Stacey and the Mystery at the Mall

The Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries #14

by Ann M. Martin

The Baby-sitters are all taking a class at SMS where they are assigned jobs at the Washington Mall. How cool - going to "school" at the mall!

But soon Stacey learns that some pretty bad things are going on there. Besides the regular shoplifting problems, expensive things are being stolen, too. and then Stacey has a big scare when she's working at Toy Town.

Is it safe to shop at Washington Mall anymore? The Baby-sitters aren't sure - but they're going to make sure this mystery is solved!

Genres: Mystery, Middle Grade, Childrens, Fiction, Young Adult, Contemporary, Friendship

147 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

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 1 out of 5]

this is my first time reading this book!

this book is a piece of work, even compared to some of the other ridiculous Ellen Miles-penned mysteries. for their short takes class (these few-week-long electives they have at SMS) all the baby-sitters have to get a job at the mall. this is preposterous concept #1: EVERY student in the school taking the same short takes class at the same time, plus the class involves the MIDDLE SCHOOL students getting JOBS at REAL businesses. conveniently all the baby-sitters get jobs at THE SAME MALL, with each job catered to their one-dimensional personalities, which is preposterous concept #2 (see the list of jobs later in this review). gradually they realize that there is a family of small children living at the mall (and not in a fun, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler way) AND the mall manager is scheming to steal huge items from mall stores, because he had been too liberal with his use of money when he started. those are preposterous concepts #3-4. oh and in an inane subplot (that is slightly less preposterous than the other plot points in this book) the baby-sitters help the mall create a day care for parents that are shopping and/or mall employees looking to drop off their kids somewhere.

highlights:
-introduction of short takes classes, which is imporant to me because I love short takes book Claudia and the First Thanksgiving. stacey DOES mention that one of the short takes classes is the eggbert plotline depicted in Mary Anne + 2 Many Babies, so maybe that was one, but it short takes was never mentioned in that book by name.
-the mall manager is named mr. morton, and I couldn't get the song out of my head.

hello, cat. you look good.

lowlights/nitpicks:
-dawn is looking forward to coming home in a few months -- wasn't this supposed to be a 6 month trip? it's definitely been almost a year by this point.
-why does stacey's boss april only have one part time employee who only comes on weekends? she obviously needs a ton of help, but she's the only person working there, plus she's watching her toddler all the time. ridiculous.
-mal does storytime. it's ON A STAGE, intended for ALL AGES, and she doesn't get to do any songs or rhymes, just reading books that were picked out for her. also kids get dropped off at the toy store to play and the parents just leave them with no supervision while they shop. I'm having some serious public library bad memories right here.
-there's a lot of shoplifting happening, and they think they've solved it when they catch a teen "gang" of shoplifters. dumb agist idiots, when the big shoplifting was being carried out by the freakin' mall manager!
-the kids who have been living at the mall explain their story: their mom got sick (had to be admitted to a hospital) and their aunt was supposed to come care for them, but she never did. they didn't want to worry their mom so they lived in the apartment until they got evicted, at which point they went to live at the mall. they knew mr. morton was stealing from the stores and he threatened them, at which point they pulled the fire alarm so they could hide from him. after the bsc members call the cops the cops tell the kids that their mom miraculously is out of the hospital and is doing fine. WHAT? HUH? I SERIOUSLY DON'T UNDERSTAND ANY PART OF THIS STORY AT ALL. most preposterous thing to ever happen in a bsc book, and I'm including all of the ones where the baby-sitters solve mysteries and upstage the local police officers.

mall jobs:
-stacey: toy town
-claud: artist's exchange
-kristy: mall security (also preposterous)
-logan: casa grande
-mal: bookcenter
-mary anne: critters (pet supply)
-jessi: cinema world (movie theater) -- what, they don't have a ballet supplies store at the mall?

claudia outfit:
-"Claudia, for example, had wrapped a neon-pink bandana around her head, and she was wearing a humongous pair of overalls over an ancient striped T-shirt."

april (stacey's boss):
-"I looked up to see a tall woman with long, curly red hair, an armful of silver bracelets, and a big smile. She was wearing a white blouse and a swirling purple skirt that looked as if it were made out of silk."

outfits for when they're pitching the day care center:
-logan: blue-and-red striped tie, white shirt, corduroy jacket
-claudia and stacey: conservative dresses, nice pumps, traditional accessories (no wild jewelry or wacky hairstyles)
-mary anne: navy-blue dress with a white collar
-jessi and mal: skirts with new sweaters

snacks in claudia's room:
-hersheys miniatures under her bed
-cheetos paws (n.s.)
-cookies sweetened with fruit juice (n.s.)

