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The Baby-Sitters Club Portrait Collection #4
Mary Anne's Book
Writing her autobiography for a school project, Mary Anne describes the childhood loss of her mother, her creative way of handling a Mother's Day tea party in kindergarten, her fight for the glasses she did not need, and her many friendships
155 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
About the author
Ann M. Martin
1,127 books3,097 followersAnn Matthews Martin was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane. After graduating from Smith College, Ann became a teacher and then an editor of children's books. She's now a full-time writer.
Ann gets the ideas for her books from many different places. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. But many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.
Ann has always enjoyed writing. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. They inspired her to become a writer herself.
Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.
After living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/annmma...
Ann gets the ideas for her books from many different places. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. But many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.
Ann has always enjoyed writing. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. They inspired her to become a writer herself.
Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.
After living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/annmma...
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
April 26, 2011
reading this book was like torture. i think i read anna karenina faster. this is another one of those supposed "autobiographies" that each 13-year-old member of the babysitters club writes for school. mary anne reminisces about the time that richard gave her away to her grandparents, even though she has no memories of living with them; being enrolled in a summer ballet class & making herself physically sick from the anxiety she felt about performing in the class recital (once she admitted her fears to richard, he didn't make her do it); her second grad class's mother's day tea party & how she was confused because she had no mother to invite...to be honest, i kind of blocked out a lot of the details. i just hate mary anne so much. she is always characterized as shy yet sweet, but i find it really aggravating when people can't just speak their minds. mary anne didn't want to take ballet. as far as she was concerned, the only positive about taking a ballet class was that she thought she would get to wear a tutu. when she found out that tutus weren't permitted in lessons, she was completely against ballet. but she did it anyway because she thought it would make her dad happy. i just don't think it's a positive character trait to routinely do things that make you miserable because you think it will make other people happy. how is that a positive message to send to little girls? it's nice to consider other people's feelings, but why do you WANT to make someone happy when it is contingent on making yourself fundamentally unhappy? maybe this is why i hate mary anne. she is like an anti-feminist icon.
the tea party story was kind of sad. everyone in the class has to stand up & announce who they are inviting. everyone (except claudia & kristy) laughs at mary anne when she says she wants to invite her father. she starts to think that maybe she isn't allowed to invite a man (& the teacher is too busy yelling at the class for laughing at mary anne to assure her). she has already told her dad about the tea party & he said he'd arrange to take the day off work, but mary anne gets self-conscious & invites mimi instead. she just doesn't mention the tea party at home again, even though she's really excited about it, & she hopes her dad will forget about it. instead, both he & mimi show up to be mary anne's guests & mary anne is concerned that she's going to get in trouble for inviting two people. the teacher consoles her & makes room for both mimi & richard, & everything works out, but...it seriously does suck for mary anne to have to deal with this shit just because her mom died. like it's not bad enough that she doesn't even remember her mom. i do feel for her on that count.
another long piece is about when mary anne decided she would like to know more about her mother. she knows richard isn't comfortable talking about alma that much, so she asks to visit her grandmother in iowa. richard allows this, although he says that if mary anne decides she wants to move to iowa, he'll "have to let [her]". um, no you won't, dude. you're still her dad & she's still 13. i wanted nothing more than to move to anywhere other than ohio when i was 13, but it wasn't a choice i got to make. anyway, mary anne goes out for a visit, but it doesn't go so well. her grandmother is still in mourning for her husband, who recently died, & pretty much only talks about him. mary anne didn't know the guy--she doesn't remember living with him as a baby. & her grandmother somehow manages to change the subject every time mary anne tries to bring up the topic of her mother. grandma introduces mary anne to all kinds of new people, which makes mary anne uncomfortable, & makes mary anne help her cook, even though mary anne hates to cook. because mary anne sucks, she keeps her feelings of disappointment & discomfort bottled up until she can't take it anymore & then she lashes out & says something like, "i hate it here! i want to go home!" see how this would have been better handled by mary anne pre-emptively explaining that she is shy & dislikes cooking, so she'd like to spend more solo time with grandma, perhaps doing needlework or something? problem solved, right? & THIS is why i actually don't think mary anne is so sweet & sensitive. she's actually just extremely passive-aggressive.
anyway, grandma & mary anne work out their biznass & mary anne completes a quilt that grandma was going to make for alma before she died. grandma tells mary anne all about alma & they have a great time after all.
