Claudia and the new girl Book

There's a new girl at stoneybrook middle school named ashley wyeth. she has three holes pierced in each ear & wears long petticoats, bell bottoms, & hippie-style headbands. the other kids at school think she's weird & maybe stuck-up, because she never talks to anyone. she only talks to one person: claudia.

they have bonded over art. claudia asked if ashley was related to andrew wyeth, & then ashley turned up in claudia's after-school art class. ashley wants to be a sculptor, & attended a prestigious art school when she lived in chicago. she thinks claudia has a lot of talent & potential, & claudia is flattered beyond belief that someone with ashley's abilities & educational background sees potential in her. claudia isn't used to getting compliments from people because she's so bad at school, & even though her friends are complimentary about her art, it really means something coming from someone like ashley, who understands art.

a scultping show is coming up & ashley encourages claudia to ender. claudia is dubious--she doesn't think she has time to make a new piece before the deadline with all of her school & babysitting responsibilities. but she gets caught up in ashley's encouragement & even blows off a few babysitters club meetings to join ashley in "looking for inspiration in the field". ashley decides to scuplt a fire hydrant & encourages claudia to sculpt a traffic light. claudia is skeptical of sculpting an inanimate object. ashley suggests that claudia sculpt a concept instead, like "love" or peace". i remember this so well from my childhood--claudia asks how to sculpt a concept like how & ashley replies, "with an open heart & tender feelings." tender feelings? gross. claudia is not wowed by this.

the babysitters club is really upset that claudia is spending so much time with ashley (nicely foreshadowing their freak-out when mary anne cuts her hair, & later, when stacey makes friends with a different crowd of girls at school). instead of talking to claudia about what's going on, they continue to hold meetings in her room & do mean things like eat all of claudia's hidden candy & hide mean notes for her to find. they also short-sheet her bed. i am really torn on all of this. on the one hand, it's almost refreshing to see the girls acting like actual teenagers for once, who act before thinking & don't consider the consequences of their actions (ie, that maybe being mean to someone when you are jealous of them spending time with a new friend is not the best way to win them back). on the other hand, they are really bratty. claudia pays for her snacks & junk food out of her own money & provides food for meetings out of the goodness of her heart. it's pretty fucked up for the girls to purposefully eat it all just to be jerks, & to leave mean notes in her room when she's not there. why don't they make more of an effort to talk to claudia about what's going on?

anyway, claudia starts to realize that ashley isn't that great a friend. ashley doesn't understand why claudia "wastes her time" babysitting, & is always insisting that art has to come first "if you want to be a great artist". hey, ashley? you're thirteen. you have plenty of time for your art, trust me. let claudia be a kid. let her do her damn homework, for crying out loud! i am torn on this as well. it's true that young artists can be really pretentious & really self-involved, & they can seem to be in a big rush to work on their "careers" from a really young age. but thirteen? that really seems to be pushing the boundaries of my credulity. anyway. claudia starts to realize that ashley doesn't like her for herself--she just likes her for her art. & claudia doesn't think that's a real friendship. claudia & ashley have an argument, & claudia decides to sculpt jackie rodowsky for the sculpture show. finally, jackie's getting some love! ashley blows up when claudia tells her about her jackie sculpture. "you screwed your career," she says. okay, not really. but that would be awesome.

claudia makes up with the babysitters club--but the shitty part is that she makes up by apologizing to them. they seem to voluntarily apologize for a few things, like some of the mean notes, but i would have held out for more if i were claudia. maybe she shouldn't have skipped so many meetings, but she's extending the olive branch & deserves some mea culpas for all the junk food loss & the short-sheeting & for basically being made to feel like she can't have outside friends. at one point claudia says that the BSC are her "true friends" because she thinks they'd still all be friends even if they didn't like to babysit. claudia, did you get into mrs. schafer's stash again? because you are trippin'. no way would these girls be friends if they didn't have an unhealthy interest in the neighborhood children to share.

but whatever. the club makes up, claudia's art teacher enters her unfinished jackie sculpture into the show & it garners an honorable mention, ashley's fire hydrant takes hom the blue ribbon, & apparently sometimes ahsley sits with the club at lunch. except that we pretty much never hear of her again. which i think kind of sucks for claudia. ashley was a bit much, but it was nice for claudia to have an artistic peer to share her creative side with. it's true that her family & BSC friends give her compliments, but it's also true that those kinds of compliments mean so much more coming from someone who really gets what you're doing. oh well.