[Ciara · Rating 5 out of 5]

don't let the five-star rating fool you. this book is TERRIBLE. but it's so terrible that it became amazing. that seems to be the case with a lot of the mystery books.

so, picture it: i have a cold, i feel like crap, i'm laying in bed & reading this book to pass the time while a blizzard rages outside. i'm muddling my way through the basic plot: it's another short takes class. this one is called "project work". all the students at stoneybrook middle school are going to be spending three days a week at after-school jobs. this is a flagrant violation of child labor laws, as no student at stoneybrook middle school is over the age if 14. but maybe this is irrelevant because the students will be laboring without pay. which also seems illegal. it also raises a lot of questions about unemployment levels in the stoneybrook area. it seems that the local businesses have a LOT of openings for unpaid barely-teenage part-time employees.

kristy acknowledges that the project work thing is going to take a bite out of the time that club members have for babysitting. which brings up another question: is it legal for a school to require its students to commit to a project that involves this much after-school time? then again, this is the same school that hosts a mandatory ski weekend in vermont. i think stoneybrook may be a law unto itself.

anyway, kristy suggests that all the sitters take jobs at the washington mall so their schedules will coordinate. doesn't this plan seem like it would make the "time to babysit" issue even worse? if they had staggered schedules, they could take more afternoon jobs, right? but then we wouldn't have a handy plot contrivance that allows every member of the babysitters club to be at the mall everyday. so let's move on.

mary anne takes a job at critters, which sells pet toys & such forth. logan decides to work at casa grande, a mexican place in the food court. mallory gets a job at bookcentre...a bookstore. jessi is an usher at the movie theatre. claudia is working at the art supply store. kristy, hilariously, has signed up to work on mall security. & stacey signed up to work at toy town, a toy store. zingy's, the cool boutique where dawn bought her famous crinoline skirt that went over so badly with logan's cousin lewis, was her first choice, but they aren't participating in the project work program. so she goes with toy town because she buys stuff for her kid-kit there a lot.

her boss is a nice woman named april, who often bring her two-year-old son, sandy, to work with her. which again seems like a violation of some kind of law. as an aside, i rent from a company that owns a few different historic residences in lawrence, & my landlord employs a secretary to handle calls during business hours. she brings her kid to work with her. so when you go in to sign a lease or something, there's a toddler running around, ripping up leases & smearing mcnugget grease all over people's rent checks. i know affordable child care is just a pipe dream for a lot of people, but there comes a point when having a kid underfoot is not safe for customers, kids, or business priorities.

stacey's first order of business is to basically babysit sandy for free & therefore learn nothing about how to run a business, which is ostensibly the point of the project work class. she does learn that there has been more shoplifting than usual going on at the mall. she gets REALLY, REALLY concerned about this. she panics constantly over what might happen if she catches a shoplifter who then ends up being armed. because i know that when i'm packing heat, my first stop is always the toy store so i can shoplift a superball & a barbie outfit. she also freaks out constantly over what might happen if a shoplifter--armed to the teeth, as all shoplifters are--developed some sort of beef with little sandy. april is pretty much oblivious to all of this. she's just like, "try to keep an eye out for shoplifters, & here's how to discreetly call for security if you see something suspicious." meanwhile, stacey is having nightmares about getting riddled with bullets after seeing someone pocket a mr. potato head.

but a week or two into the job, mall security arranges a "sting operation" & manages to arrest a gang of teenagers that had been doing most of the shoplifting. mary anne is all like, "gang? do they have guns?" yes, & they're drinking their juice in the hood in washington mall. kristy clarifies that they are not a gang-gang. they're a gang, as in a group, & now the shoplifting should be less of an issue. & it is. but some weird stuff is going missing--toothpaste from the drugstore. towels & children's size jeans from the department store. & some big things are disappearing too, at night. things like TVs & treadmills.

