Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Sunday Nice Things： Back to the Babysitters Club

00:00:00.000 Chew on this bold question from Dentine Gum.

00:00:03.560 Is it ever okay to compliment a millennial on their skinny jeans in 2026?

00:00:12.640 Dentine. Chew bold.

00:00:20.280 Who is ready for a little bit of nostalgia on this lovely spring-like Sunday?

00:00:25.360 If you're close to my age, you probably read some of the things that I read as a kid. I was a big

00:00:34.400 Sweet Valley Twins and then Sweet Valley High reader. I also have to admit that I read Flowers

00:00:41.980 in the Attic very early, and it freaking slayed me. I don't know where I got it. Did I find a copy

00:00:50.200 in the attic or like under someone's bed or I don't I don't know. I don't know. I just know

00:00:56.500 that I was reading this story of incest and child abuse very early. But that's not what we're

00:01:04.120 talking about today. In fact, I do think the V.C. Andrews books should be a whole separate podcast

00:01:09.160 and Glynis and I have been working on that every time we have at least two glasses of wine.

00:01:15.640 Today, we're talking about something much more family-friendly.

00:01:19.080 We're talking about the Babysitter's Club.

00:01:21.620 Yeah, yeah.

00:01:23.280 There is this incredible podcast called Stuck in Stony Brook that goes back and revisits

00:01:30.260 the Babysitter's Club books from a modern standpoint.

00:01:33.760 And the individuals behind this podcast are so smart, they take a look at all of these

00:01:40.020 books through an academic lens, a feminist lens, a political lens, an economic lens.

00:01:46.760 The show is fun. It's freaking fun. And I essentially demanded that they let me come on

00:01:52.380 as a guest as part of my I'm going to do 100 podcasts before the Sicilian Inheritance comes

00:01:58.680 out. Seriously, I think I'm doing about 100 podcasts. But also, I just wanted to talk about

00:02:03.840 the Babysitter's Club. That was a nice break for me. And in this episode, I get to talk about one

00:02:09.580 of the mysteries. Yes, yes, my friends, the mystery at the mall. You're going to be hooked

00:02:17.920 on Stuck in Stony Brook. It's going to become one of your new faves. And I'm excited to share

00:02:23.320 this episode where I got to be the guest.

00:02:39.580 Welcome to Stuck in Stony Brook, a podcast about the Babysitter's Club.

00:02:54.400 Today we're discussing Mystery 14, Stacey and the Mystery at the Mall.

00:02:58.920 We also have a very special guest joining us today, Joe Piazza.

00:03:02.700 Joe is the national and international bestselling author of We Are Not Like Them, You Were Always Mine,

00:03:08.740 Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, The Knockoff, and How to Be Married.

00:03:12.220 Her work has been published in 10 languages in 12 countries,

00:03:15.160 and four of her books have been optioned for film and television.

00:03:18.240 Joe's podcasts, of which there are many,

00:03:20.640 have garnered more than 25 million downloads and regularly top podcast charts.

00:03:25.080 An editor, columnist, and travel writer,

00:03:26.940 her work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal,

00:03:29.060 The New York Times, New York Magazine, Marie Claire,

00:03:31.640 Glamour, and many other publications.

00:03:33.560 She lives in Philly with her husband, Nick Astor, and three feral children.

00:03:37.440 And on April 2nd, her brand new book, A Little Mystery of Her Own, The Sicilian Inheritance, will drop.

00:03:43.900 So we're so thrilled to have you here with us to discuss the BSC.

00:03:46.880 Welcome, Jo.

00:03:47.720 Hi.

00:03:49.080 Hey.

00:03:49.860 Thanks so much for having me.

00:03:51.760 You guys, this was such a gateway drug.

00:03:54.600 Now that I revisited one of the mysteries, I need to read all of the mysteries.

00:04:01.060 Yeah.

00:04:01.640 Some of them are better than others.

00:04:03.920 I will warn you in advance.

00:04:06.820 Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we're just so excited to hear all of the things that you have to say and

00:04:12.280 hear about your mystery as well, which I'm guessing is a little bit better than this one.

00:04:16.180 No shade to Stacey and the mystery at the mall. No shade to the mystery at the mall. None. Yeah.

00:04:21.500 We play a game like, was it really a mystery? Is it a mystery? Yeah. So we'll have to play that

00:04:28.160 with you at some point during this episode. Yes. Because I have thoughts. I don't want to spoil

00:04:34.620 anything just so much to spoil in this mystery actually there kind of is huh yeah more mystery

00:04:40.840 and this mystery than other mysteries i feel yeah but i don't know like from the very beginning of

00:04:44.880 this i was like oh don't make it be this don't make it ah that's what it is i knew it yeah yeah

00:04:51.440 it's tough yeah not me i didn't know till the very end i'm just kidding i'm kidding

00:04:57.020 edge of your seat the whole time exactly okay so let's get into our one sentence summaries of the

00:05:03.040 book i'll go first the bsc members get fake jobs at the mall then create more unpaid work for

00:05:09.360 themselves classic classic yeah they'd work on vacation and they work at work yeah mine is

00:05:16.220 similar i went with the girls get the equivalent of unpaid internships at the mall and stacy

00:05:21.020 appropriately gets sad calling cps oh yeah yeah okay you gotta take it dark already emily

00:05:27.400 mine was stacy and the gang learn about the importance of balancing serving your community

00:05:32.780 with capitalism and ending retail shrink wow wow okay yeah mine is also very similar the bsc

00:05:41.920 take on even more unpaid labor while navigating child protective services all right okay so we

00:05:49.760 took similar things from this we really did we really did all right i feel like maybe that means

