Underdeveloped relationships

[booboobrewer]

Mr. Staples was cool.

I liked the Stacey/Byron parts in #8 too. Is she the one who tells Byron the bracelet he found was actually Dawn's in SS #1? I liked her there too.

[zoar3]

^Yes, she is. I think he found the Bracelet somewhere on Tom Sawyer's Island.

I may be in the minority but didn't think Kristy's friendship with Mr. Staples was anything less than sweet. It was great to see her sharing some personal feelings with a grandfather type figure. Maybe, that's because my own grandfather was my hero, though I wish the two of us had shared more.

[candykane]

I liked Kristy's friendship with Mr. Staples. I always liked the part where she convinced him not to cut his vacation short. Kristy didn't really have any relationships with a grandfather that I know of, so I feel like that's why she hit it off with Mr. Staples.

[fairy3lf2]

This may sound random but recently I was thinking about how Janine and Shannon would get along. In one of the books, Claudia tells Tiffany Kilbourne how hard it is to have a sister who is so smart. Tiffany says that Shannon is like that too.

Janine and Shannon are both very smart and studious but Shannon seems more social. I would like to have read about interacting at some point. Or do they? I haven't read all the books (especially the later ones).

According to these boards, they seem to be two of the characters seen as most underused.

[oldhickory]

now that you mention it, i think janine and shannon would be so great together. aside from both being good at school, they have the same interests and could respect each other's busy schedules better than tiffany/claudia do.

[booboobrewer]

That IS a good match...I could see Janine becoming more social if she had hung out with Shannon.

[wenonah4th]

Shannon and Janine could have been good friends!

[lilafowler]

Now that the similarities between Shannon and Janine have been pointed out, I wonder if Shannon had been around the BSC more, would she have been offended by Claudia's frequent complaining about her weird genius sister? Shannon had a few of the qualities that irritated Claudia about Janine, and was pretty nerdy, even if she had curly blonde hair instead of a Beatles haircut.

[wenonah4th]

Shannon didn't talk in Janine's pretentious way though.

[zoar3]

^True and she also didn't live with the Kishis. That is cool friend pairing. I wish Shannon had been around more, especially in place of Abby. I also wonder if Claudia ever felt ill will toward Kristy. I still think (anyway) that Kristy without much effort earned straight A's. The difference between her and Shannon, was that while both were academically gifted and probably some subjects came very naturally to them, school in general meant a whole lot more to Shannon--very much like Janine.

[greer]

Nov 20, 2010 0:01:26 GMT -5 zoar3 said:

^True and she also didn't live with the Kishis. That is cool friend pairing. I wish Shannon had been around more, especially in place of Abby. I also wonder if Claudia ever felt ill will toward Kristy. I still think (anyway) that Kristy without much effort earned straight A's. The difference between her and Shannon, was that while both were academically gifted and probably some subjects came very naturally to them, school in general meant a whole lot more to Shannon--very much like Janine.

Stacey seemed to be the best student in the BSC besides Shannon, though, and she was Claud's BFF. In her books, she always seemed to be the one to introduce sort of more sophisticated (hah!) concepts, like things she'd read about or heard on the radio.

And even though in the beginning, Kristy got "straight As again" without seemingly much effort, it always felt to me that as the series went on and Kristy became more involved with the BSC and the Krushers and etc. that her grades went down a bit.

[zoar3]

I think I saw Stacey the way you just described Kristy, Greer. In my "mind" it was : Kristy/Shannon (or vice versa), Mary Anne (I think she probably got almost all A's with a B here or there with dilligent work. Not necessarily very hard work, just that I think she put a lot of due diligence into her homework), Stacey, Logan? (I honestly am not completely sure about him), Dawn (worked harder than the other 4 and possibly not as school focused/into. she probably earned more B's than A's with a sometime C). Abby, I got the impression truly was aloof about academics. I don't think she spent much time or exerted a whole lot of effort on studying. She was probably C's and B's. Even a D here and there. Then, there's Claudia! Always "debate" about just where Claud sat school wise!

The "Junior" Members, I know in the "Spaz Girl" book Mal got straight A's. I got the feeling she usually accomplished this, with Mary Anne like attention and some "natural" Kristy/Stacey just doing the work very easily. Jessi? Maybe combo "MA/Dawn." Closer to MA.

How did I spend part of this rainy, cold, and rotten time of month Saturday morning? Thinking about the academic abilities of the BSC Members of course! That and the other threads.

[lilafowler]

I don't think Janine was really pretentious, though. She used big words, but that's not the same thing -- wasn't there a book where Claudia calls her out on what she saw as self-aggrandizing speech, and Janine reacts in a hurt and confused way? IMO, Janine uses words she knows and just doesn't bother to consider the likelihood of the person to whom she's speaking knowing those words, too. Which I don't really see as much different from Shannon throwing French words into her speech when she isn't in a French class or at a French club meeting, or mentioning esoteric things like sackbut lessons.

[wenonah4th]

It's my opinion that someone wanted to mention the sackbut and used Shannon as an excuse to use it. Personally, I prefer the krummhorn.

[Kylie90210]

Shannon/Janine is perfect! I can totally see them getting alone, Janine even as a mentor for Shannon maybe.