Stacey And The Mystery Of Stoneybrook (1990) - Plot & Excerpts
dr. johannsen calls the babysitters club to see if charlotte can stay with stacey for a week while dr. & mr. J are off looking after charlotte's grandfather, who is having surgery. stacey is really excited about having charlotte stay with her. she's always wanted a little sister, & this will be like having one of her favorite charges as a sister for a week. she thinks. she makes a big fuss over fixing up the guest room really nicely for charlotte, with raggedy ann sheets that mrs. mcgill apparently got at a garage sale. this makes me think of the pottery barn episode of "friends," when rachel doesn't want phoebe to find out that she'd been buying all her awesome old vintage housewares from pottery barn, so she tells phoebe that ross got his new sheets at the flea market & phoebe says, "the flea market? jeez, ross, loosen the purse strings." for serious.predictably, charlotte is very reluctant to leave her parents because she's a big crybaby & i don't get why everyone loves charlotte & hates jenny prezzioso. nor do i get why everyone loves karen, or the frighteningly precocious perkins girls, but they all hate on jenny. charlotte kind of bugs. she seems like the kind of girl that would pretend to be afraid of squirrels if she thought it would get her special attention. anyway.there's a big old house in stoneybrook that has never previously been mentioned in the series, & it's about to be torn down. this is BIG NEWS in town, & stacey, bring from NYC, doesn't get it. she finds it all very boring & pastoral, & i agree. nonetheless, to distract charlotte from her concern over her grandfather & her feelings of homesickness, stacey suggests they walk by the house.so they do. & all kinds of "weird" shit goes down. stacey thinks she sees a face in an upstairs window, even though the workmen have gone home for the day. she also sees a huge cloud of flies, "amityville horror"-style. they also hear clanking & banging, like chains being dragged across the floor. maybe it's the ghost of little miss stoneybrook future. that night, both stacey & charlotte have nightmares about the house.the entire BSC is all freaked out by the house. kristy does some sleuthing in some boring old books at watson's house & discovers that all of stoneybrook was apparently built on an ancient burial ground, & the house being torn down was built on the most sacred spot of all. she vows never to look at the creepy old books again, but of course she teels stacey about them & is all too willing to bring them over to stacey's house for a babysitters junior detectives meeting like one day later. how quickly we forget that we creeped ourselves out looking at some boring old map.this also reminds me of the episode of "friends" where monica inherits the dollhouse, & phoebe brings by some items for it. she brings a kleenex that will function as the ghost that haunts the attic, & one of those life-size ceramic dogs that people keep next to their front doors, to be the house dog. when monica questions the ghost, phoebe explains that maybe the house was built on an ancient indian burial site. when monica questions the size of the dog, phoebe suggests that he was warped by nuclear waste. "the house was built on an ancient indian burial site, & nuclear waste? that would never happen," says ross. "apparently you don't know much about the U.S. government," says phoebe. nuclear waste would certainly help explain the perkins girls.charlotte & stacey go back to the house again a few days later (after a really boring storyline in which charlotte gets tonsillitis & has to take penicillin, & stacey contemplates taking the penicillin herself to convince charlotte to take it, even though like 90% of people are allergic to penicillin [or at least practically everyone i know is:], but instead convinces her to dose up by showing charlotte her glucose monitor). this time, they see flames shooting out of a first story window. stacey finds a wheelbarrow conveniently full of rainwater & wheels it over to the window, but the flames are gone by the time she gets there. & the frame isn't hot, there's no burn marks or smell of ash...stacey & charlotte are freaked out.claudia goes to the library to research the old house. she thinks to look up old tax records (claudia?!?) & discovers the former owner's name. she looks in the phone book & discovers that he lives at stoneybrook manor, the old folks' home. at the next meeting, kristy, stacey, charlotte (who has been attending BSC meetings), & claudia volunteer to go meet the old dude.when they meet him, he is very old & frail & he tells them all kinds of creepy ghost stories about his old house. the girls are pretty suspicious & don't know if they should believe him. he tells them not to go watch the house get torn down, because who knows what will happen with all those spirits' graves being disturbed?but the next day, charlotte wants to join the massive crowd that is gathering to see the