00:05:54.500 it's a good book oh that's true yeah the worst books were like there was a red shirt yeah on

00:06:01.840 the playground that's my summary it's not to smoke very consistent this time so very consistent yeah

00:06:08.260 well i mean there were there were some very consistent themes in this absolutely yeah

00:06:11.840 i mean those summaries could also be applied to probably half of the babysitter's cup books

00:06:16.860 these girls love to work and they just don't care about getting paid for it it's true 1.00

00:06:23.880 do. It's true. Sure do. Love it. Okay. We should probably back up and tell you about the members 1.00

00:06:29.640 of the podcast. I'm Annie Ciccala, a freelance writer. I'm a mischievous pragmatist with a

00:06:34.820 sweet tooth. I'm Emily Crandall, a feminist scholar. I'm a total individual and I like

00:06:39.280 health food. Nope, never. I'm Esby Schaller, an adolescent psychologist. I'm kind of bossy,

00:06:44.420 but I have a big heart. I'm Joe Piazza, a journalist and a bestselling novelist.

00:06:49.260 and i am definitely still a christy in my adult life fabulous we love the queen yes um if you

00:06:57.460 want to learn more about us and how we know each other you can check out our prologue episode also

00:07:00.880 please rate and review us it really helps people find the podcast if you have any questions comments

00:07:04.940 or commentary about anything bsc related you can drop us a line at stuck in stony brook at gmail.com

00:07:10.200 you can also support us on patreon at patreon.com slash stuck in stony brook oh it's just it's in

00:07:16.860 there yay okay well welcome joe before we get into the book we want our listeners to be able

00:07:23.120 to get to know you a little bit so we gotta start off with the obvious um tell us when you first

00:07:28.100 started reading the bsc books and what made you fall in love with them oh my gosh i mean i think

00:07:32.740 i was reading the bsc books from the beginning of my middle grade reading journey it was judy

00:07:40.080 It was the Judy Blume, Au Voix, and B.S.C.

00:07:43.360 Those were the first chapter books that I read.

00:07:47.020 So I feel like that's probably around the beginning of B.S.C.

00:07:50.960 I'd meant to look this up.

00:07:51.920 When did they first publish?

00:07:53.040 What year?

00:07:53.800 86.

00:07:54.980 Okay, that's fair.

00:07:55.860 Yeah, because I think I started reading books like this when I was around seven, eight.

00:08:00.920 And so I've had them from the very beginning.

00:08:03.000 And I have such a visceral, almost Pavlovian reaction to seeing the old cover.

00:08:10.620 You guys mailed me a copy of the mystery at the mall and I can immediately smell a mall

00:08:17.840 bookstore, right?

00:08:20.480 Yeah, like I can smell Walden books in the mall when I see these covers.

00:08:26.060 And I just remember sitting on the floor with the wall to wall carpeting because that was

00:08:30.280 a thing in the 80s and pulling the books off the shelf and I would get them as they came out this

00:08:34.820 was happening in real time to me oh yeah because I am from the stone age and so it was it was a big

00:08:40.980 deal when the books came out I felt like these girls were my friends yeah I really I really did

00:08:47.620 and they were older than me right so they were aspirational in a way and not so much older but

00:08:53.440 in the beginning definitely like you know significant amount this is what this is how I

00:08:58.000 wanted to be in the world was like the girls in the babysitter's club yeah i wonder if that's the

00:09:04.280 reason why they stay in eighth grade forever you like age up to them and then they're sort of like

00:09:10.100 a nostalgia and then you launch yeah you launch into your and then you start and then you start

00:09:16.100 reading sweet valley high and it all goes off the rails yeah um okay so you've already mentioned

00:09:21.360 that you are and you were and still are a christy is christy the character that you've always most

00:09:27.240 resonated with? Are there other of the girls that you sort of aspire to be or kind of resonate with,

00:09:33.220 even if you don't identify with them? You know, it's I think I definitely resonated with all of

00:09:38.920 them at some point. Right. And that was that was kind of the genius of these books. And in their

00:09:45.560 very particular 80s way, like each of the girls had something that you could fall a little bit

00:09:52.220 in love with and relate to. And as I was growing up, I wanted to be Stacey because she seemed like

00:09:59.440 the coolest one. I mean, I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, which is a less rich version of

00:10:05.940 the suburbs of Connecticut. I did not understand the economics of the Babysitter's Club until I

00:10:11.260 was reading it as an adult. Interestingly, on this reread, I will say they talk about class

00:10:16.580 a lot more than you expect yeah it's like it's in your face a lot more than I see it in children's

00:10:22.620 literature now which I think is really interesting but so yeah I grew up in the suburbs I grew up

00:10:28.120 going to the mall and doing a lot of things they did and I always felt like a Christy because you

00:10:33.140 know I'm like I'm a worker I'm gonna get things done I am a very stereotypical Virgo which is how

00:10:39.360 I would describe Christy I'd love to be a Stacey but I'm not that cool I'd love to be as laid back

00:10:43.820 as Don but I'm definitely not as shy as Marianne so I mean it was very it was very Christy all the

00:10:49.940 way for me although I did I loved I think there's one detail that Claudia's room was painted in you

00:10:56.800 correct me it was very specific color scheme it was like purple and red I think and I did that

00:11:03.500 to my room whatever Claudia's color scheme was I painted my room in those colors I think it was

00:11:08.480 purple red and black oh amazing yeah that's awesome I love that I love that well and I love

00:11:14.700 that you had the self-knowledge as a kid that you were because I'm definitely a Christy but I think

00:11:19.360 I was like in denial about it as a younger kid and I definitely identified more with Marianne

