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lberestecki's review
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
finesilkflower's review
4.0
The Portrait Collection is a series of the Baby-sitters Club girls' school-assigned "autobiographies," which take the form of 2- to 3-chapter short stories about their childhoods. I'll summarize and review each story individually.
The Tea Party (age 6): Mary Anne is embarrassed when the kids laugh because she plans to her father to a mother's day tea party at school. She has a strict teacher and she worries that she's done the wrong thing. She decides to invite Claudia's grandmother Mimi instead. But her father already understands himself to be the guest, and both of them show up. Mary Anne is mortified at having two guests, but the teacher is understanding and tells her that her father definitely counts because he is both a mother and father to her. This is a sweet story which showcases the difficulties Mary Anne has faced not having a mother through a small, realistic logistical issue. Mary Anne's fears are true to her age and her character. Richard Spier is really wonderful here, very understanding, a little genuinely hurt. He gives a great heartfelt speech at the end. I'm not crying.
Stage Fright (age 8): Mary Anne's father signs her up for a ballet class her friends are taking in order to help her get out of her shell (and solve a childcare issue). Mary Anne hates the class, especially moments when she is the center of attention. She's dreading the big recital, but feels she owes it to her father to try and get through it. On the morning of the recital, she throws up from nerves, and her father finally gets how miserable she is. He lets her skip the recital and tells her that if she's this unhappy again, she should tell him and not try to tough it out for his sake. This is another story that feels true to both the age and the character, with a similar point to the first story: Mary Anne is shy and easily frightened, but feels a responsibility to live up to the expectations of adults; and her dad is pretty great.
In all these early stories, actually, Richard comes off incredibly sweet and intuitive--an ideal father, really. It makes you wonder what happened between then and [b:Mary Anne Saves the Day|233790|Mary Anne Saves the Day (The Baby-Sitters Club, #4)|Ann M. Martin|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1390945746s/233790.jpg|1194777], where he seems so stiff and distant.
E is for Eyeglasses (age 9): Mary Anne is fascinated by a new girl who wears glasses (April Livingston, who is not a part of the extended Stoneybrook universe; she must have moved again before grade 7). She becomes convinced that she would look great in glasses and contrives to fail her school eye exam. She begins to get worried when the process gets more complex than she thought and she has to go to a real eye doctor with her dad. She tries on a pair of lensless glasses in front of a mirror and decides she looks terrible and doesn't want glasses after all. She tries to pass the new eye exam, but it turns out she does need glasses--reading glasses.
This story is not great. It has an unnecessary number of twists and turns, relies on a coincidence, and has no real character point. But I guess they felt they needed to address it, as "Mary Anne needs reading glasses" is a long-established (if irrelevant) trait.
The whole reading-glasses thing has always sort of annoyed me, actually. It seems like a cop-out between giving her glasses or not. When I was a kid, probably in part because of Mary Anne, I wished I needed reading glasses (instead of all-the-time glasses) because it seemed cool to be able to put on your glasses when you meant business but otherwise go without. I was pretty disappointed when my mom told me that farsightedness, while a normal part of aging, is pretty rare in kids, so most people who need reading glasses are middle-aged or older. It's just another Mary Anne trait, like her needlepoint and her irrational nervousness, that reveals her as a transparent stand-in for a sixty-something author.
Exploring my Secret Past (age 13): A lot of this is just a summary of [b:Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic|646485|Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic (Baby-Sitters Club Mystery, #5)|Ann M. Martin|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1387705563s/646485.jpg|545670], which is a pretty terrible book to begin with. It also includes a part where Mary Anne visits her grandmother, Verna, in Iowa. She dislikes it at first because her grandmother does boring things and doesn't want to talk about her mother. Eventually they have a heart-to-heart and find a project they want to do together--finishing a quilt that Verna started for Alma but set aside after her death. They enter it in a contest of some sort and win a prize.
