I loved the Baby-Sitters Club books when I was young. Reading this book and seeing how others like me viewed the series from a new perspective was a blast. I'm so glad I was able to read an ARC of this book!

A wonderful ode to The Baby-Sitters Club. So much nostalgia garnered through the artwork and personal stories in this book.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This book is for all those who loved the BSC and read and reread each and every book.

With a foreword by Mara Wilson (follow her on Twitter, she's great) this is a collection of essays and artwork from grown-up former readers of the beloved children's book series written by Ann M. Martin (and many, many, MANY others).

The writers discuss what The Baby-Sitters Club meant to them growing up, and how parts of it still stay with them today. Things like Kristy's assumed queerness, Dawn's food restriction, Stacey's diabetes, Mary-Anne's overprotective Dad are discussed alongside things like negative and positive representation, ableism, racism, feminism and chronic illness.

I expected this collection to be much more lighthearted than it turned out to be, and I was pleasantly surprised by that. While there are some lighter things in here (the chapter on handwriting analysis was really fun, didn't we all go through that "hearts over the letter i" phase?!), I really enjoyed the more serious essays and the discussions on representation and what that meant for each reader who saw a little bit of themselves in a BSC member.

If you are or were a fan of the BSC, I would recommend this collection.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley.

I really enjoyed this essays of Baby-sitters club, it really brought a nostalgic joy to reading this. Each essay was really well done.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley. Review is based on final print copy due to formatting issues with ARC.
I loved the Babysitters Club growing up, so I was excited to read stories from other adults who were fans like I was, either paying tribute to the series or unpacking a specific issue related to a character or topic. And as a whole, I really enjoyed this, although my enjoyment of each piece depended on my interest in the topic. I found myself totally lost trying to read the Data-Sitters one, as numbers and stuff is just not my thing. And while I have dabbled in fanfic, I never did so with the BSC world, so I found Logan Hughes’ piece a bit of a miss as well. But I loved the illustrations, particularly in the Jaded Quitters Club parodies. I nodded along with most everyone who spoke about Claudia and his she broke barriers and defied stereotypes for Asian characters. I respected the discussions of race and disability , and what each writer who touched on it felt Ann M. Martin did right and where she had good intent, but not-so-great execution. But mostly, I appreciate that this one book series could inspire so much thought about so many different topics, some of which weren’t even obvious to me at the time I read them.

This is a must-read for every adult fan of the Baby-Sitters Club. The editors have carefully combed through the world of the Baby-Sitters Club to provide new perspectives and insights on the beloved children's book series. With a wealth of contributors with various connections to the series, this book provides such a well-rounded and in-depth exploration of the way the series has created such a lasting impact in pop-culture.

Full Disclosure- I was really excited to read this title as I was a huge Ann M. Martin and Baby-Sitters Club fan and I wanted to share with my emerging middle reader children; particularly as they begin to binge watch the Netflix series and devour the graphic novels.

Crawford and Milks did a great job in their collection of diverse voices representing the various components of what the BSC meant to the individual writers. I did not realize the influence and critiques from the queer community. This book is a great bridge to those that want to connect and better understand this community from a perspective of a much loved book series.

***Thank you NetGalley for providing me with access to this e-preview. This review is based on an ARC.***

I was really excited about this one as I absolutely adored and devoured the Baby-Sitters Club books when I was younger, sadly this fell incredibly short for me. I made it about 20% in but had to stop. It was incredibly slow paced and boring for me. It just didn't have the nostalgic feeling to it that I was expecting.

We are the Baby-Sitters Club was such a fun read that really brought me back to the days when I devoured the books and TV shows and made me think that maybe I need to re-read the stories as an adult. The essays are thoughtful, fun, and show how much this series really impacted our lives.

5/5 Stars

Thank you to Netgalley and Chicago Review Press for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As a big fan of BSC growing up, I was so excited to get approved for this book! I loved that Mara Wilson (aka Matilda) wrote the intro- that hooked me right away. I enjoyed the mix of in-depth analysis of the series and characters and the essays that reminisced on different characters, as well as the original artwork. There were a couple essays that I ended up skimming through more than others because they just were not super interesting to me, but I still think they had a place in this collection. To me, this was a wonderful melange of nostalgia and literary study. If you were ever a BSC fan, this book is for you!

We Are the Baby-Sitters Club, essays and artwork from grown-up readers of the series edited by Marisa Crawford and Megan Milks. Author Ann M. Martin created a legacy series that lasted thirteen years with five core characters and 352 titles. Let's take it back to the 80s with landlines, giggling girls and hair scrunchies.

What I remember most about the BSC, is the handwriting and penmanship. I was very particular—and still am—about unique yet legible penmanship. I remember in some of the books there were examples and I would compare the girls' handwriting. It was nice to see it mentioned in one of the essays.

By the time I reached around 80% through, I realized maybe I wasn't as big of a BSC reader as I thought. A lot of emphasis was made on storylines I simply did not remember. Perhaps I should revisit the series like some of the contributors did. I'm sure plots that I didn't pay much attention to as a middle schooler will hit different as an adult.