00:11:23.660 and then it took me a while to grow into my Christyness yeah well I mean in the beginning

00:11:27.700 too you're just like Marianne is the only one with a boyfriend and that's important yeah

00:11:32.280 absolutely yeah uh my my uh biggest sort of journey on the podcast and our revisit is

00:11:41.140 i always always very identified with don and she kind of sucks as an adult she's like sort of a

00:11:48.620 brat and like i don't know she gets the her get these she decides that something is happening 0.96

00:11:55.620 and then sort of blows everything up and I'm like damn yeah I will I will tell you it was kind of I 0.91

00:12:03.040 didn't really I didn't like Dawn that much and also California seemed so crazy far away like a 0.71

00:12:08.000 different country so I was relieved Dawn is not in mystery at the mall and that was kind of nice

00:12:14.440 yeah she's in California for six months yeah so you're right yeah you're in a season where she's

00:12:20.800 not living there yeah but interestingly so you know I remember very vividly when Mallory and

00:12:28.460 Jessie joined the crew I had for I hadn't thought about Shannon in a long time I had forgotten about

00:12:34.100 about private school Shannon joining the crew again more class more class no that's the thing

00:12:39.440 I mean they they talk about how how Christy's stepdad is so rich right every book every book

00:12:46.140 every book it's a mansion it's not a big house it's no it's a mansion and shannon goes to private

00:12:51.920 school and that is fancy and she has a bus ride away yeah yeah they talk about it a lot and they

00:12:58.080 also do a lot of differentiating between like old money and new money and like the right kind of rich

00:13:03.700 person versus like tacky kind of rich people and who cares about the community rich people yeah

00:13:10.020 Yes. And also so much divorce. I mean, classic 80s, right? Everyone I knew had divorced parents

00:13:16.780 in the 80s. Yeah. Needed to rep it for sure. Yeah. So do you think the books had any impact

00:13:23.220 on your future or your current, but as a kid on your future career as a journalist or writer,

00:13:29.040 even podcasting? Well, you know, I have to say that the mystery series, I loved the mystery

00:13:37.100 books. And I love them because I've just always been, been curious. And I think that's what led

00:13:42.760 me to become a journalist. I'm like, I just want to figure things out. I just, I just want to,

00:13:47.840 I just want to like, you know, go in and report and figure out the world. And so, yeah, I do think

00:13:53.540 that those series, like that series, the mystery one in particular, you know, kind of cultivated a

00:13:59.820 love of discovery and my general curiosity. But more than anything, I was actually just with

00:14:07.100 some old friends this weekend who have known me since college and I was bitching and moaning

00:14:13.280 about the world of book publishing. I'm like, it's falling apart. I'm going to have to find a new

00:14:17.840 job. And they're like, you are a world-class hustler, Piazza. You will figure it out. Okay.

00:14:25.380 If AI starts writing the books, you are going to be managing the AI machine. And I was like,

00:14:29.160 I think it all comes back to like this, like entrepreneurial spirit that was taught to me

00:14:35.180 in the babysitter's club like no like you're gonna you've got this you're gonna you're just

00:14:40.300 gonna build a business you may get paid nothing girls but I do think that it engendered that 0.63

00:14:46.940 entrepreneurial hustle spirit which I think Christy has the most of yeah for sure for sure

00:14:53.140 always kids who need watching even on vacation yeah even even in CIL City New Jersey yeah

00:14:59.380 yeah well I I love that you said that Joe because I was thinking you know I I of the three of us I'm

00:15:05.020 the most familiar with your work and i was sort of describing you to ann and emily and all the

00:15:09.180 different things that you've done and you've had all these different stages in your career exactly

00:15:12.400 as you're talking about in terms of doing political reporting celebrity gossip travel writing very

00:15:17.840 different you know novels and non-fiction books like all you know now covering influencer culture

00:15:22.520 and doing the things that you're doing with with um under the influence with your sub stack and i

00:15:27.040 feel like you you actually your expertise overlaps with all three of us like ann is a freelance

00:15:32.000 writer and was in teen mags and also is like definitely the biggest hustler out of us but we

00:15:36.940 call her the lazy hustler because she doesn't like to work as much as you do but she does hustle 0.89

00:15:40.540 um you know and then i know a lot about parenting and some of the other things that you're reporting

00:15:45.940 on now and you do a ton of stuff about feminism and and political things and that all overlaps

00:15:50.600 with emily and i'm just curious like if there's you already mentioned that you're naturally

00:15:54.940 curious like that's very evident if there's like things that you have loved the most about these

00:15:59.820 different stages, or if you just like the change and like, you know, the additional curiosity and

00:16:04.520 kind of moving along. I like the change. I like, you know, following different threads and covering

00:16:10.020 different topics. You know, who hates it? My agents. They're like, could you just do one thing?

00:16:17.300 Yeah, you must be hard to describe. Yeah, I'm hard to describe. You know who has Elaine? Colleen

00:16:22.640 Hoover. And she sells a lot of books. And they're like, even selling the Sicilian inheritance 0.77

00:16:28.520 recently because i hadn't written a mystery or thriller before and it is also historical fiction

00:16:34.400 adjacent there were entire publishing houses despite the fact that i have sold a lot of books

00:16:38.680 before that were like we don't know how to market that and i'm like you market it as a book is right

00:16:43.380 you're like to be read by people to be read by humans like but this isn't what joe does and i'm

00:16:49.520 like well i did it so it is what i do and it's just amazing i mean the publishing world is broken

00:16:55.740 and sad but I would say I have a through line in all of my work and I think that you know my my jam

00:17:03.780 my like my lane is trying to tell stories about women that have not been told before particularly

