Claudia and the Disaster Date (The Baby-Sitters Club Friends Forever #12)

The Baby-Sitters Club Friends Forever #12

by Ann M. Martin

Claudia used to think that Alan Gray was immature, goofy, and not to be trusted . . . and now she's dating him.

Genres: Middle Grade, Fiction, Contemporary, Childrens, Collections, Friendship, Juvenile

96 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

Ann 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...

Reviews

[FIND ME ON STORYGRAPH · Rating 3 out of 5]

in this LAST NON SUPER SPECIAL BOOK OF THE ENTIRE DAMN BSC RUN (not including spinoffs or The Summer Before) by ghostwriter Nola Thacker, claudia is sort of dating alan gray. they’re really compatible, but claud keeps being uncertain how she feels about him. he’s the same old goony alan, which is sometimes embarrassing, but he’s also super sweet and thoughtful. kristy is totally unwilling to accept that claudia and alan may actually be dating, and it comes to a breaking point when kristy and alan fight loudly at claud’s summer job in the public library. finally, alan decides that they should clear the air and plans a minigolf excursion with all the four current (original) bsc members and dawn, plus cary retlin and pete black. cary manipulates the situation so kristy is teamed up with alan, and he intentionally loses to her to try to make kristy like him. then she calls him a wimp, because it’s impossible to please kristy. alan starts trying to act really normal and tone down his goofiness, which makes claudia uncomfortable, because she genuinely likes how silly he is. in the end, claud throws a party and invites the bsc and alan, and it seems like they will get all along - and claudia and alan call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. cute! one subplot is that erica tries even harder to track down her birth parents (see Claudia and the Friendship Feud for the start of this plotline), and actually ends up finding a birth certificate with their names on it. she confronts her adoptive parents, who agree to let her try to find them, but she decides she doesn’t want to after all. a larger (and more infuriating) subplot is that claudia and erica tag-team the children’s library assistant job at the public library while the library tries to find someone to hire. (see lowlights/nitpicks for the many, many, MANY problems I had with this plotline as an actual librarian who actually knows some things about libraries). claudia decides to update the old-fashioned mural that only has white kids in it, and talks to the children’s librarian about it without asking her mom, the director of the library. they get into a minor fight about it, but after witnessing erica’s conversation with her parents, claudia clears the air with her mom.

highlights:
-claud and alan bond over arty animated movies, which alan loves but claud's friends don't take seriously. so cute!
-the children’s librarian, ms. feld, buttons her cardigan wrong which makes her "seem more like one of the children than the librarian." funny observation for a miss frizzle style character
-the one truly accurate depiction of a children’s room in a library: after storytime it looks like a hurricane tore through the place. all day they are constantly having to pick up books and toys that have migrated all over the place. yes, this is exactly what children’s librarianship is like.
-kristy keeps giving claudia a hard time for dating alan, until finally stacey calls kristy out for having gone out with alan in the past (Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls)
-alan asks claudia how long members of the baby-sitters club sit on babies before they hatch. stupid joke but I love it
-as a gift for claudia, alan takes a carnation, splits the stem, and sticks it into test tubes filled with colored water, and the carnation becomes multicolored. how thoughtful and sweet, and what a spot on gift for claudia. I know I said it in Claudia Gets Her Guy, but I really ship them.
-alan's dad says "we brought the minivan for miniature golf" and alan is embarrassed. but also it totally makes sense that alan’s dad is a dad-joker, because alan himself is kind of a dad-joker.
-the way cary sets it up so kristy and alan will have to team up for minigolf: kristy is about to ask mary anne to be her partner when cary cuts in and says, "I can ask her myself. mary anne, will you do me the honor of being my partner." NAILED it.