mary anne gets an A+ on her report, probably because she turned it in a day early & smarmed up to the teacher. i would really like to read alan gray's autobiography. or cokie mason's! is her name really marguerite? inquiring minds want to know.
the tea party story was kind of sad. everyone in the class has to stand up & announce who they are inviting. everyone (except claudia & kristy) laughs at mary anne when she says she wants to invite her father. she starts to think that maybe she isn't allowed to invite a man (& the teacher is too busy yelling at the class for laughing at mary anne to assure her). she has already told her dad about the tea party & he said he'd arrange to take the day off work, but mary anne gets self-conscious & invites mimi instead. she just doesn't mention the tea party at home again, even though she's really excited about it, & she hopes her dad will forget about it. instead, both he & mimi show up to be mary anne's guests & mary anne is concerned that she's going to get in trouble for inviting two people. the teacher consoles her & makes room for both mimi & richard, & everything works out, but...it seriously does suck for mary anne to have to deal with this shit just because her mom died. like it's not bad enough that she doesn't even remember her mom. i do feel for her on that count.
another long piece is about when mary anne decided she would like to know more about her mother. she knows richard isn't comfortable talking about alma that much, so she asks to visit her grandmother in iowa. richard allows this, although he says that if mary anne decides she wants to move to iowa, he'll "have to let [her]". um, no you won't, dude. you're still her dad & she's still 13. i wanted nothing more than to move to anywhere other than ohio when i was 13, but it wasn't a choice i got to make. anyway, mary anne goes out for a visit, but it doesn't go so well. her grandmother is still in mourning for her husband, who recently died, & pretty much only talks about him. mary anne didn't know the guy--she doesn't remember living with him as a baby. & her grandmother somehow manages to change the subject every time mary anne tries to bring up the topic of her mother. grandma introduces mary anne to all kinds of new people, which makes mary anne uncomfortable, & makes mary anne help her cook, even though mary anne hates to cook. because mary anne sucks, she keeps her feelings of disappointment & discomfort bottled up until she can't take it anymore & then she lashes out & says something like, "i hate it here! i want to go home!" see how this would have been better handled by mary anne pre-emptively explaining that she is shy & dislikes cooking, so she'd like to spend more solo time with grandma, perhaps doing needlework or something? problem solved, right? & THIS is why i actually don't think mary anne is so sweet & sensitive. she's actually just extremely passive-aggressive.
anyway, grandma & mary anne work out their biznass & mary anne completes a quilt that grandma was going to make for alma before she died. grandma tells mary anne all about alma & they have a great time after all.
mary anne gets an A+ on her report, probably because she turned it in a day early & smarmed up to the teacher. i would really like to read alan gray's autobiography. or cokie mason's! is her name really marguerite? inquiring minds want to know.
January 22, 2018
in this fourth installment in the portrait collection series by ghostwriter Jeanne Betancourt, we get to see mary anne be an intolerable child and grow into the intolerable teen that she is today! no but really there's one story that's actually charming and funny. here are the individual stories:
-age 6: there's a class tea party for mother's day, but when she says she invited her father everyone laughs. she's embarrassed so she invites mimi and hopes her father will forget. they both show up and she's mortified since each kid was supposed to bring one adult, but her teacher is understanding
-summer after 2nd grade: kristy is taking ballet classes (sidebar: kristy is only doing so because that's the only class available, so don't worry about kristy's tomboy cred), so claud and mary anne sign up too. mary anne doesn't want to but feels pressured to by her friends and her dad, who is relieved to not have to find a daytime babysitter for her for the summer. she likes some aspects of the ballet classes but hates the performing aspect and when it comes time to do a recital she barfs and freaks out. she tells her dad she doesn't want to do it so he says that's okay and drives her away from the recital.
-4th grade: there's a new kid in school named april who has glasses and is pretty and popular, so mary anne decides she wants glasses too. she intentionally botches her school eye exam, but then when she realizes she'll have to go to an eye doctor she feels guilty. turns out, though, that she DOES need reading glasses.
-age 13: discovers that she had been sent to live with her grandparents as a baby (see Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic). goes on a trip to iowa re-meet her grandmother. doesn't get along with her at first, but then they realize they're more alike than they thought (read: her grandmother is intolerable too). this is basically just the plot of the end of the secret in the attic where it's just told as the letters back and forth from mary anne and folks back in stoneybrook, but we get to see the whole mary anne part of it.
highlights:
-mary anne's babysitter circa 2nd grade is named mrs. cuddy, who kristy calls mrs. cruddy.
