The Matchmakers team welcomes our newest member, Amanie McGee! Amanie writes:
Sometimes, you need to go back and remember your childhood. Those quick and easy readers with characters that felt like your friends and not just characters in a book. Why not revisit those old friends in a new way? There has been a trend over the last few years in children’s graphic novels of revisiting stories from our childhood but in new and refreshing ways. We have seen it with Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, Little Women, and many more classic titles. The Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel 
series has been a delight to read for not only new fans of the series but for older fans that haven’t read them in many years.
Let’s go back to Stoneybrooke.
The story of the Baby-Sitters Club is well-known. A group of middle school girls gets together one day after one has a big idea of forming a babysitting business. It’s a rocky start and a long journey (over a hundred books in the series!) the girls created a lucrative business that brought in more girls, expanded to California, and solved a couple of mysteries along the way. The Baby-Sitters Club is an influential series in not only children’s literature but pop culture as well with fans that branch into multiple demographics. It only makes sense that this well-loved series got a graphic novel retelling. There have been twelve books adapted by various authors including Raina Telgemeier and Gale Galligan, who also illustrated them. There are plans for more to come out in the future. As a long-time fan of Jessi and Claudia, I highly recommend Jessi’s Secret Language and Claudia and Mean Janine. The books touch on the topics of sisterhood, bullying, ASL and deafness, and what it means to be a good friend.
These books are delightful for all readers no matter their age.