Karen's Reindeer

Baby-Sitters Little Sister #116

by Ann M. Martin

When Karen spots a reindeer in the neighborhood, she makes up a special plan to reunite him with Santa.

Genres: Christmas, Childrens

112 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1999

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

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was sweet. Karen sees a reindeer and no one else did. So she confided in her stepbrother Charlie and he took her seriously. Karen wanted to help him get back to the North Pole. On Christmas morning in her stocking, she got a note from the reindeer thanking her. I’m pretty sure Charlie wrote it, but it was still sweet, I love Karen books about Christmas

[Em's Adventures · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeez this was kind of intense! It got to the point when I thought it would be better to have no presents at all then to go to the extreme lengths that Karen went to in order to get on Santa's "nice list"for Christmas.
I remember thinking I needed to be especially good during Christmas and birthday months but would never have thought of Santa holding me accountable to every little detail.

[Looney · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

[JH · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very cute! I feel that the authors of these late-series Karen books did a really good job showcasing a precocious little girl who is obviously dealing with some mental health issues (OCD maybe) due to so much turmoil in her home life. Karen’s charting of her behavior from good to naughty throughout the Christmas season is a prime example of this. I love the character of Karen, and I’m so glad things worked out for her in the end.