-can't decide if this is a good dad moment or a bad one, when he lets her out of the recital. I guess good but also sometimes in life you have to do things you don't like.
-the whole glasses section. I was actually chuckling out loud.
-mary anne successfully has a conversation with an employee at a store where she tries on reading glasses. she is convinced that because she can talk to him while wearing glasses, wearing glasses will change her life, like a domino mask or something.
-she's very meticulous about her intentional failing of the vision test. she squints while looking at the letters of the alphabet to try to figure out which letters look like each other so she knows which ones to say when the do the eye test. she gets the first couple rows right and then makes a few mistakes gradually after that, so it looks legit. seriously I was cracking up when I read this.
-mary anne wanted glasses because she thought she'd look good in them, but then after she tries on empty frames she discovers she looks weird in them, and after that when she wants to come clean about having good vision it turns out she needs them after all. irony maybe? I always worry about calling things irony because people get MAD when you misuse that word.
lowlights/nitpicks:
-a reference to abby's father having died seven years ago. nope, he died when they were nine, which was four years ago.
-my thoughts on everyone in class laughing at mary anne for saying she's bringing her dad to the mother's day party: I WAS this kid (growing up with no mother and having to bring my dad to things), and trust me, nobody laughed. it turns out that none of the kids knew that mary anne's mother was dead, but there is NO WAY these kids in this small-ass town didn't know that.
-the whole book is mostly annoying because mary anne is annoying. like she doesn't want to quit ballet in part because her dad is happy she's taking it because it makes it easier for him to not have to find a full time babysitter. and it's like...be the change you want to see in the world, mary anne. you're a little kid and you have to be your father's martyr? it's just infuriating to read.
-april says that mary anne is "in her own way...outgoing and friendly." friendly, sure, but outgoing?
-mary anne finds pictures of a birthday party when she was a tiny baby (likely her first birthday). she knows it's her because she's wearing her mary anne necklace. I'm sorry, but who puts a nekclace on a one-year-old? isn't that extremely dangerous?
-mary anne's plane ticket to iowa says non-smoking. by 1996 all continental us flights were completely nonsmoking, and the vast majority of international flights were also completely nonsmoking.
-age 6: there's a class tea party for mother's day, but when she says she invited her father everyone laughs. she's embarrassed so she invites mimi and hopes her father will forget. they both show up and she's mortified since each kid was supposed to bring one adult, but her teacher is understanding
-summer after 2nd grade: kristy is taking ballet classes (sidebar: kristy is only doing so because that's the only class available, so don't worry about kristy's tomboy cred), so claud and mary anne sign up too. mary anne doesn't want to but feels pressured to by her friends and her dad, who is relieved to not have to find a daytime babysitter for her for the summer. she likes some aspects of the ballet classes but hates the performing aspect and when it comes time to do a recital she barfs and freaks out. she tells her dad she doesn't want to do it so he says that's okay and drives her away from the recital.
-4th grade: there's a new kid in school named april who has glasses and is pretty and popular, so mary anne decides she wants glasses too. she intentionally botches her school eye exam, but then when she realizes she'll have to go to an eye doctor she feels guilty. turns out, though, that she DOES need reading glasses.
-age 13: discovers that she had been sent to live with her grandparents as a baby (see Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic). goes on a trip to iowa re-meet her grandmother. doesn't get along with her at first, but then they realize they're more alike than they thought (read: her grandmother is intolerable too). this is basically just the plot of the end of the secret in the attic where it's just told as the letters back and forth from mary anne and folks back in stoneybrook, but we get to see the whole mary anne part of it.
highlights:
-mary anne's babysitter circa 2nd grade is named mrs. cuddy, who kristy calls mrs. cruddy.
-can't decide if this is a good dad moment or a bad one, when he lets her out of the recital. I guess good but also sometimes in life you have to do things you don't like.
-the whole glasses section. I was actually chuckling out loud.
-mary anne successfully has a conversation with an employee at a store where she tries on reading glasses. she is convinced that because she can talk to him while wearing glasses, wearing glasses will change her life, like a domino mask or something.
-she's very meticulous about her intentional failing of the vision test. she squints while looking at the letters of the alphabet to try to figure out which letters look like each other so she knows which ones to say when the do the eye test. she gets the first couple rows right and then makes a few mistakes gradually after that, so it looks legit. seriously I was cracking up when I read this.