00:17:12.200 women and ambition and women and agency and even one of my one of my non-fiction books if nuns

00:17:20.000 ruled the world seems like such an outlier but it's a story about women that has not been told

00:17:25.280 and it's a story about the ambitious women yeah that has not been told sadly there is not a

00:17:31.120 section in the bookstore for stories about this women but when i open my bookstore which i'm going

00:17:37.280 to call nice things because you deserve nice things and it will also sell it will also sell 1.00

00:17:42.260 wine and cheese so that it makes money okay i will have i will have a section that is called

00:17:48.260 books about ambitious women yeah fabulous i mean that way of genre organizing uh-huh i

00:17:54.720 I want to go to that story Anna Emily is Joe the most Christy Christy we've had on I think I feel

00:18:00.820 like that's like such a Christy Thomas description I like ambitious women whose stories haven't been

00:18:06.460 told because she has that whole you know um service orientation too yes that I feel like

00:18:11.760 is so central to her character oh my god I'm so honored that I'm the most we've had a lot of

00:18:16.840 Christy's on yes it is funny most people who want yes yeah yeah all everyone who writes us emails

00:18:22.320 is Marianne. Everyone who wants to come on the show is Christy. It really does. And we love it.

00:18:30.440 So I was first introduced to you, Joe, through We Are Not Like Them, which I really,

00:18:35.200 really enjoyed. And I got real Mal and Jesse vibes while reading it. And I was like texted

00:18:41.660 Ann about it back when it first came out of like, you should read this. It's like a sophisticated

00:18:45.120 adult version of Mal and Jesse going back and forth. So I'm just curious about if you thought

00:18:50.220 about that at all in the back of your mind while you and Christine Pride were writing it and what

00:18:54.360 that process was like. I did. I did. And the Mal and Jesse friendship, I think, was so ahead of

00:19:01.600 its time. Christine and I say a lot. So We Are Not Like Them is a book about two best friends.

00:19:08.220 One is white, one is black. And it does center on a police shooting and what happens to their 0.72

00:19:15.740 friendship as they have to reckon with race for the first time and christine is a black woman she

00:19:20.860 was she used to be my edit my book editor and now she is my co-writer uh which means i lost my

00:19:26.280 editor which was so sad but you know i gained a co-writer and we we were friends and as someone

00:19:32.960 who's worked in books for so long christine would always say i just i never see really you know

00:19:39.800 complicated and also authentic interracial friendships on the page and i said but what

00:19:44.300 about jesse and mal yeah and it's true we don't you know we trotted out this statistic a lot when

00:19:50.880 we were on book tour for we are not like them that something like close to 90 of people don't

00:19:57.800 have a close friend of another race yeah and really high wow and we don't see it we barely 0.69

00:20:04.540 see it in books and when we see it in movies it feels very forced yes the sassy black friends

00:20:10.480 or the like nervous white friend in the black movie a hundred percent every time or like the 0.90

00:20:16.840 reboot of sex in the city where you're like what just happened but i think you know mal and jesse's

00:20:24.640 friendship felt so organic authentic and just easy and it was but the fact that i that was the only

00:20:33.940 example i could think of in books i was like but what about the babysitters club shows that there

00:20:39.840 is a lack of this yeah in commercial literature yeah that's so cool i'm glad that that inspired

00:20:46.680 the book and it's cool to like look back at your childhood influences and they just kind of

00:20:51.440 naturally influence what you do today like without even thinking about it right

00:20:55.400 but we want to talk about your new book oh i i always want to talk about that

00:21:02.180 so it's called again Sicilian inheritance and it comes out April 2nd yeah um so let's talk about

00:21:12.960 how you decided to write this book I know that it was inspired by your own great-great-grandmother

00:21:18.480 so yeah give us a little bit of background about that yeah absolutely so the Sicilian inheritance

00:21:24.620 I genuinely think and my agent backed this up and she doesn't bullshit me anymore that it is the

00:21:29.720 best book that I've ever written, okay? It's a novel, and it is loosely based on the murder of

00:21:36.300 my great-great-grandmother, Lorenza Marsala, in Sicily a century ago. My family has been telling

00:21:42.620 this story for as long as I can remember, but no one really knows what is true about it because 0.88

00:21:48.880 we're Italian-American, so we're a bunch of liars and storytellers. And so every family member has

00:21:56.220 a different version of this story. And what we know is that she was left by her husband so he

00:22:00.900 could come make a better life in America. Her husband came here. Her sons came over here. She

00:22:06.520 was there for quite some time. And then she was murdered. And then every family member has a

00:22:11.040 different version of what happened. Was it the mob? Was she murdered for being a witch? I mean,

00:22:16.860 all of these theories are out there. We had no idea. I wanted to focus on what would it be like

00:22:22.980 to be a woman left alone in Sicily during this time period that a lot of men did leave so this

00:22:29.920 is a time when women started taking on the men's jobs they were handling the money for the first

00:22:34.200 time they were learning to read for the first time they were really taking on responsibility

00:22:39.100 and I think it could have been awesome too because they didn't have to be a wife or get pregnant 1.00

00:22:43.080 every nine months yeah and then I wanted to have a modern woman from Philadelphia today go back to 1.00

00:22:50.920 Sicily and try to claim her family's land and solve this murder. But she gets caught up in the 1.00

00:22:56.980 same forces that originally tried to take her great grandmother down. So it is an adventure.

