commonly used tropes

[morbiddadestiny]

hey everyone, it's been awhile!

so as i'm sure most of us do, whenever i'm at my parents house i pick up a few books from my BSC collection and plow through them. i just did that with ann's two books ten kids, no pets and the sequel eleven kids, one summer (sidenote: in third grade, i started my own "series" of books revolving around a family of eleven kids. i got really into it and churned out three 80 page typed stories about these kids and everyone thought i was some kind of child prodigy and my godmother had them bound for me and i still have them.) anyway, when reading this i noticed that there are several tropes that ann m. martin is extremely fond of and constantly reuses throughout all of her writing. how many can we name? here are ones that definitely stick out to me:

-someone finding a secret diary that just happens to be written by a kid the same age as them going through similar problems (mallory and the mystery diary, calandra in ten kids, no pets, i'm SURE there's something else)

-in the same vein, someone finding some kind of secret room or passage (calandra in ten kids no pets, the passage at dawn's house)

-someone finding an animal, wanting to keep it as a pet, and having to hide it from parents (kristy in new york new york, the rosso kids and a rabbit in ten kids no pets)

-big families with kids born a year or so apart

-someone wants to have a haunted house in the basement. a kid makes a suggestion of blindfolding the guests and having them put their hands in a bowl of cooked spaghetti and telling them its brains, peeled grapes as eyeballs, etc. someone else exclaims that they are a genius. (nicky says this to vanessa when she makes the suggestion, i think it's from mary anne breaks the rules but i could be wrong, and the exact thing happens in ten kids no pets. woody suggests it and abbie exclaims that he's a genius. "exclaim" is even used both times.)

-there's a family vacation and somebody is convinced that there's a "mystery" usually involving a mysterious house. then there turns out to be some tragic backstory that locals know about. (calandra in eleven kids one summer, dawn in babysitters at shadow lake)

also this ruining my writing as a kid because i used these tropes over and over again. i know there are so many more. which ones stuck out to you the most?

(this was also cross-posted to the BSC livejournal community)

[u4me]

^ To add to one, Kerry Bruno found Tigger and had to hide him from her parents too.

[anzuhana]

Well, it seems like there's very few children that have no siblings. Most have at least one sibling.

[zoar3]

^And almost all 3 kid families consist of an older brother with 2 younger sisters. Either that or all girls.

[anzuhana]

I don't remember any family where there was an older brother with two younger sisters. Can you mention some of those families?

[greer]

Nikki's family in Main Street.

[peppermintraymaker]

^I can think of a couple of variations on this. In Main Street, Nikki's family had an older brother with two younger sisters (Nikki included). In BSC, Kristy's family had two older brothers, three younger sisters (Kristy included) and one younger brother.

Those are the only two from the AMM books I've read that immediately come to mind, though. Having one of the main girl characters as the oldest child seems a lot more common to me (BSC: Dawn/Jeff, Mallory/younger Pikes, Jessi/Becca and Squirt, Shannon/sisters, Main Street: Flora/Ruby, Olivia/little siblings, Doll People: Annabelle/little brother, Tiffany/little brother)

[anzuhana]

Thanks, greer and peppermintraymaker.

[zoar3]

Here you go:

2 Girls, 1 Boy

1. *Barretts (before the DeWitts)
2. Feldmans (Jamie's cousins; Rosie 3, Brenda 5, and Rob 8)
3. Kormans
4. Kuhns
5. Lowells *I know Mackie was the middle sibling but still 2/1
6. Papadakises

One "opposite" variation comes in "Stacey and the Mystery at the Mall" The three kids hiding at the mall were Mara 12, Kyle 8, and Brenda 6.

Aside from Kristy's family itself, the Rodowskys and Hobarts, the only families that have either all (or more boys than girls) are some of the Basher families.

Most of the BSC's clients were 1 boy and 1 girl: Addisons, Braddocks, Cheplins, Delaneys, Gianellis, Hills, Martinezes, Newtons, Robertses, Joni and Ewan Brooke, and the Salem Twins.

[anzuhana]

Thanks, zoar.