Comic Book / The Baby-Sitters Club

Kristy's Big Idea - In Color!

The Baby-Sitters Club is a Comic-Book Adaptation of the popular Middle Grade Literature book series of the same name under Scholastic's Graphix name. The series started in 2006 and each novel adapts one book. The first four books were originally released in black and white but later rereleased in full color starting in 2015.

While the books are credited to Ann M. Martin as the original writer, each book is adapted and illustrated by the artist, who can be seen as the secondary writer.

The Baby-Sitters Little Sisters series spun off in 2019; like the original series, it focuses on Kristy's younger stepsister Karen Brewer, and can be read by a younger age range. The series was originally illustrated solely by Katy Farina but starting with #9 is also being done by DK Yingst.

Titles in the Main Series:

1. Kristy's Great Idea (2006; color edition 2015) (illus. Raina Telgemeier)
2. The Truth About Stacey (2006; color edition 2015) (illus. Raina Telgemeier)
3. Mary Anne Saves The Day (2007; color edition 2015) (illus. Raina Telgemeier)
4. Claudia and Mean Janine (2008; color edition 2016) (illus. Raina Telgemeier)
5. Dawn and the Impossible Three (2017) (illus. Gale Galligan)
6. Kristy's Big Day (2018) (illus. Gale Galligan)
7. Boy-Crazy Stacey (2019) (illus. Gale Galligan)
8. Logan Likes Mary Anne (2020) (illus. Gale Galligan)
9. Claudia and the New Girl (2021) (illus. Gabriela Epstein)
10. Kristy and the Snobs (2021) (illus. Chan Chau)
11. Good-Bye Stacey, Good-Bye (2022) (illus. Gabriela Epstein)
12. Jessi's Secret Language (2022) (illus. Chan Chau)
13. Mary Anne's Bad Luck Mystery (2022) (illus. Cynthia Yuan Cheng)
14. Stacey's Mistake (2023) (illus. Ellen T. Crenshaw)
15. Claudia and the Bad Joke (2023) (illus. Arley Nopra)
16. Kristy and the Walking Disaster (2024) (illus. Ellen T. Crenshaw)
17. Mallory and the Trouble with Twins (2025) (illus. Arley Nopra)

Titles in the Little Sister Series:

1. Karen's Witch (2019)
2. Karen's Roller Skates (2020)
3. Karen's Worst Day (2020)
4. Karen's Kittycat Club (2021)
5. Karen's School Picture (2022)
6. Karen's Birthday (2023)
7. Karen's Haircut (2023)
8. Karen's Sleepover (2024)
9. Karen's Grandmothers (2024)
10. TBA
11. Karen's Ghost (2025)

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This graphic novel series provides examples of:

