OMG! The Baby-Sitters Club Memories

by - August 15, 2019


In the fictional, suburban town of Stoneybrook, Connecticut, four girls started a club to provide their babysitting services. What was originally planned as a four-book series quickly turned into over 200 novels that broke off into side stories, spin-offs, graphic novels, a television series and film. The Baby-Sitters Club inspired a generation of book lovers in the late 1980s to 2000 and still resonates with them today.

This week, the world’s largest producer and provider of downloadable audiobooks and other spoken-word entertainment, Audible, released all 131 of Ann M. Martin’s titles to their collection.

“I’m thrilled to see that the readership for The Baby-Sitters Club continues to grow after all these years,” Martin said in a press release. “And I’m grateful and honored to hear from fans – young and old – who have supported the series with such affection, love and nostalgia for all things BSC. I’m excited that Audible will bring the books to life in a new format for the next generation.”

In honor of their release on Audible, here are memories from those that grew up alongside the novels:
“I started reading them pretty young and kept reading them after I had moved on to older books. I'd go back to them when I couldn't decide what to read or when I had a book hangover. The mysteries were my favorite. I was 100% a Kristy, minus the divorced parents, but I desperately wanted to be Claudia or Stacy.” – Anne, Illinois
“My third grade teacher introduced me to the series and I absolutely loved them!” – Angela, Arizona
“By the time I was in third grade, there were ninety-nine books in the series. Since I hadn’t seen a one-hundredth book in stores yet, I decided to create my own called Baby-Sitters Little Sister #100: The Three Musketeers. The title of the book was inspired by my two close friends at the time: Michelle and Amanda.” – Britni, Iowa
“I still remember taking Babysitters on Board (the Super Special) with me on my family trip to Disney. I lived for the Super Specials.” – Brittany, New York
“Our Scholastic book fair had a way to subscribe to the BSC so I got a book in the mail periodically until I had 1-90 and 5-6 super specials! I remember reading them in the bathtub and at the dinner table and everywhere in between. I [truly] loved the books and am so glad my mom saved them so I can show them to my daughter!” Jessica, Oklahoma
“I read all the little sister ones my library had in a summer! But I never read the “big sister” ones [because] I thought that was disloyal.” – Ellie, Michigan
“I almost tore the book in half from excitement when I learned Claudia was Asian. I never read a book where a teenage character was Asian American, let alone one that was an artist too! I’m tearing up just thinking about it. For me, I was a little bit of an outcast growing up and to see Claudia accepted by her peers and doing typical American teenager activities brought me so much joy. Even though she was Japanese and I’m Chinese, it still made me so happy to see the representation.” – Sun, Washington
“I think I had at least 50 of the BSC books and another 25 of the little sister series. The idea of them all gathering in Kristy's room with her private phone line was amazing to me. So grown up! Plus, I heavily identified with Mallory, for obvious reasons. I also loved that you didn't necessarily have to read the books in order which was very important back in the mid-90s when the library didn't have all the books in the series and interlibrary loans were harder to do.” – Mallory, Virginia
“Claudia was my first inspiration to care about fashion, and she seemed super-cool and I wanted to be her friend, and I didn’t really like anybody else’s character all that much but just kept reading because of her. And I also stole the “kid kit” idea when I started babysitting.” – Kat, Maryland

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