#53: Kristy for President
“You could probably say school is not her best subject.” - Kristy about Claudia, page 2
Welcome to Stoneybrook Middle School, where a disgusting school lunch inspires Kristy to run for class president of the eighth grade. (Well, that and the chance to take down Grace Blume, “one of Cokie Mason’s cronies.”) She also gets pumped up by all the members of the BSC telling her how great she’d be and that she should run. Mallory pipes up that she’s going to run for secretary of the sixth grade, but no one pays much attention. Claudia has a ton of slogan and logo ideas and is going to be Kristy’s campaign manager. Jessi is going to manage Mallory’s campaign.
“I had to run, and I had to win, and I had to do it to save the eighth grade.” - Kristy, page 53
As the BSC begins working on Kristy’s campaign, her competition solidifies: Grace, plus Alan Gray (ew), and Pete Black. Meanwhile, I found another typo (principle instead of principal) and I remain incensed that I never got to ghostwrite or copyedit for The Baby-sitters Club:
Turns out that the SMS elections include a Campaign Day, during which candidates will set up booths to interact with the voters, as well as a debate and two opportunities to give speeches. Kristy is starting to worry about how she’s going to do all of this campaign stuff, coach the Krushers, babysit and run the BSC, and keep up with her school work all at the same time - especially because more and more campaign meetings keep popping up. But she’s Kristy, right? She can do everything.
Or caaaaan she? (She can’t.) She realizes that she may be getting outmaneuvered by Grace and Alan in terms of campaigning (they aren’t focused on issues, they just want to be liked - Pete Black is the only other candidate taking things seriously). She has a hard time getting her homework done. And she even has to cancel Krushers practice because there’s not enough time in the day. Ruh roh. THEN she fails a science test and doesn’t have time to study for her re-take. THEN she forgets to write her speech until the night before. She ends up pulling an all-nighter to study and wonders if being class president would mean giving up some of her responsibilities with the BSC.
Her speech ends up going well, but unfortunately she fails her retake science test and is mortified. The baby-sitting side plot in this book is all about Jamie Newton learning how to ride his bike. He gets frustrated that he can’t yet keep up with the other kids in the neighborhood, so he tries to rush through the training process and he takes off his training wheels too early - then gets annoyed by the fact that he isn’t making progress. The lesson an older boy teaches him? You can only do one thing at a time, and if you try to do too much at once you won’t succeed. Hmm, can we think of anyone else who needs this lesson? [Side note: there is absolutely no mention of a helmet or any knee/elbow pads during Jamie’s bike-learning. Oh, 1992.]
Eventually Kristy figures it out. At the debate she announces that she is no longer a candidate for class president and says why. Everyone seems to respect her decision. And everything works out fine! Pete Black wins the eighth-grade election, so the class won’t be left in the hands of a TOTAL moron. Oh, and Mallory wins the election for sixth-grade secretary. Noice.
Tangent #1: I feel like Kristy is a hybrid of Elizabeth Warren and Ron Swanson and I’d honestly be fine if she was the current president of our country.
Tangent #2: I feel like the lesson in this book is one that a lot of us (including me) should take to heart. YOU CAN’T DO EVERYTHING! And it’s okay! It’s better to do fewer things but enjoy them and do them well than to try to do too much and be stressed out all the time and not do them well. Class dismissed.