00:23:02.740 It is a murder mystery, but it is also a frothy adventure through Sicily filled with food and

00:23:11.660 wine and not gratuitous sex, but very attractive people wearing wonderful outfits. And it's just

00:23:18.520 a lot of fun I've been you know I read a lot for work and there's some incredible books being

00:23:22.980 published right now but so many of them are so dark and leave me feeling just unhappy and I

00:23:29.340 wanted more joy in my life so I decided to write a book where you also don't have you don't feel

00:23:34.260 dumber for having read it which there's a lot of those out right now as well but where you're

00:23:39.300 gonna feel smart you're gonna feel like you know satisfied but you're also just gonna have fun 0.98

00:23:45.160 the sicilian inheritance is a book you can pick up and read on a plane and you'll be like i feel

00:23:50.480 great after having read that whereas a lot of the a lot of the big books that i've read right now i'm

00:23:55.560 like i feel like crap i just i feel bad about the world or i'll read you know and i i love i'm not 0.96

00:24:02.020 like you know denigrating you know any book genre as fluff but i read some and i'm like i am fucking 0.89

00:24:07.640 dumber for reading that so so i wanted to find that sweet spot and i think the sicilian inheritance 0.56

00:24:12.340 is it but back to the mystery of it all I wrote the book I didn't want to dive into the true story 0.93

00:24:17.740 because I wanted to write fiction but once it was over I was like oh I can't stop myself I need to

00:24:25.320 solve this murder so Christy so I told you I'm just a classic classic Christy so I did so I did

00:24:34.720 so I took my children my three children under the age of six and took them to Sicily last summer

00:24:40.140 and started recording a true a true crime podcast called the sicilian inheritance it's dropping

00:24:47.780 shortly we'll have the trailer up very soon where i solve her murder where i solve lorenza's actual

00:24:53.520 murder and yeah yeah i mean it's been a ride it's not called it's not solved yet but i'm going back

00:25:00.040 to sicily in 10 days and i'm intent on solving it while i'm there but we've got some freaking

00:25:06.200 bombshells in there, man. Like the things I've discovered are up for about a century old murder

00:25:12.720 are insane. It's white Lotus meets only murders in the building.

00:25:16.880 That's say no more. Yeah.

00:25:19.760 You've got us and all of our listeners. Yeah, I know. So, so yeah, so that's, I've just been

00:25:25.660 solving a mystery for the past year, bumbling, bumbling around the Sicilian countryside,

00:25:31.260 much like the bsc bumbled around the mall exactly wow that's a beautiful chef's kiss segue yeah i

00:25:38.960 like that you did the segue for us i know i know she's a pro you guys yeah so what did you think

00:25:46.280 about stacy's own mystery at the mall was it a mystery so i really can we spoil the mystery

00:25:54.940 yes yes okay it is time it is time all all the members of the bsc get jobs at the mall

00:26:04.140 because then this is part of this the public schools in stony brook connecticut are like

00:26:09.280 really nice amazing yeah amazing they have this class that changes like every quarter where they

00:26:15.880 learn practical life skills and like what school does that even now wait i forgot what the name of

00:26:21.680 the classes well this this segment was skills yeah it's life skills but this segment was project

00:26:27.080 work project but what's the but what's the what do they call the classes wasn't it like short short

00:26:33.360 takes or something oh yeah something like that right i was like it's like a hot take

00:26:37.620 it's like a quickie yeah exactly and so and so the and so this version of the class is that they all

00:26:44.000 have to get jobs and all of the bsc members get jobs at the mall and it's also it's just so cute

00:26:51.060 they all take a bus there after school and they can't babysit while they're doing it because they

00:26:56.100 have these jobs at the mall and stacy is working at the toy store and christy's working in security

00:27:00.400 by the way that seemed a little like it seems hysterical i can't it seemed like christy christy

00:27:06.080 was being given a little bit too much power for a 13 year old okay yeah that's again out completely

00:27:11.400 yeah that's like what yeah yeah um and but i also like you know the head of security at the mall

00:27:19.260 was a woman which I think was was Ann Martin's way of you know just switching gender roles

00:27:25.780 generally right um because you think about the head of security and then I remember it being

00:27:29.460 like oh missus and I'm like oh okay yeah yeah yeah um so they get to the mall all of them very

00:27:36.080 quickly realize that things are being stolen from the mall and the other clue is it seems like

00:27:41.880 someone might be living in the mall and that was the moment that I'm like oh god it's gonna be

00:27:45.080 homeless kids it's going to be homeless yeah just yep no it's going to be homeless kids how is the

00:27:50.100 bsc going to deal with this yeah but it's even there there's two plot twists right there's two

00:27:56.940 mysteries that they have to solve because there's petty crime and then there's grand theft happening

00:28:02.040 at the mall and so it's homeless kids uh but then it's also the mall manager who's essentially

00:28:08.600 stealing large items because he can't balance the books this isn't he's too nice he's too

00:28:14.660 because he just keeps giving things away with a heart of gold he's a he's robin hood is what he

00:28:19.460 is stealing tvs um to to to throw community events at the mall yes uh and so and so the girl the the

00:28:28.220 club i don't want to say the girls because logan's involved um the club yes good they are i want to

00:28:33.380 be inclusive they are solving these dual mysteries of what is happening at the mall now the level of

00:28:39.220 danger that they make it seem that they are in is very intense like stacy is just constantly worried

00:28:45.880 that not only is there going to be like petty thievery but like someone's going to hold her

00:28:50.280 up at gunpoint and kill her she's just like i just felt unsafe i just like felt really unsafe 0.99

00:28:54.540 being there and i'm like you grew up in new york city bitch yeah yeah yeah like you're really 0.99

00:28:59.100 afraid of whoever is stealing this video game from the toy store in the suburban connecticut mall 0.92

00:29:04.540 that's true it's true don would have been a wee implausible yeah don would have been a little 0.97

00:29:09.040 bitch for sure for sure it just didn't feel very stacy of me of her right yeah yeah agreed agreed 0.96

00:29:17.900 yeah so yeah so they they saw like you know they set out to solve this mystery i do think it was 0.99

00:29:24.880 it was pretty clear from the beginning i just didn't i didn't want it to be the homeless kids

00:29:28.320 okay because i was like oh my god how like how did these kids end up homeless what's gonna happen

00:29:34.180 when CPS inevitably gets involved. Is the BSC up to this challenge of dealing with a very

00:29:41.060 bureaucratic system? And the answer is they weren't. No. It was all horribly ill-prepared.