• 13 Is Unlucky: Due to several skipped and moved around books, Mary Anne's Bad Luck Mystery is now book #13 in the series, where the plot centers around Mary Anne thinking she's been jinxed by someone else.
• Adaptation Amalgamation:
  • Dawn and the Impossible Three contains plot events from Mallory's first book, Hello, Mallory (minus her meeting Jessi, who does not show up until three books later): this covers her struggle to join (and refusal by the members) and finally her acceptance into the club.
  • Logan Likes Mary-Anne combines its plot with the other big event from Hello, Mallory by having Jessi Ramsey meet Mallory and them become friends; in this case, it's when she applies for the club alongside Logan. Her arrival is only lightly discussed both because the story is more focused on Mary Anne's plot and because Jessi (and the Ramseys as a whole) don't suffer through the level of racial prejudice they did in the original series in the more diverse Stoneybrook of the comics.
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • The first artist, Raina Telgemeier, chose to have Claudia's first book be Claudia and Mean Janine rather than Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls as she felt it gave more insight into Claudia's character and family. Other books have happened earlier or later than in original order (Kristy and the Snobs happens after Claudia and the New Girl instead of before) and some books are skipped or adapted into the plot of others.
  • Jessi and Mallory come along to New York City with the others in Stacey's Mistake where in the original, they were left back in Stoneybrook. In the original, this was both because their parents deemed them too young to go and they didn't really know Stacey as a friend (Mallory had only been a sitting charge and Jessi moved to Stoneybrook after Stacey's departure); however, this time they've known her for some time including before her move.
  • Mary Anne does not sneak her kitten Tigger into the hospital when Claudia is there with a broken leg; instead she brings Claudia a cat-shaped plushie as a gift, saying that it's the next best thing.
• Adaptational Diversity: The dominantly-white Stoneybrook has been diversified. The original series had nearly every character white with very few people of color; it was a big deal and an ongoing plot point that Jessi's family was one of the few black families in Stoneybrook (and Jessi was the only black girl in the entire sixth grade), and Claudia was the only main Asian character (a plot point for her once the Brewer-Thomas Family adopt Emily-Michelle). In the comics not only are background characters shown in other races and ethnicities and are more diverse (multiple background characters are shown wearing hijab, including a student in Karen's previously almost all-white second grade class), but some minor characters have had their race or ethnicity changed.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Mallory joins the club in book five, Dawn and the Impossible Three, instead of during her own book, Hello, Mallory (which ends up skipped and the events placed in other books). Jessi appears and joins the club in the middle of Logan Likes Mary Anne; in the original series she does not appear until Hello, Mallory.
• Adaptational Hairstyle Change:
  • Stacey no longer wears a curly 1980s perm and instead has a short bob; in the first four books, she has long blonde hair, but this style is given to Dawn after her arrival.
  • Claudia has a pink colored streak (later, pink bangs) in the front of her hair, highlighting her artistic nature.
  • Jessi's hair is shown as naturally curly rather than being chemically straightened, her younger sister Becca has her hair in locs, and their mother has natural hair. Both Ramsey sisters are shown wearing sleeping bonnets for protection in bed and Jessi wears them at sleepovers.
• Adapted Out:
  • Several books have been skipped over; so far this includes Mallory's debut book Hello, Mallory (though the events were adapted into other books' plots as secondary plots), Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls (which was skipped in favor of the more family- and character-focused Claudia and Mean Janine), and two books for Dawn: The Ghost at Dawn's House and Little Miss Stoneybrook... and Dawn.
  • Since Hello, Mallory was skipped and Mallory is already a member when Jessi arrives, Mallory and Jessi don't create their short lived rival baby-sitting club Kids' Incorporated in retaliation to Mallory's rejection. (They only had two clients: Jessi's parents and Mallory's parents.)
  • The subplot of Jeff struggling in Stoneybrook and ultimately moving back to California—seen in Little Miss Stoneybrook... and Dawn is only lightly touched on as part of the reason for Dawn's moodiness in Stacey's Mistake. It's justified since Stacey has moved back to New York City and wasn't there to hear about it.
  • The book Karen's Little Sister has been skipped as in the main graphic novel series, there's been no mention of Emily Michelle being adopted. However, in the Little Sister series, she was first mentioned in Karen's Birthday and is present in the books afterwards.
• Age Lift:
  • Jessi and Mallory are seventh graders rather than the sixth graders they were in the original series.
  • Kristy's older brothers are downgraded to being younger; sixteen year old Sam is now fourteen, and eighteen year old Charlie is now sixteen.
