What's All This Then?
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What's All This Then?
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Friday Edition
Sometimes, on a Friday afternoon, you just have to throw caution
to the wind and drink that 2+ year old can of diet root beer. Moot Beer.
Coudal Partners
Baby-sitter’s Club Series
by Ann M. Martin
Field-Tested by Christina Talcott
in The Little Falls Library in Bethesda, Maryland
See the 2006 poster by Aesthetic Apparatus, plus a video documentary.
Sandwiched somewhere between being young enough for day camp and old enough to “volunteer” (read: forced by Mom) to be church camp counselors, my older sister and I spent what felt like an entire summer at the Little Falls Library, a modest and extremely quiet building surrounded by woods on two sides, busy roads on the others. It was a far cry from the busy Bethesda Library closer to our house, which is probably why we were sent there. No one went to Little Falls, it seemed; I hardly even remember seeing librarians. There were no other kids, just the two of us, day after day.
To alleviate the boredom, my sister Monica and I resigned ourselves to the only game in town: we scoured the Young Adult section, looking for books we couldn't read at home. Which was, when we found them, the Harlequin novels of late-eighties’ pre-adolescence: the Baby-sitter's Club books. One by one, I devoured them - in order, of course - relishing the teenage intrigue and boy talk, knowing full well that Mom would call them "trash" and would put a cap on it if she found out. Meanwhile, Monica never got in my way; Sweet Valley High was her territory.
I remember reading, curled up in corners, shivering in the air conditioning, or dripping with sweat, sprawled on the grass on muggy afternoons. Reading those books made me feel naughty but good, too, like eating cake all day, or drinking cocktails in the afternoon. But like cake and cocktails, I had my limits, and by the end of the summer, I'd had my fill.
Christina Talcott, a Washington Post staff writer, ventures into the woods and across busy streets to cover Mid-Atlantic and international destinations for her hometown newspaper's Travel section.
Buy The Baby-sitter's Club Series
Read the next Field Test by Terry Teachout
Find a JobField-Tested Books
The 2008 Edition The 2006 Edition The 2003 EditionYour Submissions
The 2006 Edition
The Complete Index
All the Field-Tested Books, sorted by
reviewer, book title, and author.
All the Field-Tested Books, sorted by
reviewer, book title, and author.
