Katy Farina

Feeling like a bit of an ugly duckling after getting glasses and losing a bunch of baby teeth, second grader Karen Brewer thinks that getting a fashionable new haircut will make her feel like her glamorous self again. Except the hairdresser ignores Karen's request and chops off a lot of her hair so that she has a short pixie cut she doesn't like. Further, her friends and classmates also don't like Karen's new hairdo -- they laugh at her and keep her out of their plans. How can Karen respond to this?

This book is all about growing pains and those awkward feelings of changing without having any control over it. As someone who once had a hairdresser completely push aside the stated request because it came from an elementary schooler and cut off enough hair to cause tears, I can completely feel Karen's pain! Things that aren't that big of a deal for adults are absolutely a huge deal for young children. Karen tries her best to solve it all on her own, and actually does a pretty good job of settling everything just among the children. Eventually everyone comes to realize that outer beauty doesn't matter when you are still yourself on the inside.

I didn't necessarily super love the ongoing obsession with fellow second graders getting married to one another (nor the tired cliche of a young boy *obviously* having a crush on a young girl if he's rude and teases her), but overall this was an entertaining, quick read.… (mere)

Karen is so excited to be almost 7, but she is disappointed when her parents want two totally different celebrations -- her mother wants a quiet "grown-up" dinner at home while her father wants to take Karen and her friends to the circus. What Karen *really* wants is to be able to see her *whole* family -- mother, father, stepparents, and all her siblings -- together at once. Will Karen be able to find her voice to express this? And will anyone understand if she does?

I thought this was another interesting addition to the Baby-Sitters Little Sister series. These books are perfect for younger siblings watching their older siblings love the Baby-Sitters Club books but perhaps aren't mature enough to handle the middle-school content or don't yet possess quite enough reading fluency for the longer books, more advanced vocabulary, multiple plotlines, and changing point-of-view characters. These books instead focus on one problem at a time, and always with Karen as the protagonist.

It seems like a common criticism from readers of these books, especially adult ones, is that Karen is a "brat." This book tackles this head on by showing that Karen's so-called "greedy" behaviors in this story are directly a result of the adults in her life not making sure her needs are being addressed or listening to her real concerns. She doesn't feel like she has a confidant to discuss her issues with (even Kristy is a little short tempered with Karen in this title), so she comes up with her own extremely flawed plan. With a child's magical thinking (because, after all, Karen is only just about to be 7 years old), Karen sets her mind on having her parents get married again so everything will be alright once more. This, despite loving her new extended families of stepparents and stepsiblings. Of course, everything goes awry before things start to get better.

I do appreciate how this book showed both what was going on in the exterior world with the dialogue between Karen, her family, friends, classmates, etc. and in the interior world of how Karen is feeling. This is especially important for young readers figuring out emotions and learning empathy by seeing that someone might actually be feeling something different from what they look like on the outside. One particularly effective visual was the dark shading around certain text boxes when Karen is feeling particularly upset or left out. Who cannot feel for the little girl who is the last to get picked up from a field trip because her parents forgot to actually make arrangements and just each assumed the other was doing so?

However, there were a few oddities here and there. For instance, these graphic novel adaptations have advanced in time over the adaptations of the main-line stories, so we see Emily (Karen's newest sibling) who hasn't yet been introduced in The Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels. There's also a weird choice in the illustrations. There's a scene where the children play pin the tail on the donkey for Karen's class birthday party and the donkey has unnecessarily defined buttocks. I don't mean to be a prude but it was just gratuitous, and this series isn't the kind to do low-brow jokes. Still, the pros overweigh the cons overall and I plan to continue on with the series.… (mere)

Karen Brewer, age 6 almost 7, really wants to have a club like her older sister Kristy's Baby-Sitters Club. When her friend Hannie gets a new kitten, Karen decides that since herself and two friends now all have cats, they should have a club about it. But what should she call the club? What should they do at their meetings? And most importantly, what happens if the club isn't everything Karen dreamed it would be?

This is a fun and quick read, perfect for younger siblings who want to get into The Baby-Sitters Club series but perhaps aren't ready for the more advanced content. Like its sister books though, this series is all about acceptance, friendship, kindness, making amends, and taking responsibility, just in a more age-appropriate way for younger elementary school readers.

The graphic novel adaptations are great, especially for kids who prefer more visuals with their books still. I personally loved seeing the illustrations of the feisty cats and whatever nonsense they were getting up to in the background of the panels.… (mere)