i was never crazy about this one. apparently practical joke fever has swept over the youth of stoneybrook, perhaps inspired by a slapstick film festival at the town library. i really enjoy the idea that every child in stoneybrook is anxiously anticipating a free film at the public library. how quaint. anyway, the kids find the films hilarious & start yukking it up with joy buzzers, whoopee cushions, water-squirting flowers, et al. claudia is less amused by all the practical joking going on (perhaps she finds these types of antics less sophisticated than dressing up like mrs. frizzle or a human watermelon), but no matter.a new-ish client named mrs. sobak (this is the sobaks' first appearance as an official client in the series, but in a previous book, logan answered the phone to find mr. sobak on the other end, perplexed as to why a boy was answering the phone at a BSC meeting, so perhaps the sitters have sat for the sobaks before) calls, looking for a regular sitter for her eight-year-old daughter, betsy. some of the sitters are confused, because they know there are kids in betsy's neighborhood (she lives next door to the rodowskys--i'm surprised the street isn't a smoking crater in the ground by now, once she & jackie put their heads together) that sit regularly for her. this is before the sitters have a lock on the child care for every family in town, i guess. but they shrug it off & claudia takes the job.at school, some of betsy's FORMER regular sitters corner claudia to inform her that betsy loves to play practical jokes. they basically say that they will pray for claudia's health & well-being, but they never expect to see her alive again. claudia is distressed by this information, but she's an experienced sitter who has never yet met a kid she couldn't handle.at her first job with betsy, claudia notes that she is wearing one of her father's old white dress shirts, decorated with sequins. i thought that was such an awesome fashion idea when i was a kid. unfortunately, my dad worked at an oil refinery & mostly wore harley-davidson t-shirts. i often stole his shirts (which hung to my knees because he was 6'4"), but i didn't dare sew sequins on to them. betsy sounds like she's dressed like mork from "mork & mindy", crossed with dennis the menace. mrs. sobak hustles out the door & betsy starts right in with her jokes. i believe she does the ol' plastic fly in the fake ice cube gag, & there's something with disappearing ink that gets splattered all over claudia's sequined shirt. eventually claudia suggests that they play outside, thinking betsy will be flummoxed when she's cut off from her supply of practical joke merchandise in the house.what claudia doesn't know is that betsy has messed with the swing set somehow. claudia suggests a swinging contest, & betsy is so excited, she forgets that claudia is sitting on a trick swing. the chain gives way in mid-arc & claudia loses her battle with gravity, breaking her leg in the process. thankfully, betsy is good at following instructions, & she runs off to call an ambulance & to alert dawn, who is sitting next door, to pinch-sit while claudia is rushed to the hospital.the whole rest of the book is kind of boring. claudia has to stay in the hospital for a ludicrously long time--like a week. i don't get this. what can they do for her besides set the bone & put on a cast? it's not like she had an infection or internal injuries. she has to keep her leg elevated, but she can do that at home. even when she's released into the care of her family, she isn't allowed to go to school for another week or two. & she obviously can't babysit. during her time off from babysitting, she starts wondering what would have happened if she'd broken her arm or hand instead & imperiled her art career. as if no artist in the history of the world has ever broken their hand, arm, or wrist at some point. as if perfectly nimble, uninjured hands & arms are crucial for making art. i do silkscreening, sewing, & other kids of art, even though i have rheumatoid arthritis & have broken a few fingers. it's painful a lot of the time, but whatever. but we need this delusional behavior on claudia's part to have our big A-plot conflict: will claudia quit the babysitters club?the B-plot involves betsy continuing to play practical jokes on the other babysitters that step in the fulfill claudia's sitting commitments. the BSC can hardly even believe that mrs. sobak dares to call them with more jobs after ther daughter broke claudia's leg, but they sit for betsy anyway & betsy zings them with dribble glasses & rubber rats & such forth. kristy finally gets betsy to realize that practical jokes aren't all fun & games by tricking her with a bloody rubber thumb at the movies & embarrassing her in front of her classmates. they have a heart-to-heart about claudia's broken leg, betsy goes to claudia's house to apologize, claudia realizes that she misses a lot of the kids she sits for, her cast comes off, & she starts sitting again. kind of boring.
What do You think about Claudia And The Bad Joke (1996)?
Claudia decides she is done with this baby-sitting shit when a child breaks her leg. Don't quit, Claudia--Kristy will break your other one!I remembered this from childhood as the "this is what happens when you break your leg" book, entranced, then, with process details about the ambulance, hospital stay, recuperation, and cast removal. In my reread, I was surprised to find that the emphasis was actually on Claudia’s inner turmoil as she considers dropping out of the club because sitting is too dangerous.Meanwhile, the baby-sitters wage a "practical joke war" on the unrepentant prankster Betsy Sobak in an attempt to teach her not to practical joke. I gotta tell you, if breaking someone's leg didn't do it, escalation is surely not the answer. Except it sort of is, in this book. I don't know. I hate practical jokes.My main problem with this book is that it seems like there’s no particular reason for it to be a Claudia story. They do manage a character-based justification for her fears (what if she’d hurt her arm or her hand? her art would suffer!), but the obsessive fear itself seems a little out of character for Claudia. I mean, I’d expect it more from Dawn, who has a yellow streak a mile wide; Mary Anne, who overthinks everything; or even Kristy, because it would be delightfully ironic from the usually intrepid tomboy. Claudia is the only one, in fact, who has no particular established relationship with fear.Lingering Questions: So nothing happens in the two months between Claudia's accident and when she gets her cast off? It would be cool if, to give a sense of the scale of the time frame, the next two books had Claudia in a cast.Real Timeline: This is where I figure out how old the baby-sitters would be if each story year advanced the timeline. This one actually covers 3 months (Claudia recuperates in the hospital at home for a total of one month, then gets her cast off two months later.) Happily, there is room for a time skip here since the previous book takes place in November and the next takes place in April (still in eighth grade). It's not super easy to reconcile this with an unmentioned holiday season and cold weather (and the accident does happen while playing outside), but whatever. I'm surprised it works at all. Though it would have been cooler if they actually showed the scale of the three months by having Claudia in a cast during other characters' books.
—Laura Hughes
Claudia had been warned that the new kid she was going to sit was a joker. It turned out that she was, and a quite mean one, too. Claudia had managed to survive some of Betsy Sobak's tricks when she fell from a swing and hit the ground real hard. Who knew that the girl's joke could end up breaking the sitter's leg? The accident made Claudia think that baby-sitting might be too dangerous for her, and she just didn't want to risk her artistic carrier. The rest of the club member had to do something to teach Betsy a lesson, and so the joke war began.I could really spend the whole holiday reading BSC books, honest to goodness. I love the girls and their friendship. And all the baby-sitting tasks sound like heaps of fun -I actually feel jealous that I never got to do such thing!
—Halida
