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The special edition of this book comes with a picture of Mallory's family. Is is bad that
I can't identify which one is Mallory? Like, she has Mallory's hair, but she has Mallory's
glasses and looks older. I also can't tell the difference between Dawn and Stacey half
the time.
*theme*
Mallory spends most of the book complaining that she's ugly, with her huge glasses, monster
hair, braces and unpierced ears. She wishes she was a cool teenager like all the other
baby-sitters. Then she'd have neat clothes and not be treated like a little kid all the
time.
Don't worry, Mallory. Once the 1980's are over, you'll realize that the other girls'
outfits are actually quite awful.
As you can tell from the title, Mallory is baby-sitting identical twins in this book.
Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold wear matching outfits all the time, and they also talk in a made-up
Twin Language. The baby-sitting job goes well, until Mallory starts squealing over how the
girls are so cute and adorable and matching, and ahhhhhh!!
The twins immediately turn into terrors. They throw off their name bracelets, so Mallory
won't know which twin is which, and they threaten her.
Do you like to baby-sit? Sure.
Well, you won't like to sit for US.
...I hope Mallory will come out of this book alive.
The twins refuse to listen to Mallory, they cheat while playing hide-and-seek, and they
switch places, so the wrong girl gets sent to piano practice. Mallory tries to get help
from the club, but the other BSC members think the problem is just that Mallory's a bad baby-sitter.
Wow. Way to show confidence in Mallory, you guys.
About halfway through the book, Mallory gets sick of hearing the twins talk in their made-up
language, so she fights back by talking in Latin. Latinam geminae non sciunt vel legent.
Quippe Malloria vincit--
Oh. wait. Mallory speaks in PIG Latin. Right.
The twins want to learn Pig Latin, and Mallory agrees to teach them, if they behave. It turns
out that the girls aren't REALLY bad. They're just angry, about being identical twins. They
hate how everybody thinks they're the same. They're both sick of being treated like one
person!
Which leads me to the main complaint against this book: Mallory should have figured out
the twin's problem a lot sooner, considering that she knows what set them off in the first
place, AND she has identical triplet brothers.
Speaking of siblings, the book has two near-identical baby-sitting interludes. In one, Mallory's
little sisters dress up like twins. In the other, the spinoff series girls dress like
twins. Kristy joins the game and dresses up with them. They immediately decide dressing
up isn't cool anymore, so they're gonna stop. Ha!
The twins have a birthday party, and they get so upset about being treated the same
that Mallory brings up the issue with their mother. At first, the mom is surprised, but
she agrees to stop dressing the twins in matching outfits, and let them be individuals.
As I said at the beginning, Mallory likes to complain that her parents are always demeaning
her and treating her like a little baby. I have no idea why Mallory feels that way, because
we NEVER see her parents be mean. They're really nice! I think Mallory is making things
up.
Anyway, the success with Mrs. Arnold convinces Mallory to confront her OWN parents at dinner.
The Pikes agree to let her get pierced ears and a haircut, as long as she helps pay for
them. Mallory is so happy and excited. Once she gets her ears pierced, she'll be the NEW
Mallory Pike! Which is later reused as the title for book 126.
Mallory has a shopping trip with the twins, then she has a SECOND shopping trip, with
the baby-sitters. Then we have a chapter where the girls check the things they bought. Was
this first version of this book too short or something? That's about thirty pages of
shopping stuff, tacked onto the end of the story.
Four of the girls get their ears pierced, and Mallory gets a new haircut. Her fluffy
short hair shows off her ears, and it will NEVER be reflected in the series cover art.
The End
Post-Book Followup
I've said before that Mallory is basically the new Mary Anne. This book is a good example.
Swap Mallory out for Mary Anne, and the story plays out the exact same way. In fact, the
story fits Mary Anne BETTER than Mallory. Mary Anne's dad says she can't get earrings?
Makes sense. Mallory's parents say she can't get earrings? That doesn't make as much sense,
since there are no rules at the Pike House. Plus, if Mary Anne is the narrator, that eliminates
the plot hole of Mallory forgetting about her identical triplet brothers acting like
individuals.
I am struggling to describe Mallory's personality in this book. She is more mature and level-headed,
which is good. I like that change from her first book. But she still has a tendency to
whine about how she looks and feel bad that she's not as cool as everyone else. So she's
mature and immature at the same time.
I'm afraid that the immature girl who wants to grow up aspect is going to dominate her
personality in the future, like it did in this book, simply because "mature girl handles
things sensibly" doesn't usually make for a good book premise.
Overall, I think this book is fine. I wasn't all that interested in the twin stuff, or
the shopping, but apparently, it connected with a lot of grade school readers, making
it a solid entry in the series. I give Baby-Sitters Club #21, Mallory and the Trouble with Twins,
a 6 out of 10.