Review by Frank Plowright
A nice aspect of The Baby-Sitters Club is how it reflects real life. Stoneybrook is a fictional location, but a relatively small American city, and the reality of such places is working parents often moving elsewhere. This is hard on children who have to leave their friends, notwithstanding Kirsty and her group being very welcoming to newcomers such as Jessi. The groundwork has been laid in previous graphic novels where Stacey has dotted back and forth between Stoneybrook and New York, but it now seems the move will be permanent.
The graphic novel adaptations of The Baby-Sitters Club books haven’t followed the original publication order, they’ve broadly dotted around the first dozen or so books. In the original novel continuity Good-Bye Stacey, Good-Bye didn’t follow Kirsty and the Snobs, but Claudia and the New Girl. Original writer Ann M. Martin maximises the possibilities of the situation, and Gabriela Epstein brings that through in the adaptation. Stacey first looks for ways she might be able to persuade her parents not to move, while when the remaining members of the Baby-Sitters Club find out they want to throw a big leaving party, but are all short of money. They can’t raise more by baby-sitting, so what should they do?
Although there are moments of sadness, this is a generally cheery series, and Epstein’s good at drawing happy young girls. She covers movement well, and there’s always something to look at in the panels, whether it’s the backgrounds or the way the girls are dressed, although detail is never so great that it interrupts the story flow. There are two feature spreads, one from above as if taken by a drone, and as a snapshot of the main cast and friends it’s a beauty. It somewhat overshadows the second, which is drawn as if a posed photograph of the entire cast.
Despite the starting premise being sad, there’s a joy about the book, and that’s brought out in the arrangements for a yard sale, which doubles as a step by step primer for readers if they want to organise their own event. What is perhaps absent is the sadness of selling personal items as there’s no longer room to keep them, but, as noted, this is a generally cheery series.
The realism is maintained. There is no last minute reprieve, and the final page is Stacey leaving Stoneybrook. Don’t get too tearful, though, as the club visit her in New York a few volumes down the line in Stacey’s Mistake. Jessi’s Secret Language is up next.
