Everyone Who Read The Baby-Sitters Club As A Child Must Watch The New Netflix Series

A new version of The Baby-Sitters Club has just hit Netflix, but will adult fans of the original book series enjoy it?

There is just one answer to this question. Yes. 

My qualifications for writing this review: 

• Started reading The Baby-Sitters Club in 1993
• Read approximately 120 of the 131 books in the main series (Once I started high school I was too old and never finished the series)
• Read the majority of spin off books 
• Favourite book: Stacey and the Cheerleaders
• Favourite Baby-Sitter: Obviously Stacey
• Still get "say hello to your friends" and "the brain the brain the centre of the chain" stuck in my head.

I have not picked up a Baby-Sitters Club book in approximately twenty-two years, but that doesn't mean I don't remember everything about them (the details of chapter two are seared into my brain). 

For many of us, Ann M Martin's The Baby-Sitters Club was an introduction to American culture. We learned about things like Halloween, Thanksgiving and I Love Lucy. My fascination with New York and summer camp can be traced back to these books. I became a childhood expert on diabetes, which I pronounced in my head as "dia-beets". Reading the series as a child, I was convinced when I was 12 or 13 I'd magically be old enough to babysit all the neighbourhood kids (this never happened). The idea of a separate phone line going straight to your bedroom was an impossible dream. And who didn't want a close knit group of best friends who you caught up with three times a week?

In my opinion, the new Netflix series is stronger than both the 1990 TV series and the 1995 movie. 

The Netflix show pulls directly from the first eight books of the series, which neither adaptation did previously. They both explored many familiar elements from the books, but essentially told original stories. This time around, the first eight episodes follow the general plot lines of the books, with lots of elements updated for 2020. The final two episodes draw on aspects of one Super Special, but with a fresh storyline.

Fans of the books will immediately recognise our main characters - Kristy Thomas, Mary Anne Spier, Claudia Kishi and Stacey McGill. They are joined along the way by other names you'll know, including familiar babysitting clients and minor characters you'd completely forgotten about. Many of them have been reimagined in different ways to make them more relevant for today's audience. Stoneybrook has become a more diverse town since the 90s, which can only be a good thing. 

The series has been updated for Gen Z, with references to Harry Potter, Game Of Thrones and social media. Everyone carries an iPhone. But the girls aren't making TikTok videos or trying to become influencers, and they decide that sharing fliers around town would be a better solution for getting the BSC name out there than targeted Facebook ads. They still meet three times a week in Claudia's bedroom, with an "iconic" transparent landline phone. And they still deal with both personal and babysitting issues. 

Since the series has been so heavily updated, I was not expecting it to be such a nostalgia hit. And yet in every second scene there were little details I remembered.  The handwriting from their diary entries is used in each episode. Mary Anne's dad is still strict and scary. Karen Brewer is still scared of Morbidda Destiny. Mimi is a delight. Janine is still a know it all. Many of the storylines essentially play out just the way I remembered them. You'll recognise some of the actors playing their parents, with Alicia Silverstone as Kristy's mother really bringing everything together for all 80s and 90s kids. 

Will young girls enjoy it? Honestly, I'm a childless woman in my 30s. I think they would, but what do I know? If you even just read a few of these books in the 90s you'll be sucked in and will quickly forget you're watching a show aimed at pre-teen girls. If you've got kids, make them watch it. See if you can pinpoint the exact moment Kristy is about to introduce Kid Kits before it happens. You will be extremely proud of yourself if you get it right. 

The Baby-Sitters Club is streaming now on Netflix. 

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