house get torn down. stacey agrees. everyone is there, because this is stoneybrook & i guess this is the kind of sad shit that passes for entertainment. everyone is enjoying the experience, but then stacey sees the house burst into flame. & astonishingly, no one else seems to notice. stacey feels overwhelmed by the need to go talk to old dude again. she deposits charlotte with claudia & runs all the way to stoneybrook manor, only to be told that old dude has been dead for ten years. just kidding, he died last night. which also reminds me of the episode of "friends" where joey is cast in the independent movie "shutter speed," filming in las vegas, & the story is that awful old chestnut about the dude who meets the girl, & the girl leaves her jacket behind when she goes home, so he goes to return it & is informed that the girl died in some tragic accident ten/twenty years earlier. & everyone is like, "joey's movie is going to flop," but chandler is the only one that accidentally says it to joey & joey gets really mad until he gets to las vegas & finds that the movie couldn't raise funding to complete filming.anyway, old dude left stacey a note confessing that he lied about all the ghost stories.stacey goes to collect charlotte & runs into kristy, sam, & charlie, who talked to the workmen. the workmen had explanations for everything. the clanking stacey heard was old, loose pipes. the first story flames were an acetelyne torch a workman was using to remove the old clawfoot bathtub. the swarm of flies was actually a displaced hive of bees (how did stacey mistake bees for flies? they have both in new york city). they have explanations for everything except 1) the nightmares everyone has been having, 2) the hand claudia felt on her arm one day, & 3) the fire stacey saw as the house was being torn down.charlotte is reunited with her parents. &...scene.so. what the fuck? was stacey actually having a paranormal experience? was claudia, when she felt the hand on her arm? i think i read somewhere that this book inspired ann m. martin to launch the babysitters club mystery series. this is not a good inspiration because this book kind of blows. i guess it beats mallory & the ghost cat, but just barely.
Fantastic books for young girls getting into reading!! Great stories about friendship and life lessons. The characters deal with all sorts of situations and often find responsible solutions to problems.I loved this series growing up and wanted to start my own babysitting business with friends. Great lessons in entrepreneurship for tweens.The books may be dated with out references to modern technology but the story stands and lessons are still relevant.Awesome books that girls will love! And the series grows with them! Terrific Author!
What do You think about Stacey And The Mystery Of Stoneybrook (1990)?
Charlotte Johanssen’s parents leave town for a few days to look after her sick grandfather, leaving Charlotte to stay with Stacey’s family. An old, reputedly haunted house is getting torn down, and Stacey and Charlotte keep seeing and hearing weird things at the house: random flames; a swarm of bees; a face in the window. Charlotte gets sick, and for some low-key entertainment, she and Stacey do research, trying to find out the history of the house. Stacey visits the house’s former owner in a nursing home, and he tells her an elaborate story about the house’s ghostly history. Everyone turns up for the wrecking, and Stacey vividly sees things no one else sees, including a complex multi-sensory hallucination of the house burning down. She returns to the nursing home and discovers that the former owner is dead, but has left her a letter assuring her that nothing he said was really true; he was just entertaining himself. So it all ends on kind of a note of "huh." And "hm." And "nothing was really explained." If this isn’t the most bizarre Baby-Sitters Club book ever, it gives it a run for its money.To give credit where it’s due, the Charlotte-at-Stacey’s backdrop is good. I like Stacey as sort of demi-baby-sitter (her mother is actually in charge), Stacey and Charlotte as sisters, and Charlotte not enjoying it because she’s too worried and scared. Charlotte’s illness heightens both her own misery and the family dynamic. I can see a book working where Stacey gets Charlotte’s mind off of her own or her relative’s sickness by giving her a mystery to solve, but this isn’t that book. The mystery is too weird to meld with the mundane storyline; it never seems quite clear what plane of reality the writer wants to be on. The supernatural has no place in the BSC world, a fact about which I felt extremely strongly as a kid. Sure, the ending doesn’t require the supernatural to be real, but it also doesn’t offer a satisfying logical explanation for the "clues." It’s like watching Lost: all clues, no solution. Anybody can write a mystery like that.Lingering Questions: Has Stacey been eating magic mushrooms?Revised Timeline: Early tenth grade.
—Laura Hughes