lowlights/nitpicks:
-basically every single aspect of the library plotline. to be a library assistant/paraprofessional you need a bachelor’s degree. maybe in a teeeeeeny tiny rural town you’ll get high school students, but not in a relatively populous suburb. also they are presumably 13, which is probably below legal age. when I got my first job at 15, I had to get a work permit because I was under 16, and you needed to be at least 14. and it was around the time this book came out. at every library where I’ve worked, you had to be at least 14 to volunteer or work as a page or teen summer intern.
-claudia says "bibliophile" means "she loves books" which is not really true. you could say "bibliophile" means "book lover" or you could say "bibliophile" means she loves books. but it doesn't literally mean "she loves books" so why the quotation marks?
-the nancy drew thing is overdone in this book. I get that scholastic was devoted to keeping the plotline that claudia’s mom doesn’t approve of nancy drews (which was old-fashioned even by the 1980s’ standards) so they don’t want to make it actually contemporary (having her mom challenge claudia’s reading of captain underpants or junie b. jones or something), but it’s just annoying as a librarian to see the authors of these books treat nancy drews like they are scandalous. at one point claud says something about "award-winning books that librarians like to recommend to children instead of nancy drew." librarians don’t only recommend award-winning books. I’ve recommended nancy drews to kids who like historical fiction (I know nancy drew isn’t historical fiction but it was written before they were born!) and mysteries. but also nancy drew books are not the only books I would recommend because, guess what claudia? there are other damn books in the world.
-okay, again. claudia is proud of herself for saying "my favorite mysteries are nancy drews" aloud in a library. nobody cares if you like nancy drews! not even your mom, probably.
-the librarian, ms. feld, is loud. and claudia thinks it's worth mentioning that she's not using a library voice. come ON.
-claud says parents drop off their kids for storytime to go to the adult section, which is NOT the way libraries do things. parents stay with their kids and interact with them so they can learn the skills they will need to encourage literacy development at home.
-story time is one hour long - two days a week they do chapter books and two days a week they do picture books. there is no mention of songs, rhymes, movement, etc. once again, this is NOT how libraries do storytime. basically since augusta braxton baker changed storytime at nypl in the 1950s.
-claudia wraps the books in protective film and then the books will be cataloged. do they not a. have technical services staff/volunteers and b. not order from vendors that do the processing for them? the only times I’ve had to do this level of tech services myself have been in school libraries.
-claudia thinks that when scolding alan and kristy her voice sounds "stern and librarian-ish" - once again, why does nola thacker hate librarians so much?
-without asking claudia, ms. feld assumes it's okay to include the kids in the mural project. and it's a disaster and the kids get paint everywhere. and then claudia’s mom scolds her: "while I appreciate your creativity, this time you may have gone a little too far." but it is ENTIRELY ms. feld's fault, and she should really be scolding the irresponsible children’s librarian she hired who apparently doesn’t know how to interact with children in a productive (not destructive) way.

claudia outfit:
-"I settled in the end for beige linen shorts, an enormous red, blue, and purple tie-dyed T-shirt that I had made earlier in the summer, a pair of earrings I'd made from bottle caps and glitter, and purple high-tops with blue socks folded over the top."

snacks in claudia's room:
-candy corn in her left winter boot in her closet
-mixed nuts in her right winter boot in her closet
-cheese-filled pretzels in her right winter boot in her closet
-rainforest crunch chocolate bar (n.s.)
-little boxes of cereal (n.s.)
-oreos (n.s.)

[Ciara · Rating 3 out of 5]

claudia is still seeing first-class pest, alan gray, & everyone agrees that he seems to have changed since they began their little romance. he is less annoying, less with the gross-out humor, more mature...but claudia is still uneasy. she worries that her friends & everyone else at stoneybrook middle school will judge her if she keeps dating him. hey claudia? i judge you. there is something about alan gray that has always turned my stomach a little bit. he strikes me as the kind of guy who wears ill-fitting baggy jeans well into middle school to hide the fact that he has to wear rubber underpants because he wasn't potty trained correctly. sorry, i know that's gross, but this is what i think when i think of alan gray, & it has always been this way, ever since i read "claudia & the phantom phone calls" for the first time back in 1986 (in which alan gray prank calls kristy about a million times to muster up the courage to ask her to the halloween hop). but whatever. i'll try to put my repulsion aside.

the B plot involves claudia volunteering in the children's room at the local library. what is with these girls & the constant volunteering? even with her shitty grades, claudia is going to get into the college of her choice with extra-curriculars & community service like this. she decides that it's her mission in life to re-paint & update the mural on the wall outside the children's room. her mom, who is the head librarian, is not thrilled with this idea, which seems weird to me. i kept waiting for the big reveal: that mrs. kishi had always wanted to be an artist, & had painted the mural herself, & the fact that claudia wasn't crazy about it & wanted to re-do it hurt mrs. kishi's feelings but forced her to realize that claudia is realizing ambitions that mrs. kishi's lack of artistic talent restricted. but no. mrs. kishi just thinks claudia should focus on her actual job in the children's room before she gets all gung ho about the mural. but somehow they strike a compromise & claudia re-does the mural anyway, & mrs. kishi admits that she used to want to be a writer but settled for being a librarian & none of it really makes a lot of sense. okay.

