Katie
New To Stoneybrook
Posts: 153
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Post by Katie on Aug 5, 2007 17:18:59 GMT -5
Licensed child care often goes up to age 12 for the school age program. We have a 12 year old in ours right now. He is a high functioning autistic boy and isn't ready to be by himself yet the way average 12 year olds might be so he comes to our center. Whitney's parents might have had more success with that since the person in charge would have to be older than 13 by law and Whitney might have felt more comfortable with a grown up in charge and other kids to play with rather than a girl a year older. I've seen summer camp programs for kids with Down's Syndrome and other disabilities too.
I also agree that Whitney should have been informed that what she did was wrong. She wants to be treated more grown up and given more responsibilities so she should be told that paying the consequences for mistakes is part of that.
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wanderingfrog
Sitting For The Arnolds
Official BSC Archivist
Posts: 2,552
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Post by wanderingfrog on Aug 5, 2007 17:31:26 GMT -5
my cousin who is not retarded in any way went to a sitter until she was 13 so I don't think that's a big deal Heck, I had a sitter until I was 13 if my little brother was going to be home as well. (He's three years younger than I am. Like Dawn and Jeff.) I was allowed to stay home alone when I was 12 and 13, but my brother was awfully rambunctious and my parents didn't think it was fair to make me be responsible for him when I was that young. So if we were both going to be home, then our cousin baby-sat for us.
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courtky10
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,125
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Post by courtky10 on Jun 9, 2008 6:08:42 GMT -5
I think it's stupid that Dawn baby-sat for Whitney when she was only a year older than her -it's like Mal and Jessi watching the Pike triplets.
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fluffy
New To Stoneybrook
Posts: 180
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Post by fluffy on Jul 4, 2008 7:08:43 GMT -5
It occured to me after rereading this book that Nola Thacker (who ghosted this one) didn't read Dawn and the WLKC. The explanation for why Mr. Schafer and Carol broke up is skimmed over, so you wouldn't know at all from reading this book that Dawn stole her father's credit card and ran away to CT the last time we saw her. Also, Dawn's character (here 30-year-old with no personal drama) and her interaction with Carol are, surprise, totally incoherent if you follow from that book. So there's no reference made to #72, although there is one made to the Nola-written Kristy and the Copycat (Whitney 'reminds' Dawn of Karen in that book), and even that is off since that book takes place while Dawn is in California. Wow, I need a hobby.
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Post by sparklymouse on Jul 4, 2008 16:56:47 GMT -5
Nola's the one that really loves to bring up old stuff (probably the stuff she wrote in other books). I think she's the only one that ever mentions Mallory being 6th grade whatever (secretary? Sorry Mal, I can't remember what election you won ). She must not have written Dawn and the WLKC or she would have been all over the details.
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lilafowler
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,163
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Post by lilafowler on Jul 9, 2008 13:03:18 GMT -5
Heck, I had a sitter until I was 13 if my little brother was going to be home as well. (He's three years younger than I am. Like Dawn and Jeff.) I was allowed to stay home alone when I was 12 and 13, but my brother was awfully rambunctious and my parents didn't think it was fair to make me be responsible for him when I was that young. So if we were both going to be home, then our cousin baby-sat for us. My dad made our neighbor check up on me well after I had started high school. Her daughter baby-sat for me until she started college -- so through the year I was in sixth grade. (I'm home from college for the summer right now, and I'm taking online classes that I really want to do well in, so I'd rather not work during the summer session. Basically, I sit at home all day and watch TV while half-assing homework until about an hour or so before it is due, at which point I buckle down and get it done. It struck me today that it's almost exactly what I did when I was little and my parents paid a baby-sitter to make sure I didn't burn down the house or something -- I'd watch crappy daytime television since we didn't have cable until I was 10 or 11 and complete the problems in math workbooks my parents bought me.) He tried to make me feel better about it by saying that she wasn't a baby-sitter, she was a chaperone. It's a good thing my parents didn't buy ice cream sandwiches, or I might have found out the truth in quite an ugly fashion.
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Post by booboobrewer on Jul 11, 2008 0:35:25 GMT -5
You're eleven and babysitting?
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2008 22:21:06 GMT -5
I hated the girlfriend, I think her name was Barbara, who was rude to the waitress at the seafood restaurant. Threatening to send her food back if it wasn't prepared to her persnickety specifications before the waitress was even finished taking her order. I hate people who give waiters and clerks a hard time. I wonder if the waitress spit in her food? ;D Although she's still not as bad as the one who insulted Whitney. This is the second time one, or in this case two, of the kids Dawn's sitting for go missing and trigger a massive police search. She really should stop leaving them outside alone. It's also the second time Dawn lets slip something the parents want kept private. The other time is in Dawn's portrait, when she snoops (inadvertently, she claims) in the Lazar's mail and tells the kid she'll be repeating a grade.