00:29:46.900 Very ill-prepared, all handled very badly in the end. And they really hoodwinked those poor

00:29:51.440 children is what they did. They really tricked them. Okay. We forgot about the, like, faint,

00:29:57.620 right so at the first they're the mystery is solved because like a big group of teenagers

00:30:03.360 gets arrested oh yeah and they're like these are the thieves but like they were not the thieves

00:30:08.320 after because they weren't doing the big crime or the petty crime stealing supplies they were 0.99

00:30:12.760 just being teenagers yeah back to my life's work of not blaming teenagers for fucking everything 0.84

00:30:17.860 yeah they were the only innocence yeah only innocence exactly exactly but you also knew 0.90

00:30:23.840 that it wasn't over then you're like it's not them it's not them guys come on come on yeah yeah

00:30:29.700 that was the quote-unquote sting operation that christy was talking about yeah she had the inside

00:30:34.820 scoop because she works for security they told her too much yeah why did they give a 13 year

00:30:41.500 old a walkie-talkie i don't understand right like what exactly was she supposed to be like

00:30:46.400 if you were an intern in the security office as a child you'd think they'd be like why don't you

00:30:51.000 make some copies and they're like yeah christy christy go patrol the mall here's your walk

00:30:54.360 yeah yeah go pop in on your friends and see what's up yeah i will say the image of christy i had was

00:31:01.580 like paul bart mall cop yeah which made it extra funny well and i also yeah the thing that really

00:31:11.700 killed that took me out was when stacy runs into the guy in the ski mask in the storage space behind

00:31:18.040 toy town yeah and then christy comes to like assess the scene yeah and she says we'll get him

00:31:24.400 i promise you we will like so intense that's what got me too i'm like i'm like where are the adults

00:31:31.000 in this situation yeah where are the adults also so like the other such 80s thing is that all of

00:31:37.920 the parents are bringing their children to the mall to work with them and i was talking about

00:31:42.380 this the other day with someone my mom was a teacher she was a special ed teacher and when i

00:31:46.840 was sick she would just take me to school with her so she didn't take off work I would go sit

00:31:51.640 in the teacher's lounge sit in an office in a corner I would sit yeah in the corner and like

00:31:56.080 I would like lay under the blanket and like read the babysitter's club books and and that was fine

00:32:01.200 that was totally acceptable and yeah all ever it looks like every one of them all is just bringing

00:32:06.440 their kids to work and like making them sit in the corner yeah well there's a there's a hole for

00:32:13.680 the babysitter's club service that they provide that's the thing there was it wasn't just the

00:32:18.860 dual mysteries it was also that christy created a new business of the daycare center at the mall

00:32:25.480 she just she immediately she saw this like one sad lone child and was like ding ding ding we're

00:32:32.360 gonna create a babysitting service in the mall which by the way they did ignore the fact that

00:32:37.420 it's not as easy as just renovating the old arcade and getting a babysitter in there there's a lot of

00:32:42.940 liability and insurance issues with putting a daycare facility in a mall for sure they mentioned

00:32:49.140 they did some hand waving about paperwork at one point they did like someone said they had to get

00:32:53.540 the right licenses yes but it was um yeah but also stacy it's stacy's idea first and then christy's

00:33:01.900 a little sour about it and then the next day christy comes in and is like all right let's get

00:33:05.820 it done because she's my idea it's my idea yeah chris i think christy tricked even me right because

00:33:10.560 i didn't even remember that i was like it was all christy all the time oh good oh my god anything

00:33:18.340 else that jumped out to you joe or parts of the book that you especially liked or things that

00:33:21.720 were surprising to you you know i i did find it really surprising like the way they brought in

00:33:31.160 the mall manager again it was a kind of a class thing um like they talked a lot about how he

00:33:38.140 wanted to cater to the community he was doing like a lot of outreach with i think they even said with

00:33:43.220 like a homeless shelter with poor people they use words like rich and poor very often and i did like

00:33:49.460 that they made him a little more nuanced than than expected but then he did become a villain very

00:33:56.240 quickly because all they're like oh he's a good guy but then they're like he's bullying these

00:33:59.240 poor homeless children threatening them he's threatening these homeless children too and also

00:34:03.480 the way they became homeless was rock was was super sketchy yeah yeah pretty sketch like their

00:34:10.420 mom was sick and had to go to the hospital and they didn't want to bother her so they moved into

00:34:13.940 the mall it was all a little bit basely frankwiler-y and also made me it did make me so

00:34:20.840 nostalgic for the mall though i don't know how much time all of you spent in the mall growing up

00:34:27.600 yeah so much time so much time i mean as as a young young child like you know but then also

00:34:35.620 as a teenager it was just all mall all the time my first boyfriend worked at the chick-fil-a in

00:34:39.900 the food court you know he always smelled like chicken which was weirdly comforting

00:34:45.140 i have a weird kink for guys who can now make me fried chicken uh and but it was the mall was just

00:34:53.620 like the epicenter of our lives and i'm so curious about what kids like where kids hang now because

00:34:58.060 malls are no longer i mean malls are malls are sad sad places i went a lot of them don't is the

00:35:04.140 like what do they do where do they go so i have i have a 13 year old and a 15 year old and my 15

00:35:09.800 year old is really bummed about the lack of of third spaces you know like there's just not like

00:35:15.880 we're watching friends now for the first time and my 15 year old is obsessed with it because they

00:35:21.100 spend so much time in the coffee shop like they're like there's a place to go and hang out with your

00:35:25.380 people and like it does not seem to be as much of a thing that is such a well it's not as it's not

00:35:31.700 as enough of a thing for grown-ups either and I think about that all the time with my fictitious

00:35:35.900 bookstore that I want to open yeah because I'm like I would love a third space or it's like oh

00:35:41.260 if I walk in here I'm probably going to run into someone else I know from the neighborhood

00:35:44.040 totally like Emily has one that's why she's smiling smugly yeah well but it's interesting

00:35:48.660 so my coffee shop the west brooklyn um is a coffee shop and a bar and and the same 10 people have

00:35:56.320 worked there for 15 years um and everyone in the neighborhood is who's a regular all knows each

00:36:02.180 other it's very like very friends like but because it's a bar like teenagers don't really hang out

00:36:07.980 there so like seven years ago a starbucks opened like a block down and it's always busy even though

00:36:14.040 there's like a good local coffee shop on the same block because it's mostly filled with teenagers

00:36:18.820 yeah yeah yeah yeah like you know people who live in the building above it like doing work on their

00:36:24.260 laptops but like people with small kids people with are just teens on their own it like really

00:36:28.960 filled a kind of gap that's in in third spaces for teenagers in the neighborhood because everything

00:36:33.980 else is a bar yeah yeah that that is really nice and also i mean i just think cities need to be

00:36:40.000 reimagined we have so much dead retail space here in philly i know you know a lot of a lot of cities

00:36:45.460 do it should all be imagined into some kind of third space so you can have a you can you can

00:36:50.660 make it capitalist you can sell stuff but like find a place especially close to my kids go to

00:36:55.740 the public school down the street and there's all these just like sad empty businesses right across

00:37:00.760 the street from the school and make it a coffee shop the parents would go there every day after

00:37:03.840 drop off yeah right yeah yeah I mean nice things I know but guys can I guys can I tell you like

00:37:11.680 the most egotistical shitty thing about me I'm like all right yes please I will I'm like well

00:37:17.480 I need the Sicilian like I've had I've had successful books and stuff but like I love the

00:37:20.780 Sicilian inheritance the most so I'm like well it has to I need it to like do good things in the

00:37:25.040 world otherwise I think I'll be depressed being surrounded by books all the time I might come

00:37:28.920 out of it but like I'm like oh no I'm like it would it would definitely help like I think I

00:37:33.280 would be more of like more excited about the whole thing like if this does well come april but you

00:37:37.860 never know because book launches i will say because i i loved the babysitters club so much and she was

00:37:42.760 such a prolific writer that it's one of the things that inspired me to write books and being an author

00:37:47.740 seemed like such a fancy wonderful thing and i think in the 80s it was oh ann and martin had it

00:37:53.740 good yeah she had it good right yeah i have a friend who saw her recently at a bookstore in

00:37:59.780 western massachusetts and she seems like she's living a nice life yeah i'm sorry emily have you

00:38:04.680 had her on no no she's like notoriously uh introverted like she really wanted to she did

00:38:11.960 so well in the 80s that she disappeared yeah that's how well it was we we had the producers

00:38:18.440 of the netflix show on and they talked about meeting her to pitch the show and how they got

00:38:22.740 like one meeting with her like upstate new york with like at a cafe one time and how you know 0.99

00:38:29.400 she she's just like very shy she's a marianne she's like deeply a marianne so she doesn't do

00:38:34.000 a lot of press and she doesn't you know that's our that's our goal someday but we haven't tried

00:38:39.020 very hard yet because if i had if i had ann m martin money i would be a marianne too and i'd go

00:38:45.000 exactly what must be nice i'm here for that but i'm a christy and i have to hustle hustle hustle

00:38:52.760 yeah yeah yeah all right emily what what uh what political feminist things that we haven't talked 0.63

00:38:58.820 about already jumped out to you i'm not going to do a whole deep dive on cps because it's really

00:39:03.700 really depressing but i just will i will say like the history of child welfare in the u.s is really

00:39:09.280 bleak it like has its origins in eugenics that we can cure social and political ills by fixing them

00:39:16.840 either before birth right with sort of like forced sterilization and like actual kind of

00:39:22.100 eugenic stuff or by like removing children from their families where problematic traits will be

00:39:28.680 passed on and kind of placing them with better families so it you know the the term child welfare

00:39:35.280 is a bit of a misnomer in terms of the the history of the actual institutions and practices

00:39:39.320 and and you know in continuing into the present moment it has still functions as a tool of social

00:39:47.200 control um i there's this woman who's um this incredible legal scholar dorothy roberts i've

00:39:54.200 talked about her a lot on the podcast um but she her new book actually is about child welfare and

00:40:00.100 she makes a case for abolition of foster care essentially but like all the kind of related

00:40:05.740 things and she has this stat that she keeps pulling out on her book tour that is just astounding so

00:40:12.740 like 53 percent of black children in the united states experience a cps investigation at some

00:40:20.680 point during their childhood 53 isn't that wild and like the overwhelming evidence suggests that

00:40:27.560 most people who are in the foster care system have families that want them but like for whatever

00:40:32.480 reason because of bureaucratic bullshit like can't get them and make a claim on them so the whole

