# 4 Mary Anne Saves the Day

[candykane]

Anyway, since I've now reread it: Does anyone else think the action starts too fast in the early books? In later books, not much usually happens in Chapter 1 (they're usually just framing the story), and Chapter 2 is of course Chapter 2, so the plot doesn't usually get underway until around Chapter 3.

I never had a problem with that. I actually preferred it to the Chapter 2s that came along later. I skipped Chapter 2 most of the time in the later books because I already knew everything there and was eager to get to the story.

[booboobrewer]

Yeah, I kind of like that about the earlier books.

[shannon86]

This is got to be my all-time favorite The Baby-Sitters Club book! It was the very first one that I read way back in 1995(back then I was only 8 1/2 years old) and I love The Baby-Sitters Club ever since and have never stop loving and reading the series.

[supprazz]

Mar 22, 2010 12:20:22 GMT -5 celaeno said:

Mar 10, 2010 11:52:30 GMT -5 supprazz said:

I don't understand though how richard and mary anne had no relationship, yet in mary anne's book they seemed very very close and he seemed relaxed. It must have been the ghost writers glossing over everything

That drives me crazy too! To try to reconcile it, I like to think that they had a pretty normal father/daughter relationship as she grew up (if somewhat stiff and formal), but that things started going downhill when she reached around age 10/11, and he couldn't accept that she was an adolescent, not a little girl. So they started becoming more and more distant.

Anyway, the weird thing about rereading these books as an adult is that for a lot of them, I remember absolutely nothing about the plot, but I'll know that I read it when I was younger because I remember tiny details. In this book for example, I remembered nothing about the fact that the BSC had a huge fight, but I could have told you - when it was 15 years since I had read the book - that Mary Anne says that her favorite colors are navy blue and yellow. I remember when I was little I told someone that my favorite colors were navy blue and yellow, because for some reason when Mary Anne said it it seemed like such a sophisticated color scheme (probably because, y'know, a 12-year-old liked those colors). Then I realized I hated yellow and I hated navy blue, and the combination of them sounded really disgusting. So I stopped saying those were my favorite colors.

I also remembered that Mary Anne said she had a picture of Humpty Dumpty on her wall. So those were basically the only two things I remembered about this book: that Mary Anne's favorite colors are navy blue and yellow, and that she had a picture of Humpty Dumpty on her wall.

Anyway, since I've now reread it: Does anyone else think the action starts too fast in the early books? In later books, not much usually happens in Chapter 1 (they're usually just framing the story), and Chapter 2 is of course Chapter 2, so the plot doesn't usually get underway until around Chapter 3. In this book, the BSC is split up at the end of chapter 1! It's not even like they were hinting at it in the previous books - it just comes out of NOWHERE. They're all friendly and normal at the start of chapter 1, and then BAM fight!

I don't know why, but I really love the scene where Mary Anne meets Dawn - like, I think it might be one of my favorite scenes in the whole series. At that age I could relate to Mary Anne's feellings (feeling like I had never made a real friend on my own - all I really had were friends I had grown up with, and then friends I met through my original friends), so I can understand her feeling proud for making a friend on her own. I think early Dawn is awesome and it's sad they changed her so much.

Also, I know that when the books were first written they had no plans to continue the series, and so I'm creating continuity where there's no continuity to be found, but there's a scene where Mary Anne is looking through a photo album in her house and she says she recognizes none of the people, and it's cool to pretend that they're her secret Iowa relatives that she doesn't yet realize are alive.

that's so cute about the navy blue & yellow. I remember saying I liked pink and gold like Julie in Claudia and the Missing Jewels video for awhile too. I first read Mary Anne Saves Day about maybe 17 years ago. It never gets boring.

[wenonah4th]

Navy and yellow are university of delaware colors

[oldhickory]

my school's colors are blue and gold. kind of the same?

[sparklymouse]

My high school colors were navy blue and gold too, so I was always a little put off by Mary Anne's liking of them.

[starrynight]

We had blue and green and gold... I had no idea they were such common school colors!

[lilafowler]

Buff and blue over here - but usually stylized as navy blue and yellow.

Blue and yellow (or shades of them) seems to be a relatively popular combination for U.S. state colors, also. Maybe Mary Anne really liked George Washington's uniform.

[zoar3]

I just re-read this book and must have missed where it said MA's mom was Abigail from Maryland." I saw the Maryland reference but not the Abigail. was that on the same page? It also stated that Alama was dead for almost 11 years. So if in this book MA was not quite 12 1/2, maybe originally Alma did live until after MA was just over 1?

[nat2412]

Re-reading this one now, it's always been one of my favourites. I love that we see a tougher side to Mary Anne, i especially love the notes she writes to each of the others,so funny! In the end the only one nice enough to send was Claudia's... lol
One weird bit though is when Mary Anne describes Dawn and says she isn't pretty,but 'pleasant' looking....ouch! Just strange that in the later books they all describe her as 'gorgeous' and 'stunning'.....hmmmm. *scratches head*

[oldhickory]

^ maybe she learned to like what she sees :]

[booboobrewer]

Yeah, sometimes people become more attractive to you the more you get to know and like them.

[nat2412]

Yep, i think you guys are 100% right there! :-)

[wenonah4th]

Interesting way to look at it.