the "disaster date" in question is a mini-golfing excursion with the BSC girls & alan gray & his buddies (including <3 cary retlin <3). cary machinates some teamings so that somehow alan is partners with kristy. kristy is nasty to him for the entire afternoon & alan just sits there & takes it. he's trying to be mature in front of claudia & prove he doesn't have to rise to childish teasing & fights, even when goaded, but his plan backfires because claudia thinks this new, improved alan seems fake & kind of boring. they have a heart-to-heart where alan is all, "i'm trying so hard to be what you want me to be! ARRGH!" & claudia is all, "well, the new alan is a bore & the old alan is an embarrassing creep, so maybe try to land somewhere in the middle," & that indicates to me that they need to call the whole thing off. claudia does want alan to change for her; she just doesn't know exactly how, & alan is bending over backwards trying to please her & nothing he's doing works. but somehow this talk is lauded as a victory for maturity & honesty & they decide to be boyfriend/girlfriend. claudia has a party, everyone comes, & everyone gets along all right. whatever. this book needed fewer precocious moppets "helping" with the children's room mural & more CARY.

[Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the final regular installment of the BSC Friends Forever series we follow Claudia and her burgeoning romance with Alan Gray. Does she like him? Can she like someone like him? One thing is for sure Kristy still hates him because she has the mentality of a child. Anyway Claudia and her friend Erica get jobs at the library for the summer which is odd since they are thirteen and that's too young I'd think. But maybe it's voluntary? Both girls are surprised by the children's librarian Mrs. Feld who can gulp hot coffee right out of the pot without waiting for it to cool off. Impressive I guess. Claudia wants to update the library mural. Mrs. Feld is all for it and wants the kids to join in which ends in disaster. Claudia's mom who didn't want the mural touched yells at Claudia even though it was Mrs. Feld who caused the disaster. The disaster date involves all of the BSC and Dawn going on a mini golf outing with Cary, Pete and Alan. Dawn makes some dumb remark about how bad golf courses are because of course she does and they split into teams with Kristy and Alan stuck together which doesn't go that well. Claudia decides she can make it work with Alan, she paints the mural with help of the kids and everything works out fine as always. The secondary plot involves Erica trying to find her real parents. This one was a bit boring to be honest. Not as bad as Kristy and the Kidnapper but still. I think Welcome Home Mary Anne would've been a better way to end the main series on but that's just me. Onto the two super specials one of which I've just learned is actually the start of the series so I'm sort of going backwards. Oh well. Hopefully they are as good as about 95% of this series has been so far.

[Liesl FIND ME ON STORYGRAPH · Rating 4 out of 5]

A couple things about this one:

1.) I'm very torn about the way the library/librarians were portrayed in this book. There were a lot of things that were very true-to-life (the children's section being noisy chief among them) but I'm very offended that Kristy believed that a storytime presented by librarians would only feature "turning the pages and showing the illustrations." Also...Ms. Feld absolutely should have known better than to give children paint.

2.) If you'd told me twenty-five years ago that I would one day be shipping Claudia Kishi and Alan Gray, I would have laughed in your face. And yet, here we are. They are endgame and I actually really love this relationship for them.

3.) I understand keeping the storylines designated to the Core Four (Kristy, Mary Anne, Stacey, and Claudia) but WOW I miss Dawn, Abby, Jessi, and Mallory.

4.) Kristy has always been my least favorite babysitter, and that has not changed. Kristy sucks. The end.

Speaking of the end...it's time for Graduation Day!!!

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I don't think I ever realized this before, but Welcome Home, Mary Anne and this book take place in the summer, but the official final book in this series is Graduation Day, which happens before these books. However, none of the events of that book are mentioned in these books, and in the first chapter of Graduation Day Mary Anne has already moved into the new house even though it wasn't completed until the summer started.

??? I am so confused.

In any rate, this book is made so much better by the appearance of Dawn and a mini-golf date that I like to believe is the start of Mary Anne and Cary Retlin's future relationship. =) I still don't understand why Claudia's mom got so irrationally upset by the mural, though, and the explanation we were given makes no sense. But, I did like the realistic conclusion to Erica's story.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claudia's relationship with Alan gets off to a rocky start because of Kristy's disapproval.

I think it's sweet how nervous Alan was around Claudia and her friends, especially because of his (very much earned) reputation as a goof. He really makes an effort to act more mature, and I thought that was really sweet of him.

I do sympathize with Claudia's confusion around how she wants Alan to behave. I get that she likes the goofiness, but maybe not quite to the level Alan used to do. I may side-eye her a bit for caring so much about her friends' (ahem, Kristy's) judgement, but she's 13 and the whole romance with Alan started over a misunderstanding, so I'll give her some leeway in figuring stuff out.

I sympathize with Alan, in trying to meet what often seemed like ever-moving goalposts of behaviour that Claudia wants from him. At the end, she tells him she just wants him to be himself, but I can see how her previous actions didn't exactly show that.

Boo on Kristy for being so mean to Alan, but I appreciate that the other BSC members were more open-minded.

