Logan Likes Mary Anne!

Ann M. Martin's Logan Likes Mary Anne is a first-crush story for 9 year olds, told by the shyest member of the Baby-Sitters Club.

What happens

It's the last day of the summer holidays and Mary Anne Spier is about to start eighth grade. She and four friends run a babysitting club from Claudia's bedroom, taking calls from parents who need a sitter.

Mary Anne has a magazine poster of a heartthrob called Cam Geary, and she sticks it up inside her locker with chewed gum. Then on the very first day she spots a new boy across the cafeteria who looks EXACTLY like him. It's Logan Bruno, just moved from Kentucky with a southern accent.

The club has more work than five girls can handle by now. So when Logan overhears them at lunch and offers his babysitting experience, everyone falls over themselves to invite him to a meeting. Mary Anne just freezes (into an ice statue, she says).

This is where the book is funniest. She brushes her hair a hundred times before he arrives. Her tongue feels as if it's been coated in glue and sawdust. She drops the appointment book twice. Who hasn't wanted the floor to swallow them up in front of someone they like?

Because she's telling the story herself, you're right inside all of that. She's honest about being shy, and about the little wave of jealousy when Logan already knows Stacey. Then his trial job needs a second sitter and she's the only one free. The title tells you which way it's heading, so the fun is in the getting there.

It's worth knowing that the girls are twelve and thirteen and growing up comes into it. There's a frank chat about first bras (Mary Anne's dad took her shopping for hers) and a mention of a boy who snaps girls' bra straps to be mean. It's all blushes rather than anything more, but if your reader isn't interested in crushes yet it may feel like a book for an older sister.

It's American, and there isn't a mobile phone in sight (the pin-ups come out of magazines). As the tenth book in the series, it opens by catching up on everyone's summer, which gives away how a few earlier books end. If that matters, go back and start them on Kristy's Great Idea.

What to read next

If your reader goes bright red whenever anyone talks to them, they might find a kindred spirit in The Extremely Embarrassing Life of Lottie Brooks. Lottie is about to start a new school without her best friend, and she's very worried about bras too.