Stacey and the Bad Girls is the 87th book in The Baby-Sitters Club series.
Back Cover Summary[]
This is a different kind of summer for Stacey. Since her fight with the BSC, Stacey's not baby-sitting much, and she doesn't have her best friend Claudia to do things with. So Stacey gets a part-time job at the department store downtown, and she finds a new group of friends.
Stacey enjoys hanging out with Jacqui, Sheila, and the other girls. They're serious shoppers, and they're really into music. These girls are fun. A little wild even. But Stacey's not sure how much she can trust them...until it is too late.
Summary[]
Stacey has left the Babysitters Club and becomes friends with a group of girls (Heather Epstein, Jacqui Grant, Sheila MacGregor, and Mia Pappas). However, when the group attends a concert, the girls begin to do bad things, causing Stacey to get in trouble and appreciate her friends. Before the concert, the girls were using Stacey's employee discount at a store in the mall to buy things then returning them for full price. At the concert, the girls bring in wine but get caught. They pretty much blame it on Stacey but luckily she had diabetes (yes, luckily) and she wasn't getting sick, so she couldn't have drunk the wine (which has sugar in it). Maureen, Stacey's mother, grounds her for three days. Afterwards, she has no friends and decides to return to the BSC, and she becomes a member again.
Subplot[]
Sharon’s cousins go to Europe, and Mary Anne and Dawn are stuck baby-sitting their daughter Amy, who is upset that her parents left her.
Characters[]
Stacey's Family
BSC Members
- Kristy Thomas
- Mary Anne Spier
- Claudia Kishi
- Mallory Pike
- Jessi Ramsey
- Dawn Schafer
- Shannon Kilbourne
Kids
- Joseph Hatter, Timothy and Brittany Taylor, Jerome, unnamed twins, Elizabeth, Nadia, Randall Frederickson - kids at the kid center
- Amy Porter
- Laurel and Patsy Kuhn (mentioned)
- Margo and Claire Pike (mentioned)
Teenagers
- Robert Brewster
- Mia Pappas
- Heather Epstein
- Jacqui Grant
- Sheila MacGregor
- Andi Gentile
- Sunny Winslow (via phone call)
- Sarah and Liz - seniors at SHS that work at the kids center
- Lew Greenberg
- Alex Zacharias
- Peter Hayes
- Wayne McConville (mentioned)
Adults
- Ms. Blair - worker at Bellair's
- Melissa - person who advertised for a dog walker
- Unnamed modeling agents
- Mrs. Grossman - Bellair's kid center supervisor
- Mrs. Hatter - mother who drops her child off at the kids center
- Mrs. Ballmer - Bellair's employee that works in accessories
- Ms. Breen - security at the concert
- Mrs. & Mr. Pappas - Mia's parents (mentioned)
- Mrs. MacGregor - Sheila's mother
- .
- Sandy Frederickson - woman who drops her child off at the kids center
- Betsy Winslow - Sunny's mother (mentioned)
Locations[]
- Kishi House
- Concert Hall
- McGill House
- Schafer/Spier House
- Bellair's
- Jugtown (mentioned)
- Rosebud Café (mentioned)
- Sylphide Models
- Sportstown - company looking for an employee
- Cabbages and Kings (mentioned)
- Sound Ideas
Pop Culture and Real-Life References[]
- The Beatles
- Life Magazine
- Freckle Juice, Esio Trot, The Lorax, The Runaway Bunny (books)
- Pictionary Junior, Monopoly Junior, Candy Land (games)
- Dracula
Continuity and Inconsistencies[]
Continuity
- Stacey recalls the events of when she fought with the BSC in Stacey vs. the BSC, the events of Stacey and the Cheerleaders, and the BSC working at the mall from Stacey and the Mystery at the Mall.
Inconsistencies
- Stacey eats breakfast twice in the same morning on page 6 and on page 9.
Ann M. Martin's Dear Reader Letter[]
Dear Reader:
In Stacey and the Bad Girls, Stacey and her friends get into big trouble when they go to a concert. I never went to a concert when I was Stacey's age. Instead, I went to my first concert when I was a junior in high school—almost seventeen years old. I went to hear a local group called Bop Shoo Bop that played 1950s doo-wop music. This was the early 1970s, when the TV show Happy Days was popular. My friend Beth was old enough to drive, so she drove us and a group of friends. Our parents knew what we were doing, of course, and nothing like what happened to Stacey happened to us at the concert. We just wanted to enjoy the music and have a good time. And that's what we did. I've been to a number of concerts since then, but that one will always be memorable.
Trivia[]
- The working title of this book was simply "Stacey" [1]
- Stacey's on probation in the BSC by the end of the book.
- Dawn finds out Sunny's mom has lung cancer, which eventually gives Dawn the incentive to leave Stoneybrook in the next book Farewell, Dawn.
- Stacey's mom used to call herself Paula in honor of Paul McCartney.
- Sharon's cousin didn't get along with Mr. Schafer.
- Andi Gentile is gone on a family vacation throughout the book.
- Stacey mentioned that she had tennis lessons in Central Park before.
- Robert is painting houses this summer.
- On page 35 Maureen tells Stacey to get a job even though it’s illegal to get a job in the state of Connecticut under the age of 15. But she could mean odd jobs or baby-sitting.
- There's an old BSC flier on the supermarket's bulletin board.
- Stacey is said to look like her mother.
- Mrs. Winslow started smoking when she was thirteen.
- There's an allusion to The Hunchback of Notre Dame on page 101.
- The warm up band for U4Me was called Third Rail.
- Stacey officially rejoins the BSC.
- In chapter 5, Sharon picks up the Porters and drives them to her house. She rings the doorbell. Sharon should have a key to her own house, but given her absent-minded nature it's entirely possible she forgot it.