when mallory arranges a story hour at the bookstore, she notices a few grubby-looking blond kids. she mentions them to the other sitters for no real reason other than that she saw one of the kids sneak some cookies from another story hour attendee & wolf them down. for this reason, she thinks the kids might be stealing. & somehow this motivates jessi to announce that it looks like someone has been sleeping in the movie theatre overnight. can i just say that i have worked at several retail establishments in my day & if it ever looked like anyone was sleeping in them overnight, it would have warranted a lot more than a, "by the way, feel free to disregard, but maybe someone's been sleeping in here. carry on!" somehow the babysitters decide that the three grubby blond kids are living in the mall.

now, when i got to this part, i literally jumped up & thought to myself, "YES! THIS IS AWESOME! THIS IS THAT BATSHIT CRAZY BOOK WHERE THE KIDS ARE LIVING IN THE MALL!" i had kind of forgotten that that was ever a plot in a babysitters club book. & then i noted that the very next line was, "but what about the thefts--TVs, treadmills? that was serious. far more serious than some kids living in the mall."

hold the phone. WHAT COULD BE MORE SERIOUS THAN KIDS LIVING IN THE MOTHERFUCKING MALL? well-adjusted, healthy kids with stable, happy home lives do not just go live at the mall. where are the kids' parents? why aren't they going to school? THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SOME DUMB TREADMILL.

but first, we need a dumb babysitting subplot. i guess stacey has tired of her role as part-time unpaid sandy-sitter, & she suggests that the mall get a day care center--both for the mall employees, & for mall patrons that have heretofore just been dumping their kids off at the toy store or story hour & letting them hang out unsupervised while they shop. the sitters pitch the idea to the mall manager, mr. morton, & he goes for it. he lets them have an empty storefront for half-price, & a bunch of other store owners pitch in to contribute funds & supplies. okay, boring, let's move on.

one day at work, stacey goes into the back room to look for a doll & finds a man wearing a ski mask back there. he runs away, but stacey is freaked. & convinced he is involved somehow with the missing electronics & whatnot.

another day everyone is at work & the fire alarm goes off. everyone has to vacate the mall. afterward, kristy notices that she never sees the three blond kids on the security tapes anymore. she becomes very concerned about them. this somehow causes stacey to have her deus ex machina moment: the blond kids are living at the mall. which means they are there when the big ticket items are being stolen. they find out who is behind it. in fact, they find out that mr. morton is behind it. stacey deduces this from the fact that mall is struggling financially but mr. morton is so nice & wants to say yes to everyone--to the day care, to benefit concerts, to discount programs. his generosity destroyed the mall's bottom line & now he has to steal treadmills & sell them on the black market to keep the mall afloat. the kids know about it, so he threatened them to keep them quiet. they pulled the fire alarm to buy time to find better hidey-holes at the mall.

the sitters decide to go to the mall & look for the kids. they find them taking a nap in the yet-to-be-opened day care center. the kids confirm stacey's theory & explain that their mom got really sick & had to go to the hospital. their aunt was supposed to come take care of them, but she never showed. they ran out of money, the utilities were shut off, & the landlord was going to evict them. so they moved into the mall. they just recently moved to the area, so they haven't been enrolled in school yet. every now & again, they would take coins from the fountain to pay for bus fare to visit their mom in the hospital. they never told her what happened because they didn't want to worry her.

THIS MAKES NO SENSE. i wish i had a bigger caps lock because, guys, THIS MAKES NO SENSE! why didn't the aunt show up? why didn't the mom know that the aunt hadn't shown up? didn't the kids have another relative or adult friend to call upon? don't you have to get several months behind on your utility bills before they are turned off? isn't eviction a complicated, drawn out process involving numerous court dates? if the mom was actually in the hospital for this long--for months--how were the kids feeding themselves while they were still living in the apartment? i could go on, but seriously. when i think about everything i know as an adult that makes this scenario so incredibly unlikely, my brain starts to melt. but i guess it's a nice fantasy for little kids.

kristy decides they have to call the police. which they do. mr. morton is arrested for the big thefts, & the police learn that the grubby kids' mom is almost better & ready to be discharged from the hospital. they will receive some help from social service agencies to get a new apartment & get back on their feet. apparently no one is going to be prosecuted for child neglect or endangerment. "it's a happy ending for everyone," the babysitters chortle, "except mr. morton!" who was just stealing because he was nice! not that i see how a few benefit concerts & a child care are going to break the bank of a healthy retail establishment, or how the sale of a few black market microwaves is going to fill the gap. not that it matters because this book is so wacktacular. it's the standard against which all other wack must be measured.

