oldhickory
Sitting For The Arnolds
Heather Loves Boys and Gym
Posts: 3,232
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Post by oldhickory on Dec 23, 2011 18:21:05 GMT -5
i'm surprised none of the kids (who were taking the scavenger hunt business way too seriously) got upset that they didn't all have to search for the same things. they couldn't be judged objectively, and that's something i would have pouted about when i was that age. also, i have definitely used "world class weirdo" as an insult because of this book.
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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 Feb 14, 2013 19:47:16 GMT -5
I'm super proud of myself for recognizing that Mary Anne is wearing the same skirt on the cover of this book as she is on the cover of the previous mystery (Mary Anne and the Silent Witness). I like that they reused clothes.
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Post by zoar3 on Feb 14, 2013 19:58:00 GMT -5
^I never noticed that Celaneo. I also like that they re-used clothes because somehow it makes the girls more "real." Even, Claudia after a while, must re-wear the same outfit, even though I believe she claims otherwise. I will have to be more observant on future re-reads. Thanks for pointing this out.
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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 Feb 14, 2013 23:06:43 GMT -5
^I think that Claudia claimed to never wear the same outfit (ie combination of clothes) more than once - not to never wear the same article of clothing twice. That would be impossible, even if you weren't in 8th grade for 12 years!
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oldhickory
Sitting For The Arnolds
Heather Loves Boys and Gym
Posts: 3,232
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Post by oldhickory on Feb 15, 2013 11:45:21 GMT -5
^ she would have to get rid of every piece of clothing after wearing it the first time :[ but i could easily see somebody never wearing the same combination, especially someone like claudia who doesn't seem to care whether it the outfit looks ridiculous or not.
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Post by virgoscorpio on Feb 15, 2013 14:57:06 GMT -5
^ AND who is so artistically creative that she can make clothes or alter existing items, like making an entire rainforest on her pants
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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 Feb 16, 2013 18:05:06 GMT -5
This is also one of the rare books with only 14 chapters. The formula for BSC books seems so regimented, it feels weird when there's a deviation!
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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 Feb 17, 2013 18:05:03 GMT -5
Sorry for the double post, but I had a couple more things I wanted to comment on:
-The cover for this one bothers me (and not just because of everyone's ugly faces). They gave Kristy a watch (which I think is something they don't normally do on the covers, right?) and it's very prominent, even though one of the most important parts of the book is that Cary has Kristy's watch the whole time. Plus, this whole scene - with "MK" being scrawled on the lockers - never happened.
-In chapter 10, Mr. Oates comes to the school and brings a Stoneybrook News reporter with him who is named Ms. Bernstein. Emily Bernstein is the 8th grade editor of the SMS newspaper, so was this just some editing mistake?
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oldhickory
Sitting For The Arnolds
Heather Loves Boys and Gym
Posts: 3,232
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Post by oldhickory on Feb 18, 2013 10:56:41 GMT -5
maybe an interest in journalism runs in the bernstein family.
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Post by booboobrewer on Feb 19, 2013 22:31:04 GMT -5
^Could be!
For years I thought she was wearing floral, velvet-y pants on the cover of Silent Witness...it looked that way to me from the way she was sitting.
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Post by virgoscorpio on Feb 20, 2013 2:26:20 GMT -5
^ Word! Logan's hair seemed to perpetually become darker. Golden blonde to sandy blonde to whatever! Either way, it wasn't consistent! And I don't think that a boy can change hair colour multiple times in a school year...
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oldhickory
Sitting For The Arnolds
Heather Loves Boys and Gym
Posts: 3,232
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Post by oldhickory on Feb 20, 2013 15:42:47 GMT -5
if only his hair started out dark and then grew lighter, that would make sense.
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Post by booboobrewer on Jul 24, 2014 13:51:22 GMT -5
I read the mystery yesterday so it's mostly fresh in my head. I loved everything: the clues (I'm a sucker for logic puzzles), the mystery war, even the scavanger hunt. I did notice a pretty big error: this is June of eigth grade. So why are the older girls, not Jessi and Mallory, make such a huge stink about coming back next year and summer school? It would not have such a huge effect on them, they would go to another school come September! That never occurred to me, lol. Obviously they knew they were doomed to stay at SMS forever
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swizzles
New To Stoneybrook
Claudia Kishi ruels ok
Posts: 83
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Post by swizzles on Jun 10, 2022 10:29:45 GMT -5
Mixed feelings on this one- I loved all the clues Cary left the BSC. They were fun to try and work out. I also think a Kristy/Cary coupling could have worked quite nicely - there seemed to be a lot of potential for chemistry there. Particularly with the last scene being him filling her locker with perfume samples (though, Kristy did think it smelled awful).
I found the school closure and budget cut sub-plot tedious and dull. And that’s at the age of 35. I can’t imagine what I made of it when I originally read this as a kid. There were too many names to juggle, between Oates for Votes, Mr Milhaus, Ms Karush, Troy Parker etc. It meant I couldn’t really get invested in whodunnit. Speaking of Troy, that last minute reveal of colour blindness came out of nowhere and rather abruptly ended the mystery!
I loved the scavenger hunts and the unique clues and objects retrieved. It was a decent sub-plot, I thought, and it was nice to involve so many charges in one book.
Finally, I loved reading the radiator clue again after so many years. I distinctly remember entirely lifting this clue and using it in a story I wrote in the sixth grade. Complete with “who’s Ray Dee and why did he eat her?” Ahhh, youthful plagiarism!
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oldhickory
Sitting For The Arnolds
Heather Loves Boys and Gym
Posts: 3,232
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Post by oldhickory on Jun 10, 2022 10:50:00 GMT -5
^ They foreshadowed the colorblindness early on when mentioning his mismatched outfits, but it was really subtle. My dad is colorblind and I didn't catch the hint.
I like this book and I agree that Kristy and Cary should have ended up together. I love their interactions.
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