-mary anne wanted glasses because she thought she'd look good in them, but then after she tries on empty frames she discovers she looks weird in them, and after that when she wants to come clean about having good vision it turns out she needs them after all. irony maybe? I always worry about calling things irony because people get MAD when you misuse that word.
lowlights/nitpicks:
-a reference to abby's father having died seven years ago. nope, he died when they were nine, which was four years ago.
-my thoughts on everyone in class laughing at mary anne for saying she's bringing her dad to the mother's day party: I WAS this kid (growing up with no mother and having to bring my dad to things), and trust me, nobody laughed. it turns out that none of the kids knew that mary anne's mother was dead, but there is NO WAY these kids in this small-ass town didn't know that.
-the whole book is mostly annoying because mary anne is annoying. like she doesn't want to quit ballet in part because her dad is happy she's taking it because it makes it easier for him to not have to find a full time babysitter. and it's like...be the change you want to see in the world, mary anne. you're a little kid and you have to be your father's martyr? it's just infuriating to read.
-april says that mary anne is "in her own way...outgoing and friendly." friendly, sure, but outgoing?
-mary anne finds pictures of a birthday party when she was a tiny baby (likely her first birthday). she knows it's her because she's wearing her mary anne necklace. I'm sorry, but who puts a nekclace on a one-year-old? isn't that extremely dangerous?
-mary anne's plane ticket to iowa says non-smoking. by 1996 all continental us flights were completely nonsmoking, and the vast majority of international flights were also completely nonsmoking.
December 19, 2023
i wanted to be like stacey but i am very much like mary anne; that used to upset me but as i’ve gotten older i like mary anne and little megan much more than i used to 💜
June 16, 2022
Mary Anne's autobiography further cements that Mimi is the best adult in Stoneybrook and they should make a statue in her honour. Also, Richard is pretty sweet in this too, a far cry from the stiff, awkward man we all know in Mary Anne's teenage years. (Though the Netflix show - and Marc Evan Jackson's perfect portrayal of Richard Spier - has really endeared me to the character.)
April 13, 2026
Several of the final chapters were a retelling (from a different perspective) of Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic. I get why, both in terms of storytelling and the plot (it was a really important event in Mary Anne's life), but it was sort of frustrating to read. Maybe younger readers (the target audience) would appreciate it more. Also Mary Anne's dad says and does some really clueless things. Overall, Mary Anne tries to show how great of a parent he's been to her, but some of the things he says are just so tone deaf - like maybe baker class will cure her of her shyness. Sure, he was cool about her not performing in the recital, and he did say she shouldn't have to do a leisure activity that she didn't enjoy, but it's no wonder she felt like she couldn't say anything sooner about not enjoying it - not only was there so much pressure on her to do it, but also that it would "fix" this defining feature of her personality. Overall, her dad comes off more nice than mean, but in a way, that makes those comments even more insidious - they come from someone we keep being told is so great and so understanding, but they (and a lot of his attitude in general) clearly cause Mary Anne a lot of stress Anne anxiety - which she then feels guilty about.
June 8, 2020
This is tied with Kristy’s book as being my least favorite in the Portrait Collections. I still enjoyed it, but just not as much as the other ones.
However, the elementary school teachers that Mary Anne lists are completely different than what Claudia said in her book, especially when they’re in fourth grade. You’d think the ghostwriters would have been given a list of who is in what class to work off of!
Also, Mary Anne gets an A+ on this, which I think is the highest grade by far, and I think it’s weird that the other (better) books got mostly B’s.
However, the elementary school teachers that Mary Anne lists are completely different than what Claudia said in her book, especially when they’re in fourth grade. You’d think the ghostwriters would have been given a list of who is in what class to work off of!
Also, Mary Anne gets an A+ on this, which I think is the highest grade by far, and I think it’s weird that the other (better) books got mostly B’s.
August 16, 2023
Probably my favourite of the BSC portrait collections. Maybe because I was a seriously shy kid like Mary Anne so I can totally relate to her being too shy to
August 29, 2017
And thus we have the worst of the Portrait Collection books. Why so boring, Mary Anne?
September 10, 2018
It was very interesting to learn more about Maryann's family from her mom's side.
Read
December 16, 2020Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: https://www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blo...
May 19, 2022
Well. Better than Kristy’s but not by much.
December 23, 2025
Of course I love any story about Mary Anne. She is my favorite character in the series. So I absolutely loved this one too.
November 7, 2022
I love these portrait collections. Mary-Anne looked like an adorable child.