[Rachel Brand · Rating 3 out of 5]

I vaguely remember reading this one as a kid, but had forgotten how ridiculous the storyline is. Tbh most of the BSC mysteries are absurd but the one, where the mall manager has overspent on his budget by being too nice to people and helping them out and starts stealing treadmills to sell to make up the deficit?? It's like the ghostwriter was too scared to come up with a real villain. The kids living in the mall were an interesting addition but the book would have been way more interesting if the BSC had teemed up with the kids to solve the mystery instead of just turning them over to the police. Also, of course Kristy is a mall cop. Sidenote, I'm sure I was 14 when I did a week long 9-5 work experience at a daycare, so a bunch of 13yos working a few hours after school at a shop for work experience doesn't seem too unrealistic.

[Jessica Aitoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the last BSC mystery book I read as a child, #'s 15-36 will be brand new! I have really enjoyed the disassociation of reading these on my lunch break.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

1) I had to skip Kristy and the Copycat because my ebook copy was very poorly formatted and missing sentence fragments and I could not handle it. I hate skipping books!

2) Okay, all the implausibility of Stacey and the Mystery at the Mall aside, what I'm really obsessed with is the lack of Robert. Does this take place before #70, which was published December 1993 (vs this book's April 1994) ? Even #73, which was released the month before this book, mentions Robert. And yet, "In a word, Mary Anne is loveable. Maybe that’s why she’s the only member of the club who has a steady boyfriend." WHAT ABOUT ROBERT??!?!?!?!

3) I started writing this review yesterday so I don't remember what else I wanted to say. Though a little silly, it's a very enjoyable mystery, by maybe it's because of the lack of baby-sitting (lol oop) and the fact that this book mostly takes place in the mall, which is rare for a BSC book. Yes, it's a little far-fetched, but I still really liked it. You know, aside from Robert's omission.

[Devon · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are so many plot points I could complain about with this one, but my main complaint somehow is that I kept forgetting this was a Stacey book because it literally didn't matter who the narrator was because there was no focus on anything except these mall jobs.

I did think it was a fun storyline (although more fever dream than reality, honestly). Is the ghostwriter just ripping off various children's books now and seeing what sticks?

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book, even though there was the problem of the title having the exact same name as two other books: Stacey and the Mystery Money and Stacey and the Mystery of Stoney Brook. I think Ann M Martin definitely could have been more creative, naming this book “Stacey and the Mall Theft” or something more relevant. If Stacey was actually SHOPPING at the mall then maybe the title could make more sense. But Stacey is working at the mall along with the BSC and basically breaking the child labor law. I mean, Ann M Martin didn’t even try to come up with an excuse for the disregard of basic LAWS. The school is sponsoring this which bothers me even more. Stacey works at Toy Town, a toy store. Toy Town is probably a version of Toys R Us, but any references to real stores are scarce. All the other BSC members work at places that I don’t even think BELONG at a mall. Claudia helps out at Artist Exchange, which is Ann M Martin’s version of Michaels, the crafts store, or maybe Joanne, a fabric and pattern store. Kristy does mall security work. All I have to say to that is, “umm...” Mallory works at Book Center, Ann M Martin’s version of Barnes and Noble or even Books A Million. Logan cooks burritos at Casagrande, which is basically Ann M Martin’s Taco Casa. Jessi works at Cinema Works which is a movie theater. I think movie theaters at malls are separate but I don’t know exactly. Mary Anne finds a job at Critters, which is Petsmart without the pets. There is other stuff in the story too, but it’s kind of silly. The main lesson from this book is: do not disregard child labor laws, even if it turns out to be a fun plot for a book.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun. I remember reading this way back when and thinking how much fun it would be to work at a mall. Fast forward (ahem ahem) years, and now all I can think is OMG those store managers who have to train and supervise 13 year olds for 2 hours x 3 days a week.

I'm also unclear about their plan for the day care centre. The BSC members keep focusing on the need to raise rent, and the mall manager helped address that by offering the various stores a generous discount. But setting up a day care requires so much more than rent? How will they afford to pay staff to supervise the kids? Who will manage the insurance? Coz yikes, I can imagine all the insurance and liability stuff that goes into watching kids. Who will handle administration and registration? By the end of the story, one of the store managers quits his day job to take over as full time day care manager, but that only addresses one small bit of all the things needed before such a centre can become operational. Augh!

