Strange Bedfellows

It’s a time of rebirth in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. Out with the old, in the with the new. Dawn is dead and gone, and in her place, a new sitter must rise. And with a new sitter comes a new baby to be sat, this time in the frightening form of a video/VHS/well/water demon named Drusilla Destiny who Jack and Tanner are definitely going to keep an eye on. Sweet Pete also introduces an incredible new...

Get your tissues ready and put your crying hats on, Baby Nation, because this one’s a sad one! Set during the First World War, "Farewell, Dawn" follows the fortunes of the American paramedic Frederic Henry and an English nurse named Catherine Barkley. Against all odds, their love blossoms as the bombs and shrapnel explode around them, but they are ultimately doomed, not by the destruction and war...

Extra long episode this week, Baby Nation! Tanner is back from a week in Germany, and for some reason, the boys thought it’d be a good decision to do a late night record while Tanner was still reeling from the effects of jet lag, so Jack has a really hard time keeping this one on the rails. There’s A LOT of singing. Too much singing. Sorry for all the singing. Stacey (with a soft ‘c’) or Stacey (w...

What seems at first to be a very straightforward “paint-by-numbers” installment in the sitterverse (yawn: the sitters hold a day camp for some of their charges) turns out to be an intricate, surprising, and genuinely frightening origin story for Mary Anne Spier herself. As the boys pick apart the strands in this delicate tapestry woven by Ann M. Martin and the great Nola Thacker, they begin to won...

To really get this week’s episode, you’re going to need to remember a lot of the plot details from Inception, and you’re going to need to know A LOT about the short lived meme that was Dawn Siff’s Vine video resume. Oh, you’ll also probably want to have heard at least a few episodes of This American Life. So, a lot of prerequisites for this one, but it’s really worth it. Claudia gets a radio show...

There’s a ding dang civil war this week, Baby Nation (we’re saying “ding dang” now, apparently), and it looks like the beautiful friendships that we’ve been following for 83 books so far are starting to fall apart at the seams. We always knew that something was going to be the catalyst for the BSC apocalypse we witnessed in this book but never in a million years could either of us have predicted t...

Ding Dong, Baby Nation! The witch is dead! Which old witch? Stacey McGill, that’s who! This week Stacey gets into a big fight with all the other members of the Baby-sitter’s Club and they finally do the right thing and cut her loose. And, listen, Tanner isn’t here to say that he told you so, BUT HE TOLD YOU SO! Other talking points include whether or not pineapple is an appropriate topping for piz...

Looks like we’ve got a Troublemaker gumming up the works this week, Baby Nation! But who, or what, is it? Surely it isn’t sweet, innocent leukemia survivor Danielle Roberts? Might it somehow be that bad, negligent babysitter Stacey McGill? She has been acting VERY strangely of late. Or, and just hear us out here … is there ANY chance that it could be ‘90s Canadian rap and reggae artist Darrin Kenn...

This week, after father of three Jack Butler loses his job at the Ford Motor Company, he is forced to become a stay-at-home dad when his wife, Caroline, takes a job as a high-powered executive at a prestigious ad agency in Detroit. No wait, that’s the plot of 1983’s Mr. Mom. Shit. Uh, well… pretty much the same thing happens in this book, except it’s Watson Brewer, and he doesn’t lose his job, but...

Here come the bridesmaids, and there goes our sense of basically everything that is right and decent, because Tanner decided we needed to read a Super Special, OUT OF ORDER, this week to make sense of whatever the hell is going on in our next BSC book, Kristy and Mr. Mom. So here we are at this "coast 2 coast wedding orgy," with plenty of brides but not quite enough bridesmaids, as Mary Anne is ab...

This week’s book is a clear cry for help from the Primarch of Princeton herself, and Ann – if you’re reading this – we hear you! And if you’re open to notes, we want to let you know that writing a step-by-step guide on how to stalk children's books authors is maybe not the best approach for dealing with your isolation and loneliness. But we’re just humble podcasters. What do we know? Music Credits...

Babies and Gentlemen of the jury – over the course of this episode, we are going to present you with nothing but the facts of the case. You’re going to hear about Logan’s deceitful charm, about Alan Gray’s clever ruse, about the witches who walk among us in plain sight, and about William Blake’s critical analysis of Paradise Lost. And when all is said and done, when you have heard all that there i...

This week, the boys navigate some choppy waters together because Claudia’s crazy aunt Peaches comes to town for an extended visit, and things get a little “very special episode” for a hot second. Tanner manages to give birth to something of his own, just beating out the Shepherd family’s little bundle of joy, and learns a lot of really terrifying jump rope rhymes that he’s excited to teach Lil’ Ja...