• Ambiguous Time Period: The time period the comics are set in is somewhat unclear, though it's implied to be the modern day. The fashion is slightly updated (leggings over large shirts are no longer in fashion, and character's clothes are more modern styled) but the technology level in the first novels was at pre-mid 2000s levels and children are given more freedom than they usually have in the late 2010s. Multiple plots rely on the idea that people have little issue with 11 to 13 year old children babysitting without supervision. Dated references from the original books, such as the insult that one of the parents doesn't know what Rainbow Brite (a 1980s cartoon) is, are kept. However volumes after the first four have modern shout-outs to 2020s media integrated into the illustrations and text, as well as modern technology. (Laine, for example, has her own cell phone, as do various parents.)
• Black Bead Eyes: Often, especially when drawn by Raina Telgemeier. They still occur in later books, especially when characters are stressed, embarrassed, or out of focus in the background.
• Colorization: The first four books were in full black and white. When the series was continued past the first four volumes, the first four were all given new covers and colorized to match the series going forward.
• Continuity Cameo: A quick one, but Claudia's artist friend Ashley Wyeth from Claudia and the New Girl comes to visit her while she's in the hospital and the two enjoy the visit, indicating they're still friends (unlike the original series, where she's more antagonistic and pressuring Claudia to give up baby-sitting to focus on her art).
• Covers Always Lie: Minor, but on the cover of Claudia and the Bad Joke Claudia is shown upset on the couch, leg broken, with prankster Betsy Sobak over the back of it using a squirting flower. Because of Claudia's broken leg, she doesn't baby-sit for weeks and doesn't want to be around Betsy at all.
• Depending on the Artist: Due to the fact multiple illustrators have drawn the series, characters look slightly different from book to book, though several traits are kept for each character after the fifth book. Averted with the Little Sister Graphic Novels, which all started with the same artist (Katy Farina).
• Ear-Piercing Plot: Averted, unlike in the main series. Claudia, Dawn, and Jessi—who shared the big plot point of getting their ears pierced with Mallory in the original series—already have their ears pierced when introduced, with Claudia and Dawn already having their extra ear piercings.
• Fashion Dissonance: In Karen's Haircut. In 1990, the Gag Haircut she gets from Gloriana is something like a mullet: extremely short on the top and sides with a strip of long hair dangling in the back. In the updated 2023 version, her hair is just cut very short into a more boy's cut, which was much shorter than she wanted. Either way, Karen hates it.
• Gag Haircut: Karen, in a desire to feel prettier (because of her glasses, large new front teeth, and losing two teeth in one day), convinces her parents to let her go to a new salon to get a haircut and manicure. The stylist, Gloriana, cuts Karen's hair much shorter than she wants into a boy-short cut while Lisa is out with Andrew for a moment. Karen cries all the way out of the salon, and her classmates tease her when they see her next in school.
• Injured Limb Episode:
  • Claudia and the Bad Joke, where Claudia breaks her leg after falling off a broken swing that prank-playing kid Betsy Sobak didn't tell her about to play a trick on her. It's only for the length of the book, but portrayed realistically; she has her leg in traction, has to stay at the hospital a full week, can't baby-sit for weeks, and her leg is still weak after being removed from the cast and has to be wrapped up in a bandage.
  • Karen breaks her wrist trying to do a skating trick in Karen's Roller Skates and has to wear a cast for several books.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Done by the Little Sister series, in relation to the main series. The first book, Karen's Witch, reveals the events of the later book Kristy and the Snobs in the family portraits, where Kristy's beloved dog Louis dies and the family adopts a new puppy, Shannon. Karen's Birthday spoils the later addition of the adoption of Emily Michelle by Elizabeth and Watson, Karen getting her pet rat Emily Jr., and Elizabeth's mother Nannie moving in to help care for Emily Michelle, which has yet to happen in the main graphic novel series.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Karen's friend Hannie tells Karen she's not "glamorous" enough to be in her pretend wedding because of her bad haircut and gaps from her lost teeth. She later fall off her bike and knocks two of her front teeth out, and thinks she's too ugly now to get married.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • For the town of Stoneybrook as a whole. In the older books, the Ramseys are one of the few black families in town and Jessi is the only black girl in the entire sixth grade (there's about six black kids at the middle school in total); their neighbors are mean and unfriendly to them to start, and Jessi is disturbed by the racism she and her family face after living in the more diverse Oakley, New Jersey. In the graphic novels, since the town is more diverse, Jessi and the Ramseys don't face this discrimination.
  • Rather than the parents in Stacey's Mistake needing babysitters because they're going to a meeting to discuss the city's homeless population, the meeting is a fundraiser to save a local community theatre.