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supprazz
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,106
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Post by supprazz on Nov 11, 2008 16:12:28 GMT -5
I really really enjoyed this book, probably cause of the way it was written. I looooved all the food descriptions, especially at the picnic and when they were shopping and looking at magazines and stuff like that. It was fun reading about the dates too, it's one of the books where the side plots are just as fascinating as the story.
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Post by sparklymouse on Nov 14, 2008 16:44:02 GMT -5
I know this book was just to get Jack and Carol back together, but all it did was make Jack look like a tool with poor judgement. I hate parents who force their kids to interact with people they've just begun dating.
Re: concert picnic date girl. If you replaced "That was disgusting" with "That was d**n annoying" then I'd be in total agreement with her. I don't go to concerts to hear kids sing made up songs over top of the music that I'm trying to enjoy. I don't care what the kid's mental capacity is.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2008 9:58:48 GMT -5
I personally agree that Barbara (?) was definitely annoying. When she was ordering food, it reminded me of Meg Ryan's character in "When Harry Met Sally" (You know, "I'd like the chef salad with the oil and vinegar on the side...")
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supprazz
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,106
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Post by supprazz on Nov 21, 2008 14:23:28 GMT -5
I thought barbara telling them to drink milk and what not to order was rude, I imagined her looking like barbara streisand
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celaeno
Sitting For The Papadakis's
I have to share a room with Vanessa
Posts: 1,514
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Post by celaeno on Jun 8, 2009 21:07:19 GMT -5
Here are some of the specific references to bits already mentioned in the thread:
-On page 32, the narrative suddenly goes third person:
-On page 54, Ryan DeWitt now becomes a Bryan.
Does anyone else think it was weird how much Dawn, like, freaked out when Sunny told Mr. Shafer "You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you can find a prince" (pages 11 and 12)? I mean, it's a pretty common phrase, right? The way Dawn reacted, you would have thought Sunny had said, "You have to @#!% a lot of &$#@ before you can find Mr. Right."
Agree with all the comments above on how insane the characterizations of adults' vs children's reactions to Sunny were. Good grief, Nola made every adult who encountered Sunny so repulsed by a girl with Down's syndrome, I'm surprised she didn't write in an attempted lynching. And of course, all the children are so angelically blind to Sunny's disability. Ann (or maybe Nola) strikes me as the kind of children's author who has never actually, y'know, interacted with a child.
I can imagine that some kids read this book and came away with the impression that adults are soooooo mean to mentally challenged kids. The same kids will probably go out and be over-compensatingly nice to mentally challenged kids...thus kinda defeating the whole "They just want to be treated like normal kids" goal.
Agree that the food descriptions in this book were great! Maybe it's Dawn's foods that sound the most appealing to me. In fact, I was so intrigued by the cherry tomatoes with a spicy cheese filling that I immediately tried to find a recipe for it. I couldn't find the exact same description, but I found a recipe for cherry tomatoes with a cheesy bacon stuffing, which I made tonight. They were delicicous!
Regarding the above comments about how Whitney should have been punished (or at least corrected) for whisking away Clover and Daffodil: I don't think we can assume she wasn't. Mr. and Mrs. Cater didn't come across as really lax parents. They seemed to keep Whitney in line. From what we know about them in the book, it seems they would have been mad enough that Whitney had gone out by herself, let alone that she took Clover and Daffodil. I would assume she was corrected when she got home (and that the author didn't feel the need to include that part).
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Post by zoar3 on Jun 9, 2009 13:02:52 GMT -5
I don't think this has been mentioned, on page 130:
"I raced up to the officer and, never taking my eyes off the three as they stood at a little distance, told her what had happened. The officer nodded. "That's what usually happens," she said, getting out her radio to call off the search. I'm glad that was the case this time, too."
And that is the end of the police! Does the above mean that a) similar scenarios have been occurring with other young children in the neighborhood lately? and/or b) that there are other young 12 year old girls with Down Syndrome leading such "expeditions?"
Main thing is, even in BSC universe, shouldn't the police officer have at least called the Cater's if not escorted the group home? I can understand why she (the officer Dawn talked too) might have decided against that...but surely the police or if nothing else DAWN informing the Caters what happened should have well been what went on to happen to say nothing of the Austins! I guess their (Clover and Daffodil's) parents, fall into the same group as the BSC ones in CT: indifferent pretty much and leave everything in the hands of 13 year old sitters.
The other thing I wondered about would have liked to have read about was how Whitney took to the day camp. I mention that because after a few weeks of being "independent" with Dawn, along with being named an honoree member of the WLKC, wouldn't Whitney perhaps feel the camp was beneath her?
Shrug, I didn't think much of how this one was written either!
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lilafowler
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,163
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Post by lilafowler on Jun 9, 2009 13:59:33 GMT -5
celaeno, your avatar is the best thing ever to happen to me. Or even the third, if you count Elvira Stone as a kid
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