I just don't like when the Portrait Collection books include material that has already been covered elsewhere (like Kristy summarizing the events of the BSC movie in hers). I wouldn't mind if they could do it in a new or interesting way, but it's always just summary, and summary is boring. I prefer the method in Stacey's portrait collection: just childhood incidents and other weird stuff. Sure, her diabetes diagnosis and her parents' divorce would be in an actual autobiography, but that stuff is already elsewhere in the series, so you just assume they glossed over it. The story here about Verna would have been fine--better--if, instead of prefacing it with a lengthy recap of another book, they just efficiently explained that Mary Anne was visiting a grandmother she hadn't seen since she was 2. And, go.
Grade: Mary Anne gets an A+ on her autobiography project. As a teacher, I would certainly give all the baby-sitters top grades (wow, it reads like a professional quality YA novel!) Grading on the curve of just Portrait Collection books, I'd give this one a B+. While the summarizing in the final story annoyed me, and the eyeglasses story was dull, the first few stories about Mary Anne's childhood memories with Richard are incredibly sweet and moving.
Continuity Error: The elementary school teacher names and classroom configurations (whether Mary Anne is in the same class with Claudia and Kristy or different ones) mentioned in this book are totally different than those mentioned for the same grades in [b:Claudia's Book|646479|Claudia's Book (The Baby-Sitters Club Portrait Collection)|Ann M. Martin|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1387714085s/646479.jpg|632626].
Read as a kid: No. I don't remember where or when I got this, but I found it sitting on my shelf a few days ago and read it for what I think is the first time. When did I get, but not read, a new BSC book??
The Tea Party (age 6): Mary Anne is embarrassed when the kids laugh because she plans to her father to a mother's day tea party at school. She has a strict teacher and she worries that she's done the wrong thing. She decides to invite Claudia's grandmother Mimi instead. But her father already understands himself to be the guest, and both of them show up. Mary Anne is mortified at having two guests, but the teacher is understanding and tells her that her father definitely counts because he is both a mother and father to her. This is a sweet story which showcases the difficulties Mary Anne has faced not having a mother through a small, realistic logistical issue. Mary Anne's fears are true to her age and her character. Richard Spier is really wonderful here, very understanding, a little genuinely hurt. He gives a great heartfelt speech at the end. I'm not crying.
Stage Fright (age 8): Mary Anne's father signs her up for a ballet class her friends are taking in order to help her get out of her shell (and solve a childcare issue). Mary Anne hates the class, especially moments when she is the center of attention. She's dreading the big recital, but feels she owes it to her father to try and get through it. On the morning of the recital, she throws up from nerves, and her father finally gets how miserable she is. He lets her skip the recital and tells her that if she's this unhappy again, she should tell him and not try to tough it out for his sake. This is another story that feels true to both the age and the character, with a similar point to the first story: Mary Anne is shy and easily frightened, but feels a responsibility to live up to the expectations of adults; and her dad is pretty great.
In all these early stories, actually, Richard comes off incredibly sweet and intuitive--an ideal father, really. It makes you wonder what happened between then and [b:Mary Anne Saves the Day|233790|Mary Anne Saves the Day (The Baby-Sitters Club, #4)|Ann M. Martin|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1390945746s/233790.jpg|1194777], where he seems so stiff and distant.
E is for Eyeglasses (age 9): Mary Anne is fascinated by a new girl who wears glasses (April Livingston, who is not a part of the extended Stoneybrook universe; she must have moved again before grade 7). She becomes convinced that she would look great in glasses and contrives to fail her school eye exam. She begins to get worried when the process gets more complex than she thought and she has to go to a real eye doctor with her dad. She tries on a pair of lensless glasses in front of a mirror and decides she looks terrible and doesn't want glasses after all. She tries to pass the new eye exam, but it turns out she does need glasses--reading glasses.
This story is not great. It has an unnecessary number of twists and turns, relies on a coincidence, and has no real character point. But I guess they felt they needed to address it, as "Mary Anne needs reading glasses" is a long-established (if irrelevant) trait.
The whole reading-glasses thing has always sort of annoyed me, actually. It seems like a cop-out between giving her glasses or not. When I was a kid, probably in part because of Mary Anne, I wished I needed reading glasses (instead of all-the-time glasses) because it seemed cool to be able to put on your glasses when you meant business but otherwise go without. I was pretty disappointed when my mom told me that farsightedness, while a normal part of aging, is pretty rare in kids, so most people who need reading glasses are middle-aged or older. It's just another Mary Anne trait, like her needlepoint and her irrational nervousness, that reveals her as a transparent stand-in for a sixty-something author.
Exploring my Secret Past (age 13): A lot of this is just a summary of [b:Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic|646485|Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic (Baby-Sitters Club Mystery, #5)|Ann M. Martin|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1387705563s/646485.jpg|545670], which is a pretty terrible book to begin with. It also includes a part where Mary Anne visits her grandmother, Verna, in Iowa. She dislikes it at first because her grandmother does boring things and doesn't want to talk about her mother. Eventually they have a heart-to-heart and find a project they want to do together--finishing a quilt that Verna started for Alma but set aside after her death. They enter it in a contest of some sort and win a prize.
I just don't like when the Portrait Collection books include material that has already been covered elsewhere (like Kristy summarizing the events of the BSC movie in hers). I wouldn't mind if they could do it in a new or interesting way, but it's always just summary, and summary is boring. I prefer the method in Stacey's portrait collection: just childhood incidents and other weird stuff. Sure, her diabetes diagnosis and her parents' divorce would be in an actual autobiography, but that stuff is already elsewhere in the series, so you just assume they glossed over it. The story here about Verna would have been fine--better--if, instead of prefacing it with a lengthy recap of another book, they just efficiently explained that Mary Anne was visiting a grandmother she hadn't seen since she was 2. And, go.
Grade: Mary Anne gets an A+ on her autobiography project. As a teacher, I would certainly give all the baby-sitters top grades (wow, it reads like a professional quality YA novel!) Grading on the curve of just Portrait Collection books, I'd give this one a B+. While the summarizing in the final story annoyed me, and the eyeglasses story was dull, the first few stories about Mary Anne's childhood memories with Richard are incredibly sweet and moving.
Continuity Error: The elementary school teacher names and classroom configurations (whether Mary Anne is in the same class with Claudia and Kristy or different ones) mentioned in this book are totally different than those mentioned for the same grades in [b:Claudia's Book|646479|Claudia's Book (The Baby-Sitters Club Portrait Collection)|Ann M. Martin|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1387714085s/646479.jpg|632626].
Read as a kid: No. I don't remember where or when I got this, but I found it sitting on my shelf a few days ago and read it for what I think is the first time. When did I get, but not read, a new BSC book??
chicafrom3's review
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Mary Anne reflects on her life so far via a collection of anecdotes.
sammah's review
2.0
And thus we have the worst of the Portrait Collection books. Why so boring, Mary Anne?
xtinamorse's review
Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: https://www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blog/portrait-collection-mary-annes-book
pixieauthoress's review
5.0
Loved this! I am such a Mary Anne. I totally understand her shyness, although I experienced it more in my teens than in my childhood. It was nice to see that not all the stories had an entirely happy ending - Mary Anne never totally overcome her shyness and everything wasn't completely rosy between her dad and her grandma. Her life story was realistic. Overall, a very sweet read and it was lovely to see the interactions between the girls as kids, especially Kristy looking out for Mary Anne. 10/10
ssshira's review
2.0
in this fourth installment in the portrait collection series by ghostwriter [a:Jeanne Betancourt|79828|Jeanne Betancourt|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1258759027p2/79828.jpg], we get to see mary anne be an intolerable child and grow into the intolerable teen that she is today! no but really there's one story that's actually charming and funny. here are the individual stories:
-age 6: there's a class tea party for mother's day, but when she says she invited her father everyone laughs. she's embarrassed so she invites mimi and hopes her father will forget. they both show up and she's mortified since each kid was supposed to bring one adult, but her teacher is understanding
-summer after 2nd grade: kristy is taking ballet classes (sidebar: kristy is only doing so because that's the only class available, so don't worry about kristy's tomboy cred), so claud and mary anne sign up too. mary anne doesn't want to but feels pressured to by her friends and her dad, who is relieved to not have to find a daytime babysitter for her for the summer. she likes some aspects of the ballet classes but hates the performing aspect and when it comes time to do a recital she barfs and freaks out. she tells her dad she doesn't want to do it so he says that's okay and drives her away from the recital.
-4th grade: there's a new kid in school named april who has glasses and is pretty and popular, so mary anne decides she wants glasses too. she intentionally botches her school eye exam, but then when she realizes she'll have to go to an eye doctor she feels guilty. turns out, though, that she DOES need reading glasses.
-age 13: discovers that she had been sent to live with her grandparents as a baby (see [b:Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic|646485|Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic (Baby-Sitters Club Mystery, #5)|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387705563s/646485.jpg|545670]). goes on a trip to iowa re-meet her grandmother. doesn't get along with her at first, but then they realize they're more alike than they thought (read: her grandmother is intolerable too). this is basically just the plot of the end of the secret in the attic where it's just told as the letters back and forth from mary anne and folks back in stoneybrook, but we get to see the whole mary anne part of it.
highlights:
-mary anne's babysitter circa 2nd grade is named mrs. cuddy, who kristy calls mrs. cruddy.
-can't decide if this is a good dad moment or a bad one, when he lets her out of the recital. I guess good but also sometimes in life you have to do things you don't like.
-the whole glasses section. I was actually chuckling out loud.
-mary anne successfully has a conversation with an employee at a store where she tries on reading glasses. she is convinced that because she can talk to him while wearing glasses, wearing glasses will change her life, like a domino mask or something.
-she's very meticulous about her intentional failing of the vision test. she squints while looking at the letters of the alphabet to try to figure out which letters look like each other so she knows which ones to say when the do the eye test. she gets the first couple rows right and then makes a few mistakes gradually after that, so it looks legit. seriously I was cracking up when I read this.
-mary anne wanted glasses because she thought she'd look good in them, but then after she tries on empty frames she discovers she looks weird in them, and after that when she wants to come clean about having good vision it turns out she needs them after all. irony maybe? I always worry about calling things irony because people get MAD when you misuse that word.
lowlights/nitpicks:
-a reference to abby's father having died seven years ago. nope, he died when they were nine, which was four years ago.
-my thoughts on everyone in class laughing at mary anne for saying she's bringing her dad to the mother's day party: I WAS this kid (growing up with no mother and having to bring my dad to things), and trust me, nobody laughed. it turns out that none of the kids knew that mary anne's mother was dead, but there is NO WAY these kids in this small-ass town didn't know that.
-the whole book is mostly annoying because mary anne is annoying. like she doesn't want to quit ballet in part because her dad is happy she's taking it because it makes it easier for him to not have to find a full time babysitter. and it's like...be the change you want to see in the world, mary anne. you're a little kid and you have to be your father's martyr? it's just infuriating to read.
-april says that mary anne is "in her own way...outgoing and friendly." friendly, sure, but outgoing?
-mary anne finds pictures of a birthday party when she was a tiny baby (likely her first birthday). she knows it's her because she's wearing her mary anne necklace. I'm sorry, but who puts a nekclace on a one-year-old? isn't that extremely dangerous?
-mary anne's plane ticket to iowa says non-smoking. by 1996 all continental us flights were completely nonsmoking, and the vast majority of international flights were also completely nonsmoking.