June 19, 2024
While some people found this one boring, I found it mostly enjoyable with some sort of boring parts thrown in. Overall I just found Mary Anne's life kind of sad. Mostly because her dad and grandparents were idiots. So it opens with Mary Anne reflecting on wishing she knew her mother. As someone who has lost a mother I'm so glad I had so many years and memories with her and Mary Anne's stories about her mom always make me cry. She gets laughed at when she announces that she's bringing her dad to a mother's day tea but I strongly doubt that no one knew her mom has died. She brings Mimi but her dad also shows up. Then she decides glasses are cool and fails an eye test only to get dragged onto a real eye doctor and learn she actually needs glasses. Do schools still do this? I don't remember eye tests but as someone who is half deaf I do remember hearing tests and my mom would inevitably get a somber call from the school saying they discovered I was half deaf, as if she didn't know that already. Anyway there's the ballet classes which annoyed me. After suffering horrible stage fright her dad just let's her leave and literally let the rest of the class down. My parents would've been like yeah I paid for this, get your butt on that stage and suck it up. No one the kids in Stoneybrook are so entitled. Then comes the part I have mixed feelings about. Mary Anne learns about long lost grandparents after her grandfather dies. This I didn't get. Why would they refuse to see Richard? Why were they so resentful of a man who needed time and space to heal and when he was ready wanted his child back? So much so that they refused to have anything to do with their so called beloved grandchild? It's never really explained. I could see maybe if Richard remarried but he didn't until much later. That's why I thought they were idiots and very childish. Mary Anne goes to Iowa to visit her grandmother her father freaks out that she'll stay there which I get because both of his wife's kids took off for California. Mary Anne hates it there at first, but eventually the two make amends and make a quilt in honour of Alma that wins first prize. This wasn't a bad book, but like I said I seriously question those grandparents and Richard to a certain extent especially how he handled the ballet thing. I just don't get why they wouldn't accept it and visit once or twice a year or have Mary Anne visit, kids can travel by plane alone and are quite well looked after. The cause of the rift might come up in another book I haven't read yet I guess I'll find out.
September 7, 2016
So, my rating is from how I viewed it when I last read it(which was as a teenager, which I read for nostalgia then), and then I loved it still, as I always loved and empathised with Mary Ann from BSC. It will always be an all time childhood-preteen favourite book of mine. I think TBSC is a great series for young girls to read, but it isn't for everyone, or maybe it would grow on them :D. It did for me, when everyone around me was reading it at 9 and 10 yrs old, I didn't find the books interesting until I was 11 or 12 yrs. So I recommend it to any high spirited book loving young girl/boy, who loves clubs, and boy crushes liking you back ;).
November 13, 2023
I enjoyed reading this book. Especially how Kristy and Claudia were there in early parts of her life and protective of her. I enjoyed the stories about the mother's day tea party and ballet class best, important lessons for Mary Anne that her dad handled nicely. There is also a story of how she got reading glasses and how she felt glasses made her confident. I also like how she and her grandmother completed a tribute quilt to Mary Anne's late mother when she visited her in Iowa and won a prize for it, instead of entering the usual blackberry jam. Definitely recommended, even if Mary Anne isn't your favourite.
December 9, 2010
Loved this! I am such a Mary Anne. I totally understand her shyness, although I experienced it more in my teens than in my childhood. It was nice to see that not all the stories had an entirely happy ending - Mary Anne never totally overcome her shyness and everything wasn't completely rosy between her dad and her grandma. Her life story was realistic. Overall, a very sweet read and it was lovely to see the interactions between the girls as kids, especially Kristy looking out for Mary Anne. 10/10
September 10, 2016
This was clearly for nostalgia sake. I've been getting in touch with those childhood books I was in love with way back when, and Mary Anne's Book was interesting (mostly the parts about knowing her deceased mother), but a little boring elsewhere.
June 23, 2016
Loved all the Portrait Collection! I thought I was so awesome when I got them all haha!
March 6, 2012
Got bored. Read this. Hilarious trip down nostalgia lane.
May 10, 2015
22/25
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January 10, 2016
This book took me forever to read. I kept stopping to count how many pages I had left. Mary Anne is the most boring, sappiest BSC member.
August 25, 2016
this book was OK. I mean, Mary Anne and I may have a few things in common. but it doesn't mean that I have to like her. I mean, I hated reading about her problems. the end.
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February 3, 2017Read this a long time ago but I recall it being a instresting peak into the past!
December 6, 2024
Extra star because Mary Anne and I share a name.
November 14, 2022
I love these portrait books, but this one was about Mary Anne...
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews