Episode 280: Keep Out, Claudia! (Baby-Sitters Club #56)

Keep Out, Claudia! (Baby-Sitters Club #56)

For the first time this year, we’re back to Stoney Brook with our favorite sitters! The fifty-sixth book in the series explores blatant racism… while the girls produce a musical with their young charges. There’s a lot going on! Episode 280 breaks down the way race and racism are portrayed in Ann M. Martin’s fictional world, looking closely at which sitters bear the brunt of the responsibility for explaining prejudice, if the author does a disservice to other sitters by making them so naive, and what young readers can learn from stories like Keep Out, Claudia!

Melissa Mogollon holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a BA from the George Washington University. Originally from Colombia and raised in Florida, she now teaches at a boarding school in Rhode Island, where she lives with her partner and dog. She is passionate about education, youth empowerment, Rihanna, and ceviche. Oye is her first novel. Follow her on Instagram (@melissamogollonwriter).

CHECK OUT OUR EPISODE ABOUT CLAUDIA AND THE SAD GOODBYE HERE!
CHECK OUT OUR EPISODE ABOUT THE TRUTH ABOUT STACEY HERE!

CHECK OUT MELISSA’S DEBUT NOVEL OYE HERE (and join SSR’s Patreon to read it with us in July book club)

CHECK OUT MELISSA’S BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:

Good Material by Dolly Alderton

Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang

Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg

Hombrecito by Santiago Jose Sanchez

There is a Rio Grande in Heaven: Stories by Ruben Reyes Jr.

MORE READING:

“Keep Out, Claudia” (The Baby-Sitters Club Wiki)

“BSC Book Club Discussion #56 Keep Out, Claudia” (Reddit, 2023)

“Keep Out, Claudia!” (Baby-Sitters Club Snark-fest!)

“Blackness on the Margins: What Ann M. Martin Asked of Jessi in The Baby-Sitters Club” (Literary Hub, 2021)

“How The Baby-Sitters Club Made Social Justice Fun for Tweens” (Vulture, 2020)

“Friday essay: need a sitter? Revisiting girlhood, feminism and diversity in The Baby-Sitters Club” (The Conversation, 2020)

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