-age 6: there's a class tea party for mother's day, but when she says she invited her father everyone laughs. she's embarrassed so she invites mimi and hopes her father will forget. they both show up and she's mortified since each kid was supposed to bring one adult, but her teacher is understanding
-summer after 2nd grade: kristy is taking ballet classes (sidebar: kristy is only doing so because that's the only class available, so don't worry about kristy's tomboy cred), so claud and mary anne sign up too. mary anne doesn't want to but feels pressured to by her friends and her dad, who is relieved to not have to find a daytime babysitter for her for the summer. she likes some aspects of the ballet classes but hates the performing aspect and when it comes time to do a recital she barfs and freaks out. she tells her dad she doesn't want to do it so he says that's okay and drives her away from the recital.
-4th grade: there's a new kid in school named april who has glasses and is pretty and popular, so mary anne decides she wants glasses too. she intentionally botches her school eye exam, but then when she realizes she'll have to go to an eye doctor she feels guilty. turns out, though, that she DOES need reading glasses.
-age 13: discovers that she had been sent to live with her grandparents as a baby (see [b:Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic|646485|Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic (Baby-Sitters Club Mystery, #5)|Ann M. Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387705563s/646485.jpg|545670]). goes on a trip to iowa re-meet her grandmother. doesn't get along with her at first, but then they realize they're more alike than they thought (read: her grandmother is intolerable too). this is basically just the plot of the end of the secret in the attic where it's just told as the letters back and forth from mary anne and folks back in stoneybrook, but we get to see the whole mary anne part of it.
highlights:
-mary anne's babysitter circa 2nd grade is named mrs. cuddy, who kristy calls mrs. cruddy.
-can't decide if this is a good dad moment or a bad one, when he lets her out of the recital. I guess good but also sometimes in life you have to do things you don't like.
-the whole glasses section. I was actually chuckling out loud.
-mary anne successfully has a conversation with an employee at a store where she tries on reading glasses. she is convinced that because she can talk to him while wearing glasses, wearing glasses will change her life, like a domino mask or something.
-she's very meticulous about her intentional failing of the vision test. she squints while looking at the letters of the alphabet to try to figure out which letters look like each other so she knows which ones to say when the do the eye test. she gets the first couple rows right and then makes a few mistakes gradually after that, so it looks legit. seriously I was cracking up when I read this.
-mary anne wanted glasses because she thought she'd look good in them, but then after she tries on empty frames she discovers she looks weird in them, and after that when she wants to come clean about having good vision it turns out she needs them after all. irony maybe? I always worry about calling things irony because people get MAD when you misuse that word.
lowlights/nitpicks:
-a reference to abby's father having died seven years ago. nope, he died when they were nine, which was four years ago.
-my thoughts on everyone in class laughing at mary anne for saying she's bringing her dad to the mother's day party: I WAS this kid (growing up with no mother and having to bring my dad to things), and trust me, nobody laughed. it turns out that none of the kids knew that mary anne's mother was dead, but there is NO WAY these kids in this small-ass town didn't know that.
-the whole book is mostly annoying because mary anne is annoying. like she doesn't want to quit ballet in part because her dad is happy she's taking it because it makes it easier for him to not have to find a full time babysitter. and it's like...be the change you want to see in the world, mary anne. you're a little kid and you have to be your father's martyr? it's just infuriating to read.
-april says that mary anne is "in her own way...outgoing and friendly." friendly, sure, but outgoing?
-mary anne finds pictures of a birthday party when she was a tiny baby (likely her first birthday). she knows it's her because she's wearing her mary anne necklace. I'm sorry, but who puts a nekclace on a one-year-old? isn't that extremely dangerous?
-mary anne's plane ticket to iowa says non-smoking. by 1996 all continental us flights were completely nonsmoking, and the vast majority of international flights were also completely nonsmoking.
keys_on_fire's review
funny
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
3.0
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