Just a note to say we’ll be back soon!

A creepy old house on Stacey’s street is set to be demolished, and the baby-sitters (along with honorary BSC member Charlotte Johanssen) are convinced that there is a mystery surrounding the strange happenings at the property. But… is there? Is Stoneybrook built on an ancient burial ground? What’s with all those flies? Is the mystery just a collective hallucination inspired by a few good horror movies? Join us and our return guest Tim to watch the old house and its mystery come tumbling down in Stacey and the Mystery of Stoneybrook. 

A few links from our conversation: 

The Amityville Horror (1979) 

Pet Sematary (1989)  

Summer of My German Soldier 

The rules of War (card game) 

Tim’s excellent film review podcast and website, Alternate Ending, where they’re discovering good movies, one bad movie at a time. 

Was there a haunted house in your neighborhood? We want to hear about it! Find us on Instagram @stoneybrookreunion or send us an email at [email protected]. 

Mary Anne and Stacey are headed back to Sea City with the Pike crew– plus a few male ghosts from the past that turn Stacey into a bad friend and make Mary Anne question her relationship with Logan. How can she go out and have fun with Alex when Logan is back home waiting for her? Can boys and girls truly be platonic friends? Meanwhile, Vanessa enjoys her first crush on a 12-year-old ice cream server, and learns a few tough lessons of her own. Sea City never disappoints! Join us as we question child labor laws and hope Margo doesn’t barf on a trampoline while we discuss Mary Anne and Too Many Boys. 

Urban Decay Nail Polish unboxing video 

A history of Howard Johnson’s

Have a favorite ice cream flavor or nail polish name? Let us know at [email protected]. 

Find us on Instagram @stoneybrookreunion. 

After Janine wins an academic achievement award, Claudia can’t shake the feeling that she is fundamentally different from her family members. Inspired by Kristy’s new sister Emily Michelle, Claudia convinces herself that she is adopted, setting off a wild goose chase for her family of origin. Join us as we follow Claudia’s leap off a logic cliff and subsequent plunge through libraries, phone books, and cold calls (with some “help” from Stacey), in Claudia and the Great Search.

Lois Lowry Reading List

Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye

Number the Stars

The Giver

Thoughts on the origins of Ring A Ring o’ Roses/Ring Around the Rosie:  https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2014/07/ring-around-the-rosie-metafolklore-rhyme-and-reason/

Re-release date for Claudia and the Great Search: December 2025

In Book 32, the sitters meet two new families–the Felders, who have lived around the corner from Bradford Court/BSC headquarters for years, and the Hobarts, who moved into Mary Anne’s old house all the way from Australia. As the Felders prepare to send their daughter Susan to a boarding school for autistic children, Kristy devises a plan to keep her newest baby-sitting charge in Stoneybrook…but this time, Kristy’s idea (and some of the other neighborhood children involved) may not be so great. 

Gather with us and our guest Elena, a clinical psychologist and researcher, in the Hobarts’ yard as the new kids on the block square off against all of the heretofore unmentioned neighborhood bullies, and we discuss Kristy and the Secret of Susan. 

As noted in Ann M. Martin’s Dear Reader Letter:

Inside Out by Ann M. Martin (1985)

Feedback for us on this or other episodes? Get in touch at [email protected]. 

Find us on Instagram @stoneybrookreunion. 

Dawn and Mary Anne have finally realized their shared dream of sisterhood! Once the Spiers move into the old farmhouse, though, Dawn’s delight at combining bedrooms (and closets) with her new “sis” ends almost as abruptly as Richard and Sharon’s honeymoon. Unwilling to admit that her initial plan took a nightmarish turn, Dawn hatches another one to prod Mary Anne to move into the guest room and reveals a heretofore hidden side of her personality.

Squeeze into the Junk Bucket’s way back with us as we bicker over who gets a seatbelt and who’s the least fair stepsister of them all in our chat about Book 31, Dawn’s Wicked Stepsister.

Experiences Befitting a Crab Queen

Check out some crankies from artist Katherine Fahey

Dine at Ed Debevic’s

Tell us how you’d respond to a surprise spring cleaning day and repeat breakfast meats at [email protected]

We're between seasons right now, but we have spent some time together IRL this summer. Inspired by the BSC and their tenacious vacation record keeping, we cobbled together some real-time voice notes and reflections to create our first ever Audio Super Special. Please stick around till the end of the episode for our Season 4 preview! Enjoy.

Find our trip photos on Instagram @StoneybrookReunion

Do you have a favorite ice cream flavor that just tastes like childhood? Have you ever smelled a really good bookstore, or found a thriftstore treasure that felt like a win? Share your summer vacation memories at with us at [email protected]

After a 26-book wait, Richard and Sharon finally announce their plans to marry, to their daughters’ delight…and Mary Anne and Dawn’s dreaming and scheming shifts from Parent Trapping to high-gear wedding planning. As Mary Anne mentally prepares to gain a stepfamily and lose the only home she’s ever known, she somehow also steers the Arnold twins through conflict as they try on their new, separate identities. 

Join us and our guest Jessie in a pew at the back of the chapel (plenty of room…where are Sharon and Richard’s friends?) as we titter about Dawn’s attire and share why we’re gaga for Gozzie Kunka in our chat about Mary Anne and the Great Romance.

Learn more about Jessie at jessierosen.com, and find her new book, All the Signs, at bookshop.org.

What the Arnold twin room row called to mind

(just one of many examples)

Implausible Anachronistic/Time-Traveling Suitor Watchlist

Bridgerton

Kate & Leopold

Is Kristy the Miranda of the first four? Let us know at [email protected].

Find us on Instagram @stoneybrookreunion.

It’s winter in Stoneybrook, and the baby-sitters are off to Vermont for the annual trip to Leicester Lodge, hosts of the Winter War. No sooner do they arrive at the Overlook-esque ski lodge than a real ripsnorter of a storm blows in (with thanks for the phrase to local armchair meteorologist Teensy Mooseman), and a busload of children are stranded without adequate supervision. Cue the BSC! They spend the week caring for kids, competing for colors, and crushing on maybe Canadians, with plenty of hot chocolate and local legends to go around. Take off your fat mittens and join us as we curl up by the fire and pull Super Special #3: Baby-sitters’ Winter Vacation off the library shelf. 

School Vacation Media List:

Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree by the Andrews Sisters

Send us your bad drawings of winter vacations at [email protected].

Find us on Instagram @stoneybrookreunion.

As the McGill gals settle into their new old house and start to clear forgotten treasures from the attic, neighbor Mal scores a most handsome trunk and finds evidence of a kindred spirit (possibly from the spirit world) within. Join hands with us at the seance table (but leave the offensive costume and behavior behind, Kristy) as we learn the distinction between journals and diaries, which of the sitters are believers in or skeptics of ghoulies and ghosties, and what an inspiring reading tutor junior officer Pike is in Mallory and the Mystery Diary.

Media recommendations from this week's episode:

Season 1 of Yellowjackets (2021)

Now and Then (1995)

About The Cartoonists Club by Raina Telgemeier and Scott McCloud (2025)

The one thing Mallory maybe missed the mark on:

GOOPS and How to be Them by Gelett Burgess (1900)

Share tuna casserole recipes with us at [email protected].

Find us on Instagram @stoneybrookreunion.