Which BSC book is your favorite?

Imagine being a huge Baby-sitters Club fan as a kid…and then growing up to work on the series! Well, that’s just what happened to Amanda Maciel, Scholastic’s senior editor of paperbacks, and she’s here to share her excitement over the news that The Baby-sitters Club series is now available as ebooks! Here’s what you need to know about Amanda:

• Like many of us, she started reading the BSC books at age 8 — right when they debuted in 1986!
• Her favorite book is #3, The Truth About Stacey
• She wanted to be like Stacey…but she admits she’s much more like Kristy (except for the sports talent!)

Here she goes…

I was a devout Scholastic Book Clubs follower well before 4th grade, when I brought home the flier featuring a new series called The Baby-Sitters Club. The bright yellow cover with four girls chatting on a bed had caught my eye immediately, and looking over the selections that night with my mom, she pointed right to it, too. “That looks like fun,” she said, and my obsession officially began.

By the end of the school year, I’d gotten not one but two perms (to be like Stacey), tried to paint more (to be like Claudia), and learned all about entertaining small children (a skill I wouldn’t put to use for several more years).

That summer, I started stalking my favorite local bookstore, the Little Professor, for more. Even the monthly publication schedule—which, as an editor, I cannot imagine keeping up with!—wasn’t fast enough for me. Luckily the Little Professor had a special phone list, calling each of the ardent BSC fans in the area as soon as the new book was out. All I had to do was not squander my allowance, beg my parents for a ride to the store, and be patient. None of those things were easy, but it was all worth it for each glorious afternoon of reading the latest adventure of Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, and Stacey. And Mallory, Jessie, Logan …

The Baby-Sitters Club solidified my love for so many things. Catalogue shopping and bookstore visits alike became personal, important, constant rituals. Series fiction had always been a favorite, but now I had a series that was perfect for me—the girls were a little older, a little wiser, but they never got too much older. They stayed in that fascinating world of junior high, even when they took breaks for summer camp or (the best!), a vacation on a cruise ship.

It did not surprise me at all that my career led to children’s books, and eventually to Scholastic, home of the BSC and the book fliers I loved so well. I’ve been able to revisit Stoneybrook and see that the girls are still best friends, still in junior high, and still solving their problems with teamwork, ingenuity, and Kid Kits. Everyone should be so lucky to grow up with great friends, a fun job, and an enduringly perfect series of adventures.