The Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #14: BSC in the USA by Ann M. Martin

Dawn Schafer spent the summer in Stoneybrook, Connecticut with her Mom and her step-father, her brother, step-sister and all of her friends in the Baby-Sitters Club. But now her father has a surprise: he's taking her and her brother back to California in an RV! Not to be outdone, Kristy Thomas' step-father, local millionaire Watson Brewer, also decides to RV across the country with his family; in a show of one-upsmanship, Mr. Schafer invites the rest of the BSC to come along. The cross-country trip is on! With one RV headed north and one taking a southern route, this is one tour of America unlike any others.

This is one of the later books in the BSC series, and one that I'm pretty sure that I didn't read when it first came out. But what book would be better for July 4th than a road trip exploration of America through the eyes of the BSC? There was something that seemed more... mature about this book; the themes seem to be a bit weightier. Less random baby-sitting, for one thing (the sitting that does get done is only a little bit of looking after Kristy's younger siblings). And yeah, Stacey and Claudia have the lamest fight ever. And Dawn is just kind of there, bitching about meat and junk food. But there's more than that. Jessi deals with discovering the plantation where her ancestors worked as slaves; Mary Anne feels uncomfortable around Dawn's father and tries to deal with the awkward semi-relationship that you would have with your step-sister's father. Kristy is forced to deal with her dad, the man who abandoned his family and has been a pretty terrible dad ever since; Abby confronts the memories of her late father and the vacations that they never took. But don't worry - there's lots of classic BSC stuff in here, too. Mallory dorks out about horses, Stacey falls in LUV, Kristy is obsessed with baseball. If you have fond memories of the Baby-Sitters Club, this is definitely worth a read because of the ways that it balances the heavier stuff with the lighter, more snark-worthy stuff (and the just downright unbelievable).

Find it at Amazon.

Read it with:
Aloha, Baby-Sitters by Ann M. Martin
Baby-Sitters on Board by Ann M. Martin
Baby-Sitters' European Vacation by Ann M. Martin