Elementary School
Characters
- Mary Anne Spier
- Richard Spier
- Claudia Kishi
- Mimi Yamamoto
- Kristy Thomas
- Mrs. Frederickson - Mary Anne, Kristy, and Claudia's first grade teacher
- Mrs. Packett - SES art teacher
- Alan Gray, Rita - students in Mary Anne's first grade class
Part II: The Tea Party[]
Mary Anne, Claudia, and Kristy are together again (along with Alan Gray) in first grade with a teacher named Mrs. Frederickson, who yells a lot. Mary Anne likes school but is scared when Mrs. Frederickson yells. In May, the class throws a Mother's Day Tea Party, which brings the issue of not having a mother to the forefront. Mary Anne at first invites her dad, but when Alan Gray laughs at her for wantindg to bring a boy to a girl's party, Mary Anne decides to invite Mimi instead. She doesn't tell her father when the party is, but he finds out anyway through a school newsletter. Mary Anne gets very nervous, wondering what everyone will say when she has TWO people show up. Both Richard and Mimi show up and things go smoothly after talking with Mrs. Frederickson. She would have been fine inviting her father because her father has to take on the job of both father and mother.
Locations
- Spier House
- Stoneybrook Elementary School
Characters
- Mary Anne Spier
- Richard Spier
- Claudia Kishi
- Kristy Thomas
- Mimi Yamamoto
- Alan Gray
- Mrs. Frederickson - Mary Anne, Kristy, and Claudia's first grade teacher
Part III: Stage Fright[]
Kristy, Claudia, and Mary Anne are all enrolled in a summer ballet program through the local YMCA. Mary Anne does not like dancing in front of people and gets very nervous during class. The morning of the recital, she gets sick and admits to her dad that she hates ballet, hates crowds, and does not want to perform. Her father says that she doesn't have to go on stage and so they go home and have a barbecue.
Locations
- YMCA
- Dancer's World
Characters
- Mary Anne Spier
- Richard Spier
- Claudia Kishi
- Kristy Thomas
- Madame Minoff - dance instructor
- Charlene - dance instructor assistant
- Mr. Riley - piano player
Part IV: E is for Eyeglasses[]
The three girls are split up for fourth grade, with Claudia and Kristy in one room and Mary Anne in Ms. Elison's class. Mary Anne really likes Ms. Elison and the way she teaches. In class, she meets a girl named April, who quickly becomes one of the most popular girls in class. April wears glasses and looks so cool so Mary Anne decides she wants glasses too. When vision test day comes around at school, Mary Anne fails the test on purpose so she can get glasses. However, she didn't realize that she would have to go to another eye doctor for further tests. At the new eye doctor, she finds that she needs glasses only for reading.
Locations
- Stoneybrook Elementary School
- Spier House
Characters
- Ms. Elison - Mary Anne's fourth grade teacher
- April Livingston - New student in Mary Anne's class
- Alan Gray, Jack Luke, Jeanette Thompson, and Maria Gonzalez - students in Mary Anne's class this year
- Dr. Crews - optometrist
Part V: Exploring My Secret Past[]
Locations
- Maynard, Iowa
Characters
- Mary Anne Spier
- Verna Baker
- Mrs. Baily - friend of Verna's
Chapter 15[]
Locations
- Spier House
- Stoneybrook Middle School
Characters
- Mary Anne Spier
- Richard Spier
- Dawn Schafer (via phone call)
- Ms. Belcher - Mary Anne's English Teacher
Pop Culture and Real-Life References[]
- Seseame Street and Big Bird
- Anne of Green Gables
- Beauty and the Beast (Disney film)
- Horton Hears a Who
- The Nutcracker (ballet)
- The Beatles, Rolling Stones (bands)
Continuity and Inconsistencies[]
Continuity
- Part of chapter 12, is where Mary Anne goes up to the attic Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic.
- Mary Anne doesn't like baking and cooking, which happened in
Inconsistencies
- In chapter 9, Mary Anne said that Claudia had Mr. Adams for a teacher in the fourth grade, but in Claudia’s Book, her fourth-grade teacher was Ms. Jameson.
- Kristy complains about having to wearing pink tutu's for a ballet class. However, Kristy in earlier books doesn't complain about skirts and doesn't mind the color pink.
- Mary Anne hates the color pink, yet is shown to like wearing it in this book.
Trivia[]
- Mary Anne's earliest memory is playing on the living room rug with a pile of plastic cones that fit into one another and her dad coming home.
- Claudia gave Mary Anne one of Mimi's silk scarves to remember her, Mary Anne says that it still smells like her.
- This is one of the few books where a year is even vaguely referenced - Mary Anne recalls that Disney's Beauty and the Beast hasn't come out yet when she was the first grade.
- Mary Anne tried to read and walk at the same time.
- Alan did not know that Mary Anne's mom had died until Kristy confronts him on the playground.
- Throughout the years Mary Anne's baby-sitters are: Mrs. Cuddy, Mrs. Manson, Patricia Pennybrook
- A girl named Jennifer Searles lived down the block from Mary Anne, she one grade behind Mary Anne.
- Mary Anne turned her paper in early.
- Jobs arranged but never seen: Mary Anne for the Rodowsky's.
- Mary Anne gets an "A+" on her autobiography assignment.