Kristy’s Great Idea

Kristy's Great Idea by Ann M. Martin is a chatty friendship story for 9 year olds about four girls who start their own baby-sitting business. It's the very first Baby-Sitters Club book, so this is where it all begins.

What happens

Kristy Thomas is twelve and just starting seventh grade. She says what she thinks the second she thinks it (her mum calls it impulsive). On a sweltering first Tuesday of term that earns her a hundred-word essay on decorum, a word she has to look up.

The idea arrives while the pizza goes cold. Kristy's mum spends the whole of dinner phoning round for someone to mind six-year-old David Michael, and everyone she rings is busy. So why not one phone number that reaches several sitters at once?

Her best friend Mary Anne isn't allowed on the phone after dinner. So Kristy flashes the news across to her bedroom window next door in secret torch code!

Soon there's arty Claudia across the street, with her wild outfits and sweets hidden all over her room. There's shy Mary Anne in her plaits. And there's Stacey, the new girl from New York, who makes Kristy feel like a baby. They elect a president, make flyers and put an ad in the local paper. Then they sit round Claudia's phone and wait.

Kristy tells it herself, and she's very funny about her own big mouth. You get the friendship ups and downs from the inside. Claudia suddenly caring about boys and make-up. Stacey being a bit mysterious. Mary Anne going quiet in front of anyone new.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

There's quite a lot of family stuff in here. Kristy's parents are divorced and her dad hasn't called in over a year. She can't stand her mum's boyfriend Watson, and one dinner ends with her shouting something she's sorry for straight away. Mary Anne's mum died of cancer when she was a baby (that's backstory, not something that happens in the story).

It's all handled gently. A child going through a divorce at home might find some of it close (or might feel very understood). It's set in America, in a world of home phones and newspaper ads.

If your reader likes stories about friends building something together, this is a lovely place to start.

What to read next

If they'd like another girl facing a new school year with friends still to find, try Alice in the Spotlight. Alice starts at a girls' school where she knows nobody, and her dad has already had a row with a posh mum over a parking space (her big sister's wild streak is worth a look first).