Netflix
Growing up, I never read any of ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ books. I was into books like ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Goosebumps’. I was boy. I had no interest in reading stories about girls baby-sitting. ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ was a popular book series that ran for over a decade that focused on a group of young friends who started a babysitting business. The book series has been adapted a few times into shows and a movie in 1995. The newest series on Netflix gives the classic books an update with new technology and current issues to tackle to help the girls run their business.
The revival follows the friendship and adventures of five middle-schoolers as they start a babysitting business in Connecticut. Kristy Thomas, the president of the club, enlists her friends Claudia, Stacey, Mary Anne, and Dawn to help take care of children. The series gives an updated touch as it tackles divorce, racism, and accepting one another.
With having no prior connection to the series, I didn’t fully know what to expect from this revival. Luckily, I found The Baby-Sitters Club to be a delightful series that will send a positive message to anyone who watches it. This series easily could have failed. If the five middle-schoolers lacked chemistry, the series would have been hard to get through. Some of the members started off without knowing everyone, but by the end of the series, the five felt like a tight-knit group of friends. Kristy and Mary Anne were close friends before the club started. One day when Kristy’s mom (Alicia Silverstone) needed her to babysit her younger sibling, she came up with the idea of The Baby-Sitters Club. Mary Anne, the shy secretary of the club, was on board with the other members joining later.
I thought the series would mainly focus on Kristy and her family dynamics since she was narrating the first episode and seemed to be at the head of everything. Kristy’s mother is dating Watson, who she absolutely hates! When we got to the second episode, it started to focus on different members and their lives. By the end of the series, there was a focus on each one of the five girls, their families, and their reasoning for joining the club. I was happy with the character development for the members and how to they contributed to the club.
One of my favorite storylines involved Mary Anne and her father and Dawn and her mother. Mary Anne’s father, Richard, is extremely strict and doesn’t let her change her room, her outfits, or stay out with her friends. She feels closed off from the club and desires a change since she is growing up. She meets Dawn, who moved from Los Angeles to Connecticut with her mother. When Mary Anne invites Dawn over for dinner one evening and Dawn brings along her mother, Richard finds out that Dawn’s mother is someone he used to date in high school and they start dating again. It was a nice side story to see Richard start to open up to his daughter and allow for her to grow up. When the parents got involved and the young girls were feeling their family’s issues, it made it more realistic than I expected.
The series covered many different current topics families are probably discussing with their children right now. It covers racism, divorce, identity, and accepting others. It does it in a way that can be a lesson for children, but also adding characteristics to the young girls. The messages felt important to every character in the show, which made them worth hearing.
I was genuinely surprised by The Baby-Sitters Club. I know I’m not the target audience for this new show, but I still enjoyed the series. With positive messages throughout, there is a lot that young girls can learn from this series. With everything that is going on right now in the world from the virus to protests, it is the perfect series to binge.
What did you think of this season? Sound off in the comments below!
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