Anyway, adulthood sucks, and this made me miss being a teen again and just thinking about how much fun it would be to work at a mall... :p

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deals with some major issues, but falls flat at the end, when everything is tied up nicely with a bow, and the upshot is basically to trust in the institutions. Even when the problem is very explicitly stated that the police and social services are likely to be more of a threat than a help to kids in this particular kind of situation, ultimately, they still wind up just saving the day and everything is great. Definitely more could have been done around the Nice Guy character. Also, the equating of shoplifting and petty theft with danger and threats of violence is rather problematic.

[Sayo -bibliotequeish-]

As a kid my best friends sister had the whole BSC series on a book shelf in her room. I thought she was so grown up. And I envied this bookshelf. And would often poke my head into that room just to look at it.
And when I read BSC, I felt like such a grown up.
And while I might have still been a little too young to understand some of the issues dealt with in these books, I do appreciated that Ann M. Martin tackled age appropriate issues, some being deeper than others, but still important.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is it just me or do some of these mystery books have some amazing political subtweeting? The last one was all about banned books, and now this one is basically a scathing criticism of the numerous ways the United States fails its people when it comes to childcare.

This was beyond ridiculous but at least it was fun.

[Liesl]

Some of the Short Takes classes sound great in theory, but the actual practice of letting middle schoolers work for two hours at a mall is a horrible idea.

I loved the scene with Mal's story hour at the bookstore, though. It felt very true-to-life.

[Anita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice book. A fun read. I filed it under the prompt read a book with a symbol on the edges for the hpootp 2024 reading challege. (i used the apple for apple paperbacks). I also used it for the action prompt read a book as you become more anchient Hpootp 2024 as i finished it on my birthday.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was so boring I almost fell asleep in the middle. Why you so lame, mystery books? Why you so lame?

[Christina]

Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: https://www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blo...

[Lianna Kendig · Rating 2 out of 5]

(LL)
The premise had to be so outlandish for this to happen (revealed at the end), so it really took me out of the story.
It was obvious who was stealing the big stuff...kind of lame too.

[Shifaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an enjoyable mystery 😁

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the shopping mall setting in this book! I listened to vaporwave music as I read, which greatly enhanced the experience.

[Hayley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really think social services need to look into how many hours a week these gals are working.

[Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was pretty boring. The mysteries are hit and miss I find. The girls all get to job shdow for school even Jessi and Mallory even though they are in 6th grade. They all get jobs at the Mall. So it's basically a co-op. The fact that it takes place after school also makes no sense to me. Shouldn't it take place during school hours. Like every morning or afternoon? That's how they work at our schools. Anyway Stacey is at Toy Town, Claudia an art store, Mary Anne a pet store, Jessi the movie theatre, Mallory the bookstore and hilariously Kristy is a mall cop. They soon learn there is a shoplifting problem at the Mall in all the stores. They think they catch a gang of teenagers doing it but soon learn things are still going missing. Big items like TVs, VCRs and treadmills and they go missing after the Mall is closed. There is also evidence someone is sleeping at the Mall. The food court kitchens notice someone is cooking, toothbrushes and combs are stolen and found left in the bathroom. So it's sort of two mysteries in one really. But this is sort of boring and I could barely pay attention to it. Hopefully the next one is better. These mysteries are just weird though.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another absolutely ridiculous BSC mystery, yet I've always loved it. The ending really is absurd, but somehow that just adds to the charm of it.

I wish my school had done these Short Takes classes, though - they always sound so awesome!

[Vickie Noel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smart work

Stacey and her friends are at it again, creating solutions and solving mysteries. This time, something strange is going on at the mall and fingers are being pointed to all but the culprit. Join the babysitters as they unravel the mystery at the mall.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very unrealistic book, but I enjoyed it when it came out and wanted to work in a bookstore too like Mallory did. However, the ghost writer forgot the name of the two bookstores at Washington mall from Karen’s Wish

[Maria Elmvang · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the better mysteries. I'd love to have had Short Take classes like the ones at SMS when I went to school!

[Donna]

(I must have owned these 4 in a pack, I remember each of them vividly, and I know I didn't own all the mysteries...)

[Melenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved these books as a child

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

20/25
4 original
4 good topic
4 fast read
4 plot
4 opinion

[Dianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

"A book that came out the year you were born"

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was good

[Ruth]

I liked this book because they find out who was shoplifting