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This week is Baby-Sitters Club Week over at My Friend Amy. The BSC books were my absolute favorite when I was younger, and I decided to do a memory post about my first experiences with the series.

I don't know exactly how I got started on them - I think it was just by coincidence that I picked one out of the shelves at the local library. This was in kindergarten. I started with the Baby-Sitters Little Sister series (featuring Karen, Kristy's younger stepsister). I began by reading slowly, savoring the fact that I was reading a chapter book (!) and stumbling over all the hard words.

First grade. I continued reading the Little Sister series. My teacher thought I was "advanced" in reading and told me to pick books from the third grade reading shelf. I saw "Kristy's Big Day," one of the original BSC books, and thought "Hey! I read these books! Let me try this one out."

Well, it proved to be harder then I expected. I hardly recognized any of the characters, and back then, the font was so small and the words were so big! I gave up and went back to the world of Karen and her friends.

In second grade, I was gobbling up the Little Sister series. I would go to the library every week and come out with a teetering stack of ten new books to read. I read book after book about Karen's holidays, school events, friends, and more.

And then in third grade, I finally tried the actual BSC books again. They were much easier to read and so much fun! I remember being in awe of how cool all the characters were, and I wished I could be in junior high like them and do all those awesome things like babysit and go shopping and everything. (Just for the record, I have never had a babysitting job in my entire life, even after reading these books.) Fourth grade came and went and I was still reading the books. All my friends had gotten into them too.

In fifth grade, I started moving away from the series and more towards stand-alone books from authors like Sharon Creech and Janet Lee Carey. I still collected the BSC books and read them whenever I could, though.

Now, I own several BSC books, ranging from the very first one to others that were published much later, when new characters had come in and old characters had left. Even now, whenever I see BSC books at a garage sale or something, I'll always get a few just for the fun of reading them. I recently reread my whole collection, and I'm surprised at how timeless they are. Although a lot of the covers and dialogue are so corny, I still immensely enjoy reading them.

So, to all Baby-Sitters Club fans- reread one of the books this week! Go over to Amy's blog and check out the other BSC posts! I'm sure you won't be disappointed :)