• Out of Focus: Much like in the 2020 series, Mallory was the only main member of the club not to be the narrator of a book herself until the announcement of Mallory and the Trouble with Twins by the artist on her Instagram, finally giving Mallory A Day in the Spotlight after being a member of the club since Book Five. The major events of her introductory book, Hello, Mallory (her struggling to join and being tested unfairly and rejected, meeting Jessi, and them both joining the club) were instead split and integrated into Dawn and the Impossible Three and Logan Likes Mary Anne. She and Dawn have also only had one book, while in the original series by the time of Mallory's second book, Dawn had had two other books: The Ghost at Dawn's House and Little Miss Stoneybrook ...and Dawn which have not been adapted.
• Plaster Cast Doodling: Claudia's friends and fellow sitters doodle all over her cast once she's home, with Kristy writing "Kristy is Awesome" during a visit.
• Prank Gone Too Far: The inciting incident of Claudia and the Bad Joke. New client—and practical jokester—Betsy Sobak doesn't tell her one of the swings at her house has a busted chain, and Claudia flies off and breaks her leg. She's so upset at the thought she might have broken her hand and would never draw again (and embarrassed at falling off the swing at all, though she doesn't admit it til the end) that she considers giving up baby-sitting altogether, and the other sitters figure out a way to give Betsy a taste of her own medicine so she can realize it's not funny to play pranks on people so much.
• Race Lift: Tying into the Adaptational Diversity of Stoneybrook as a whole, several minor characters have been changed from their original whiteness from the book series.
  • Jenny Prezzioso is now Ambiguously Brown, as are Logan (and his family), Shannon, the Dawes family (and Nancy), and the Perkins. So are the two boys Mary Anne and Stacey meet in Boy-Crazy-Stacey (Toby and Alex); the popular actor Mary Anne crushes on, Cam Geary; and artist Ashley Wyeth.
  • The Papadakis family (and Hannie) are now black.
  • The Fielding family from Kristy's Big Day—the children of Watson's friend Tom—are biracial, with a white mother and unstated but brown father.
  • Charlotte (and her mother, Dr. Johanssen) are now East Asian.
• Revival: By the 2010s, a large portion of the main series books were out-of-print and no longer available in most libraries or bookstores. The graphic novels (along with the 2020 Netflix series), helped revive the franchise amongst the target audience; the main series is now being reprinted with new cartoon-styled covers and in some cases in overseas markets, promotional photos with the Netflix actors.
• Setting Update: The first books were set in the 1980s; even as the series continued being released through the 1990s until the early 2000s, many references to pop culture and technology didn't change and referred to shows and media from The '50s and The '60s mostly (Ann M. Martin's childhood). The graphic novels are set in the mid to late 2010s and 2020s. There's some dissonance in that most of the members don't have personal cell phones (Stacey does in Kristy's Big Day, as does her friend Laine) or much in the way of modern technology personally, and no one thinks it weird or risky to have thirteen-year olds babysit small children. But the books show modern changes from the eighties and nineties and make modern era references. They portray modern safety standards in bike riding (such as the girls wearing helmets on their bikes) and car seat safety; Karen and Andrew ride in child restraint seats and sit in the back seat of the car rather than just in lap belts or anywhere else. Parents have cell phones even if most of the members don't; when Claudia breaks her leg in Claudia and the Bad Joke, Dawn suggests calling her mother's cell phone, and Stacey uses a cell phone she brought with her instead of a payphone to call when Emma thinks she doesn't have her money for the movies. Karen's teacher Ms. Coleman communicates with her mother by e-mail in Karen's School Picture when Karen "accidentally" leaves her new glasses at home—and she only has the one pair, rather than a separate set just for reading. Her parents have cell phones that she can make calls on or take pictures.
• Shout-Out:
  • Twice in Dawn and the Impossible Three: Vanessa Pike is reading the graphic novel Ghosts by first artist Raina Telgemeier, and Bill Cipher is among the mess of toys in the Barrett house.
  • David Michael is dressed as Finn for Halloween in Mary Anne's Bad Luck Mystery.
  • Some of the people Kristy shows Karen to help her move past her feeling of Nerd Glasses include Oprah Winfrey, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Yo Yo Ma, Elton John, and the 14th Dalai Lama.
  • Among the playbills shown on a splash page in Stacey's Mistake as Broadway shows are The Lion King, Wicked, Hamilton, The Phantom of the Opera, Hadestown, Into the Woods, and West Side Story. It's also stated they see the story of a train race where the actors are all on roller skates, heavily implying it's Starlight Express.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Twice in Claudia and the Bad Joke:
  • The Pike kids, who are pranking each other and their sitters to the point of annoyance, get a taste of this when Jessie and Mary Anne fool them into thinking a circus elephant is outside. There's no more tricks for the rest of the baby-sitting job.
  • The sitters try this with prankster Betsy Sobak after they worry that Claudia will quit the club over breaking her leg, but Mallory fails by enjoying the pranks too much and Dawn fails by Betsy getting the last laugh with shaving cream on her ice cream. Kristy succeeds by doing what the others hadn't—embarrassing Betsy in public at the movies with pranks, showing her how Claudia felt in the long run.

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