Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

We’ve come to the last published Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel, which means there would shortly be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth from my older girls–except that I just saw on Amazon that a sixth book is due out this August.  (Insert chorus of relieved 8- and 11-year-old sighs.)  Dawn and the Impossible Three was written by Gale Galligan, by the way; from what I’ve read, she’s been an associate of Raina Telgemeier’s, and she did an excellent job picking up where she left off.  (True, I prefer Telgemeier’s art, but it didn’t take me long to get used to Galligan’s, and I didn’t feel any lack in the story.)  We see Dawn grappling with a babysitting dilemma that culminates in a missing child; it turns out to have been a non-custodial parent angry because of the custodial parent’s failure to keep to the agreed-on schedule, which makes it serious but not more traumatic than the target audience’s parents might want them handling in fiction.  Other changes are affecting some of the club members; overall, it’s a nice little story about growing up and learning to compromise and communicate concerns clearly.  If you were or are a fan, be assured that the change in authors is no reason to drop the series–it remains worthwhile fare for elementary and middle schoolers, as well as nostalgic fun for people like me.

Now to hand the one library copy off to both of my girls without generating conflict…