I appreciate the homage paid to author Ann M. Martin and her addressing such heavy issues back in the day: divorce, adoption, illness, friendship, fashion, loyalty, racism, culture, social class and entrepreneurship. It helped shape our ideas today and motivates girl bosses.

Is it worth reading? Yes, if you are a BSC superfan. If you are craving a touch of nostalgia, it may be worth picking up too. If you are familiar with Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, Mary Anne, Dawn, Jessi and Mallory, then you will like the trip down memory lane. However, it left me with a "that was okay" final feeling. I suggest borrowing from the library instead of paying $10 - $20 depending on the edition.

Happy Belated Pub Day! We Are the Baby-Sitters Club is now available.

~LiteraryMarie

This was such a fascinating read!

I loved the BSC growing up. Like the individual stories in this book I felt that books were inclusive and I learned a lot about different types of family units, about chronic illnesses, about friendships. I borrowed from my sister's collection when she would let me or from the library. I didn't really see my own family in any of these families though. My Dad was the guy that woke up at 3am to work (self-employed) drove us to school, went out on inspections during school time, picked us up from school and then took us to the movies etc. He was self employed so he set his schedule around being present in our lives that was important to him. We were very lucky.

I loved seeing these books through these adults eyes and how these books helped them in their childhood to understand how to be a good friend, a business person, and problem solver.

It's sad that it was noted that these were girl books so boys felt they couldn't read them or would get teased. I asked my husband if he read them. And he said yes of course though he couldn't tell me anything about them. His mother was a reading teacher and I'm sure she put all sorts of inclusionary reading materials in his hands.

This was definitely a very nostalgic turned insightful read for our next generation reading these books. I need to find that fan fiction that was mentioned. I loved the datasitters section that was fascinating and I'll have to check out the podcast mentioned!

Thank you ipgbook and net galley for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

A pretty good companion for people who grew up with the baby-sitters club books and for those that the series had an impact. Overall this is a good dive into nostalgia for grown up fans, exactly as it says!

I really loved this look back on the BSC - especially with a queer lens and with discussions on racism and colorism in the original books. It's amazing how much the BSC stories still resonate with adults today and how much they have influenced culture and our lives.

This book was received as an ARC from Chicago Review Press in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

Reading this book triggered so many wonderful memories that I could not help but keep a smile on my face. Like most girls in my life, I was a fan of the babysitter’s club that my friends and I started a secret club that talked about everything babysitter’s club everything from Kristy and Maryann’s friendship, Maryann and Logan’s relationship, Stacey's diabetes, Claudia's family, Stacey's boy obsession and much more. I was super excited to find out that there are two women that were so passionate to do their research, write these essays and stories, and publish a book is a beautiful thing. I am so fortunate to read such fine material and I can't wait to share it with all of our patrons.

We will consider adding this title to our Non-Fiction collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

I'm so happy (I think) that I've finally reached the age where my childhood pop culture is re-examination thinkpiece fodder. As a child of the 90's and a frustrated Mallory who wished she was a Stacey, this is an absolutely fascinating read. It's heavier and nerdier than I was expecting, in the best possible way. The essays are smart, thoughtful, and cover such a wide range of topics--fashion, gender expression, all kinds of representation issues, and, my personal favorite, the thriving BSC fanfic community.

Read this, then get it for your middle school bestie and spend hours rehashing every little bit of BSC minutiae that you never realized still shapes you today!

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review!

This was a great collection. I though it had a great mix of personal essays, more "academic" writing, and comics/visual pieces. I've never read a BSC book but this anthology still appealed to me and I enjoyed it!

It is very unusual that I got into The Baby-Sitters Club in elementary school, given that the books stopped coming out before I was born and were not made into graphic novels until I was in middle school. I vaguely remember my mom buying me the first few books at a thrift store, and I was quickly hooked, leading her to order me much of the rest on eBay.

For the uninitiated, The Baby-Sitters Club is a chapter book series with multiple spin-offs about a group of middle schoolers who create a babysitting business. They are delightfully repetitive and, for the time they came out, very diverse. When the opportunity struck for me to read this book of essays about the series, I had to request it immediately.

Reading We Are the Baby-Sitters Club was positively delightful. Even now, I have a lot of built-up knowledge about the books that I hadn’t realized I still held in the back of my mind. As different authors talked about the ways these books influenced their childhood — Asian Americans who saw themselves represented in Claudia Kishi’s character, queer authors and the way tomboy Kristy Thomas encapsulated themselves — I was transported back in time to when my age was in single digits and I could digest multiple of these novels in a single afternoon.

Unfortunately, my reading experience was tainted by a horribly formatted e-book advanced copy, but overall, I had a light and easy time reading these essays. I would highly recommend it to anyone who had a big Baby-Sitters Club phase as a kid, and even if you didn’t, check out the Netflix adaptation that puts it in a modern setting.

3.5 stars. A fun and thought-provoking walk down memory lane, with many of the essays proving that there is a niche for everything anymore (two grown men reading BSC on a podcast, for example, or the women who make up "The Data Sitters Club" and use machine learning and data science to break down the books). I do wish there would've been more images included - the various writers describe some of the covers of the books and it would've been nice to see those images for more context.