This book is just a major aww. We jump into the main plot point right away – the Thomas/Brewer family is going to adopt a dog from the Guide Dog Foundation in order to raise and train it to be given to a blind person. This is actually something I wanted to do as a kid, but my parents wouldn’t let me because they worried we’d become too emotionally attached to the dog to be able to give it up. Knowing my siblings and myself, they were 100% right, but I still absolutely love the concept, so on this, I’m 100% #TeamWatsonBrewer. The b-plot, which directly intersects, is about Deb Cooper, who I’m pretty sure we’ve never heard of before. She’s a seventh grader at Stoneybrook Day School who went blind a little while ago, and who all of a sudden the BSC has a lot of sitting jobs for.
Mary Anne is the first one to go to the Coopers, and she sits for Deb’s two brothers, Mark and Jed. Deb is very bitter about her blindness, which sounds just absolutely awful. She freaks out when Mary Anne tries to make a snack for all of them, and it’s actually heartbreaking. No snark, only empathy for this girl. Kristy is her second baby-sitter, and because she knows how to cure the world, she decides to invite a bunch of neighborhood kids over to see Deb, even though the poor girl doesn’t want to socialize yet. It backfires spectacularly. Deb is pissed, the kids are loud and not helpful, and it turns out that not even the president of the Baby-Sitters Club can fix this one.
The newest member of the Thomas/Brewer clan is a four month old chocolate Lab named Scout. She’s clearly adorable, as are all puppies, and because she’s a guide dog in training, she gets to go everywhere with the family. She goes to a BSC meeting, the bowling alley and garden club, Watson and Elizabeth’s offices, and the grocery store. That’s when we encounter some jerk who yells at Kristy and Abby about bringing a dog to the store. This woman is clearly scum, because dogs in unexpected places are the absolute best things ever. I want dogs everywhere, so hate this woman.
The book ends heartwarmingly. The Thomas/Brewers and the Coopers go to Puppy Walker Fun Day at the Guide Dog Foundation. All the guide dogs dress in costumes, and there are games and an obstacle course. The whole family takes a photo, and it looks like President Thomas has helped Deb after all. Aww once again!
Awards:
Most Absurd Outfit: Claudia Kishi, rocking a giant Hawaiian print shirt worn over hot-pink bicycle shorts, hot-pink-and-lime-green socks, and an ancient pair of formerly black Doc Martens that she had painted in swirls of electric color. She’d knotted a pink plastic flower into each shoelace and had pulled her hair back with another pink plastic flower. Her earrings, which of course she’d made herself, were dangling sprays of tiny pink, green, and yellow beads.
Best Dog: Shug, a bull terrier in the obedience class that Scout takes, who, when told to sit, sits directly on her owner’s foot. Respect.
Saddest Moment: Kristy is watching the Cooper kids again and Deb leaves the house to try to go to the video store. She ends up in the middle of the street and almost gets hit by a car, and it’s just awful.
Best Dog Costume: a lab dressed as a dalmatian. So meta.
Baby-Sitters Club Notebook 