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Post by dawnomite on Oct 20, 2007 9:39:22 GMT -5
My sister told me that if she ever has a daughter her name will be Druscilla. She's a big Buffy fan (but swears she;s always like the name and it's not after the Buffy character), but I immediately associate the name with the LS books.
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Post by aln1982 on Oct 20, 2007 15:22:00 GMT -5
I just reread and liked this one. Even though Karen and Hannie were pretty bold accusing the people of being witches, they had good intentions and weren't doing it to be mean. They were genuinely scared and they are only 6. I can imagine it was pretty embarrassing for Grandma Packett, though. I loved Elizabeth in this one - how she didn't scold Karen but recognized that she did feel afraid, tried to reassure her, and then explained the need to apologize. I like Elizabeth a lot better in the LS books than the BSC books.
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Post by Kylie90210 on Oct 22, 2007 22:18:43 GMT -5
^Thats true, she was a good step mum.
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Post by booboobrewer on Jul 14, 2008 0:36:15 GMT -5
I just read this. The thing that most surprised me? Karen uses contractions in this book!! I didn't really notice it until I was halfway done. I knew something sounded different.
Mrs. Porter doesn't look very witchy on the cover, she looks like a nice, eccentric old lady. And her house is pretty. I imagined something very gray and old and shut-up looking.
Even though I was sooo embarrassed for Karen and Hannie and Mrs. Porter's guests when they busted into her house, Karen seemed almost sweet to me in what she was doing. In the end, she took the blame for spying and was really upset that Watson and Elizabeth were upset. In other books when she's seven, she often comes across as a bit of a bossy know-it-all with a sense of entitlement...she usually knows what the consequences of her actions will be but does what she wants anyway. She's not like that in this book; she really feels like an imaginative, innocent little six year old who just got too carried away.
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Post by wenonah4th on Jul 15, 2008 17:32:18 GMT -5
I think she became a caricature of herself later on, just as the BSC did.
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Post by annieb on Dec 10, 2008 21:10:17 GMT -5
Karen was determined to find out if Mrs. Porter was a witch! Turns out that even after Watson and Elizabeth told her there was no such thing, she still insisted there was! Karen could be very stubborn sometimes. I liked the part when Karen and Hannie barge into Mrs. Porter's meeting. Poor Mrs. Porter...
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supprazz
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,106
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Post by supprazz on Jan 31, 2010 5:56:35 GMT -5
I wish Neena was in this book instead of Grandma Packett!
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Post by sparklymouse on Feb 8, 2010 19:29:38 GMT -5
Do you guys think this was a good first book for the series? Looking at it now, it seems a little simple. I wish Karen had stayed just a little girl with a big imagination instead of having so many extraordinary things happen to her.
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alula
Sitter-In-Training
Posts: 406
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Post by alula on Feb 8, 2010 20:35:22 GMT -5
Do you guys think this was a good first book for the series? Looking at it now, it seems a little simple. I wish Karen had stayed just a little girl with a big imagination instead of having so many extraordinary things happen to her. I think that's kind of inherent in any kind of series with no finite endpoint (as opposed to something like Harry Potter)--regular BSC is kind of similar, isn't it? They go from seventh-grade boys prank calling them to foiling counterfeiting rings, etc. They start with the stuff that's more relatable and normal and then as it goes on and on it gets wackier and weirder.
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Post by wenonah4th on Nov 6, 2010 14:44:13 GMT -5
And a lot of mischeif, like Hannie refers to in this book (digging up the Delaneys' flowers, etc.)
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Post by anzuhana on Jan 23, 2011 19:29:17 GMT -5
I felt bad and embarrassed for Mrs. Porter when Karen said that she and all her guests were witches. She must've been mortified.
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Post by sparklymouse on Jan 23, 2011 21:16:11 GMT -5
I wish I was a witch, so that would have been a compliment to me.
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Post by wenonah4th on Jan 24, 2011 14:47:45 GMT -5
Karen has to realize on some level she's imagining it all.
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Post by virgoscorpio on Apr 11, 2012 22:29:54 GMT -5
Although this is the first book, it's not one of my favourites (although I agree that, like the BSC books, the first batch of LS books are the best). I think that Mrs. Porter looks really pretty on the cover. I love her outfit. I also think her house is beautiful. I love the turret at the back of the house. I would love, love, love to live there.
I always think of the toothpaste scene in this book (which is brought up in later ones). I thought it was clever how, in a way, it was teaching kids about good hygiene skills. Like how Karen, Andrew and David Michael use TONS of toothpaste and fill up their mouth with foam, thus making their teeth really clean. I wonder if Ann thought kids would copy that at home. I think it's a clever idea, especially the "secret" part (which kids would love).
Why did they even bother hiring Susan Tang? (No offense, Susan.) Ann could have done the drawings herself. Heck they even look like her caliber of art.
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Post by BuckinghamAlice on May 17, 2012 19:53:42 GMT -5
I just read this book for the first time after picking it up at a thrift store recently.
If I was Watson, I'd have been mortified by what Karen did. Yes, she meant well, but she's been told countless times that witches aren't real and since she's supposedly so exceptional she should be able to separate what is real from what's her own fantasy. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, or so I hear. I think I probably would have gotten punished for that and so would most of the kids I knew as a kid. I found myself annoyed with Karen for not having "learned her lesson." Isn't that what characters in kids' books are supposed to do? *sigh*
I also felt bad for Mrs. Porter. How embarrassing! I agree that she looks rather pretty and her house looks awesome. Victorian houses are lovely.
Despite Karen driving me crazy (which surprised me since she's usually not so bad in the early LS books), I did find this book fairly cute. It wasn't the best LS I've read but it certainly wasn't the worst. I'm glad though that it wasn't the first LS book I read because I probably wouldn't have been inspired to seek out more of them.
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