TBH, I'm not sure I necessarily buy that this relationship will last for long. I see Claudia having fun with Alan, but neither of them is acting consistently enough for me to buy that they're truly being real with each other and truly falling in love with who the other person is. But at least they'll have time to figure things out.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's so hard for me to imagine Claudia dating Alan Gray. I think because in my head I picture Alan as that disgusting guy in class who overcompensates with unfunny jokes and probably also smells a little bit or something. I dunno, that's just what I picture though. So it's made me very bias to this particular situation.

There were several bad dates in this, so which was the real disaster date? Who knows! I just wish there had been less kiddy mural and more Cary Retlin!

[Nikki Barrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I didn't know this little series existed until recently. I grew up reading BSC and loved it, so I'm happy to have found other stories set in this world. I didn't realize I'd read one later in this series, but oh well, that's okay. It's nice to go back and read about characters I loved as a young girl. A great way to escape the craziness of the world.

[Devon · Rating 3 out of 5]

My last ever (non-special and non-prequel) BSC book!!! I love Claudia and Alan together, unironically, and I also love that this one is so largely set in the children's area of a library, as a children's librarian (although it's not even 40% accurate). Cary Retlin, as always, manages to steal the show, and I love that this series is ending on such a bright spot and with such a bright scene.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

*1.5

[Aaliyah · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a great book sad that they did not kiss =( but over all a great book.

[Lianna Kendig · Rating 3 out of 5]

(LL)
The book was fine. Nothing really surprising or interesting from the last book before the super special finale to the series.

[Laura Rayner]

Claudia used to think that Alan Gray was immature, goofy, and not to be trusted . . . and now she's dating him.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book the Twelfth: In which Caludia is a bitch to poor adorkable Alan Gray and the series comes to a close.

Whew. Last regular BSCult book ever. Sad. But one of my favorites, mostly because I just love Alan.

So CK and A Diddy have been dating. Instead of being cool about it, CK is a bitch and all embarrassed because A Diddy is an adorkable goofball and she's so sophisticated with her sheep earrings and watermelon outfits. I guess goofy jokes, unlike sheep, are not very in right now. Are sheep in right now? I don't know, and Caludia is not around anymore to tell me. Sigh. So anyway, CK's all bummed, especially since K. Ron is acting more like herself and trying to strong-arm CK into dumping poor A Diddy. Being awesome the way he is, A Diddy tries his best to behave himself on a group date. Not one to ever be satisfied, CK is bummed because "good" A Diddy is boring. She wants him to be somewhere in between Classic A Diddy and Proper Lord Alan of the House of Gray. Bitch. Let the poor boy be himself. Blah.

In the side plot, CK, the world's worst student, is teaching English to immigrants and somehow doing a good job. According to the Cult by-laws, being stupid means you're a good teacher because you know how not to learn. Or something. Whatevs.

In conclusion, Caludia is a bitch and A Diddy is awesome. You'd think I'd hate this pairing, but I think it's cute for some reason. And so, we bid farewell to the BSCult and look forward to the Graduation Day Super Special.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Claudia's disaster date was with Alan Gray. Apparently, he changed and was no longer the practical joker and pest he was in eighth grade. But Claudia was on edge during her dates with him because she was afraid that he would go back to being a pest and practical joker. Also, she was afraid of her friends finding out she was dating Alan Gray, so did not let him walk her home or go to a restaurant with her. On top of all that, she did not seem romantically interested in him. I wished the focus of the book had been less about boys and more about libraries.

Claudia and Erica Blumberg got summer jobs working in the children's department at Stoneybrook Public Library. The Library had an extremely lenient, or possibly nonexistent, unattended child policy. Often parents would leave their young children at storytime while they browsed the adult section. One day, the children's librarian decided to have the children paint a mural during the regularly scheduled storytime without informing the children's parents. "Fortunately, none of the parents seemed to mind that some of their kids looked like walking rainbows." The plot reminded me a lot of Mary Anne and the Library Mystery.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic books for young girls getting into reading!! Great stories about friendship and life lessons. The characters deal with all sorts of situations and often find responsible solutions to problems.

I loved this series growing up and wanted to start my own babysitting business with friends. Great lessons in entrepreneurship for tweens.

The books may be dated with out references to modern technology but the story stands and lessons are still relevant.

Awesome books that girls will love! And the series grows with them! Terrific Author!

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, this book is titled Claudia and the Disaster Date. All 3 of Claudia's books have to do with guys/dates. Claudia is more than that. This book is more than just her dating. I just hate that they ended this spinoff by defining Claudia (who was always my favorite character growing up) by what guy she dates.

[Syrah]

nice

[Jasmine · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok not the best book in the world