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Post by wenonah4th on May 18, 2011 14:08:14 GMT -5
It would have been neat if the cast had changed without the reading level chaning; the younger girls becoming members of the club as the older ones left. The 9-11 year old girls could have joined pretty shortl, when the original girls were still only in 9th or maybe 10th grade. Then you'd have JEssi & Mal as the older ones, Vanessa, et al, asthe younger ones.
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Post by zoar3 on May 18, 2011 22:25:17 GMT -5
^Maybe the original older girls could have become Associate Members or "special event" helpers. That could actually be cool to have 3 generations of sorts of baby-sitters all together.
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Post by peppermintraymaker on May 29, 2011 16:54:39 GMT -5
You send them to high school, are you going to keep the reading level the same and dumb down the high school experience or make the books more mature and alienate the target audience (or the parents of the target audience)? I can see where you're coming from with this, but I don't necessarily agree that making the books more mature would alienate the target audience. I keep thinking about Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Alice series (another favorite of mine), where she and her friends gradually get older as the series progresses and more mature themes are introduced in the later books. In fact, I kind of wonder if perhaps the fact that the BSC never matured contributed in part to the loss of popularity toward the end, since the fans who started reading the series in the earlier days and at its peak popularity eventually got too old for it. Maturing the girls gradually may have held on to the older fans a little bit longer, and they may have by that time become old enough to handle some of the new themes.
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u4me
Sitting For The Papadakis's
Posts: 1,655
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Post by u4me on May 29, 2011 20:01:32 GMT -5
^ Good point, peppermint. I also like the idea of the girls getting older and helping out, like you said Zoar. They'd be kind of like BSC Mentors.
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Post by zoar3 on May 29, 2011 20:25:50 GMT -5
I like both your points. I wonder if any "survey" (however informal it might have been) was ever done about aging the girls? It could have been at the end of a book, instead of an order form. Maybe after 8 rounds of 8th grade, by which time Ann & Co. were already (probably) happily endowed with BSC bucks, they could have considered moving forward (without much to lose. Unless, they didn't have a target "end" in mind until closer to the "end."
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Post by greer on May 29, 2011 21:34:12 GMT -5
I can see where you're coming from with this, but I don't necessarily agree that making the books more mature would alienate the target audience. I keep thinking about Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Alice series (another favorite of mine), where she and her friends gradually get older as the series progresses and more mature themes are introduced in the later books. In fact, I kind of wonder if perhaps the fact that the BSC never matured contributed in part to the loss of popularity toward the end, since the fans who started reading the series in the earlier days and at its peak popularity eventually got too old for it. Maturing the girls gradually may have held on to the older fans a little bit longer, and they may have by that time become old enough to handle some of the new themes. I think of Alice as well whenever this question comes up.
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Post by wenonah4th on May 30, 2011 16:53:10 GMT -5
I think achanging cast would have solved many of the problems we've mentioned here. The older girls could have made plenty of appearances, maybe a little more frequently than Sam, Charlie, Janine, and their friends.
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Post by sparklymouse on May 30, 2011 18:27:13 GMT -5
Didn't the Alice books also start in the 80s? I don't think the target audience for the recent books is supposed to be women in their late 20s. Technically an 8 year old today could get through the whole series while still being 8, and there are plenty of parents out there who are anal about keeping things age appropriate. I don't know what a good compromise would be. Maybe BSC should have gone the Sweet Valley route and had completely different series for the club members at different ages.
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Post by peppermintraymaker on May 30, 2011 19:03:12 GMT -5
I could see it having done well if it had gone along the same format as Sweet Valley. I'm actually pretty surprised it didn't, seeing as the two series were contemporaries and had similar audiences.
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Post by fairy3lf2 on May 30, 2011 20:55:49 GMT -5
I've never read the Alice series but I'll have to check it out! I really like those where the characters age (and grow emontionally as well).
I think the BSC books could still be wholesome if the girls were in high school. There are plenty of books like that.
The different series in Sweet Valley were kind of neat but they also lead to huge continuity problems. It would have been ideal if the Sweet Valley kids books were written first, then twins, etc...
I feel that even the individual series kind of suffered from having so many books take place in one grade. For example, Steven's girlfriend Tricia dies in Sweet Valley #15 and she's still being brought up in the 80s. A lot of readers complain that Steven won't let her go but, when you think about it, it's still the same year. It totally understandable that a guy would not be over his girlfriend who died less than a year ago.
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Post by wenonah4th on May 31, 2011 13:01:58 GMT -5
Well, sure; Nancy Drew wasn't in school at all and they were always wholesome.
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polaris
New To Stoneybrook
Posts: 53
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Post by polaris on Jun 1, 2011 10:10:48 GMT -5
I think it would have been interesting if like others have said the BSC graduate to High School, but Claudia got left back in 8th grade. It never made sense to me that a school would randomly make a student go back a grade in the middle of the school year then let her back into 8th grade again before the end of school. (I know shouldn't really let continuity issues like that get to me!)
It might cause some hard issues for Claudia but if the club is as close as they are supposed to be then it shouldn't put major strain on their friendships. Plus Jessi and possibly Mal would still be there to keep her company.
I also wish when Mary Anne and Logan broke up in book 41 they could have stayed broken up or at the very least stay broken up for more than 5 books. I mean in the entire regular series the only time in a Mary Anne book that Mary Anne is not with Logan is her first book. (I know she is not with him for most of 46 but they are together by the end, so it still counts)
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Post by zoar3 on Jun 1, 2011 11:02:27 GMT -5
^Oh no, what if Jessi and Mal ended up surpassing (or as Polaris said joining) Claudia in school?! I never thought of that before.
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Post by wenonah4th on Jun 1, 2011 11:30:40 GMT -5
That wouldn't be likely.
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Post by zoar3 on Jun 1, 2011 11:35:17 GMT -5
^Probably not surpassing but possibly joining. If Claudia started her repeat of 7th grade closer to the end of 8th grade, it might have been suggested she just take the entire year over. If that happened, the next fall, the three of them would have been in 7th grade. Or if Clauida was held back twice (on 2 seperate years), it's conceivable Mal and Jessi might have "caught" up to her.
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