It’s another episode of your favorite show, The We Heart Kids Club Club, a podcast in which your hosts, Half Pipe and Weed Lord (oof, sorry, I think we’re stuck with this now) talk about the classic series of novels about Maggie Blume, Jill Something or other, and new babysitter, Dawn Read Schafer. This week, the boys make some sweet, sweet brain babies together, and before they go any further, th...

This week the boys become intimately familiar with the work of Suzanne Weyn, or should I say, Suz-ANN! Have any of you ever seen Ann and Suzanne in the same room at the same time? Didn’t think so. Nice try, Ann, but we’re on to you. Stacey is back in the dog house, Claudia is back to being eternal sad, and the Pikes continue to deliver the best burns in the business. Music Credits: “Nocturne Op 15...

Finally, the episode everyone has been waiting for – a 1-hour extravaganza devoted exclusively to BSC fan favorite character Michael P. Trout (the computer science teacher that Jessi has in this one book and who never appears in the series again). We get into all things Trout this week, answer all your burning Trout questions, and speculate, briefly, about whether Trout died for our sins so that w...

Happy belated birthday, Ann! Jack and Tanner got you a present! It’s this podcast. Sorry. This week, the boys find common ground with Warhammer 40k/classical antiquity, and a new love for potential sentient canine and BSC ghostwriter, Nola Thacker. And Ann's isn’t the only birth worth celebrating this week, because Nola also brings about the existence of FIRE this week by introducing a purging fla...

Welcome to the "Jahnna N. Malcolm Hate Podcast," a podcast in which two small-minded men viciously, slanderously, and unfairly malign the beloved children’s literature of the entity known as Jahnna N. Malcolm, whose only crime is their deep love for one another and for making the world a better place by entertaining children and enriching their lives. In slightly better news, Mallory’s back in act...

Welcome to another installment of the We ♥ Kids Club Club, a podcast in which your two hosts, Weed Lord and Half-pipe, discuss the works of Peter Lerangis and Ann M. Martin: The We ♥ Kids Club books. This week, there's a new character in Palo City, a naughty dingleberry named Dawn Schafer who creates trouble everywhere she goes with her militant environmentalism, hatred for love, and willingness t...

Y’all, the boys were pretty sauced for this episode. But that’s OK because it’s a Little Sister, Little Episode, where things are fast, loose, fun, and frisky. And despite all of that speed and friskiness, Jack and Tanner pull off some hard-hitting investigative journalism about the cold case of the missing Delaney family, a thoughtful and informed discussion about the state of modern bone medicin...

If there is such a thing in the world as a Perfect Boy, what would he be like? Would he be like Rand al Thor, from Robert Jordan’s tedious and bloated Wheel of Time saga? Would he be like Robyn or Rand Miller, the brothers behind the 1993 graphic adventure puzzle video game Myst? Or would he be more like Gary Gygax himself, the troubled but brilliant creator of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing...

This week, two inept hosts who WERE NOT born during a storm NOR during a Super Bowl game try their very best to describe and discuss a Baby-Sitters Club book written by two beautiful storm-touched souls. And there’s no sign more clear that Jack and Tanner are starting to lose their credibility than the fact that they’re “coming around” on Stacey. Can you believe that?! Stacey meets a new boy calle...

Welcome to “Pike Check,” our hit new BSCC-spinoff podcast about how ridiculously handsome Mallory’s dad John Pike is. We think this one has a lot of legs, just like John. This episode also contains the definitive diss track that the BSC ghostwriter known as “The Entity Known as Jahnna N. Malcolm” has had coming for about 30 years now, as well as a shocking new revelation about the mysterious event...

This week, Tanner is joined in his B____n, N__ Y__k apartment by a very special guest to discuss book #68 in the Baby-Sitter’s Club cycle: Jessi and the Bad Baby-sitter. Has Dawn finally been replaced? Can Wendy Loesser stand up to the immense scrutiny of the BSC? No and no! But we do get some G.C.B.S.F. this week, which is all we can hope for, really. Also in this episode: Bee theory, Green Lante...

This episode is a time for somber reflection, as the boys gently, diplomatically, and eloquently allow Ann to hear (in the most thoughtful and sober way possible) exactly why what she did to Dawn WILL NEVER BE OK, ANN. NEVER. Also this week, Hodges has gone completely off the deep end, and Jack and Tanner follow him merrily over the edge with a whole slew of powerful and dynamic new segments. Ther...