00:40:37.440 thing is just sad sad sad and like you know joe you pointed out at the beginning that like the 0.88

00:40:42.740 the babysitters don't handle it very well right like stacy calls the cops and they call a social

00:40:48.880 worker and they're like oh it's going to work out fine for them but the that's probably not

00:40:53.580 historically accurate right like if it if that were really to happen in the 80s and particularly

00:40:58.100 if they were children of color like the outcomes from that phone call are not going to be good

00:41:02.880 outcomes and stacy would in all likelihood like later regret having done that or i don't know i

00:41:10.320 mean what's the option i guess but this is a nice action too but rather than having to talk about

00:41:14.780 cps twice i i thought that that was one of the smart things about the book so first of all it's

00:41:19.380 started in the 80s but this we're in 1994 now and they're they're very clear that it's three

00:41:24.460 blonde children right so these are three white kids so very very clear without saying hey look 0.60

00:41:29.440 at these white children yeah and as you white kids can be poor too yeah as you pointed out

00:41:34.920 the the way they became homeless is very clean right like there are no villains in the story

00:41:41.100 like someone dies mom goes to the hospital like and and mara the older sister like steps up to

00:41:46.660 try to take care of her younger kids so i have to say of the younger kids in this situation i think

00:41:51.660 it actually would work out okay because you've got three blonde children and then they say like oh

00:41:56.320 and mom's getting better and she's ready to come home and they're going to get these services to 0.64

00:41:59.640 help them be together and i think that that was a smart way of doing it because it's i'm not saying

00:42:05.920 that it's good that it would work okay out okay because it's three suburban children connect but

00:42:09.840 they also haven't they haven't ended up being homeless because they were being directly abused

00:42:14.940 or something terrible you know it was like poverty and misfortune not most kids aren't

00:42:21.680 what we call abuse isn't what we or most like neglect right isn't actually yeah neglect is a

00:42:28.000 really problematic thing and i will say you know what i was going to talk about in my kid as as

00:42:33.080 someone who spends probably a lot more time talking to children and teens that have been abused than

00:42:38.580 like abused abused not neglected than you do emily there there was need and part of the goal

00:42:44.560 of you know we didn't have any child abuse reporting regularity until 1974 and the goal of

00:42:51.120 that was to correct some of these origins of child welfare that you're talking about and also to make

00:42:56.060 sure that people did report white families because what was happening when there was no federal law

00:43:02.240 and it's still this is still it's not a perfect system there are a lot of problems with cps and

00:43:07.360 there are a lot of people who are really trying to help kids stay safe in there as well it's a big

00:43:12.540 it's a big dialectic but what was happening before 1974 is that it was like oh well that that man is

00:43:19.360 a dentist and serves on city council he couldn't possibly be possibly abuse his children and so 0.97

00:43:24.280 no one that had contact with that that kid who was getting the shit beat out of him would do 0.84

00:43:29.240 anything about it and that's why we have mandated reporting laws and so that's why you know me as

00:43:33.760 a psychologist your mom as a teacher joe and you know emily's mom and my mom as teachers and

00:43:38.660 you know and ann's mom actually wow we got a lot of teacher moms um on this on this episode

00:43:44.040 um you know have to make those calls so like the system is not good and there are a lot of

00:43:50.280 problems with it and there are a lot of broad definitions of especially neglect as you mentioned

00:43:55.260 emily and i i am really interested in in abolition and finding similar to what we've talked about

00:44:02.580 with like mental health and the police right finding ways for people to get help to those kids

00:44:07.720 and we've we've seen a change especially in the last 20 years toward preserving family unification

00:44:13.140 that is going a long way but it's still there's still a lot of people that shouldn't have contact

00:44:17.580 with cps that do right so but i thought it was smart to make them white kids right for the

00:44:22.840 purposes of the story yeah i just think you know in the long tradition of things that we've talked

00:44:27.560 about in the BSC universe that have shocking racist origins CPS is another one yeah so I just

00:44:35.120 that was just something to flag yeah it it's really interesting to me that CPS came up in

00:44:42.760 in this book because it felt it feels like this book was meant for me you you guys chose you guys

00:44:48.020 chose it essentially but it really felt like it was it was supposed to to be my episode because

00:44:54.520 my book that I just wrote before Sicilian Inheritance, You Were Always Mine, is about

00:44:58.720 CPS. It's about a Black woman who finds an abandoned white baby, and she doesn't want

00:45:06.660 to call the police because as a Black woman and a former foster child, she has dealt with

00:45:12.400 the system and she knows exactly what happens when she does call the police and that that's

00:45:19.200 not the best situation. But that's not the interesting part here. The interesting part

00:45:23.520 is in the that this book got like really torn up in a lot of review not reviews but commenters

00:45:30.960 reader reader reviews on various reader sites that I won't name and people are like she's a 0.99

00:45:36.680 monster for not calling the police oh and these are all I mean it's mostly white women saying

00:45:41.560 this and it just it was such the comments on this book ended up being so so racial and much more

00:45:48.740 racial than our book that we actually wrote about social justice and race people just like a lot of

00:45:55.020 people really did not like this black woman having this white baby yeah well the official stuck in

00:46:00.140 stony brook position is anti the carceral state so we're we're with you like the official stuck 1.00

00:46:06.400 in stony brook yeah okay i just had two other little nuggets um stacy when she's building the

00:46:11.560 dollhouse or the in the toy store to so she's learning a lot about how to move product and

00:46:17.100 one thing you do to move product is to change up the window displays. I loved her little

00:46:21.080 like narration on that. Teaching us that. Yeah. Yeah. And then she puts the mom doll in the

00:46:25.860 garage and like the dad doll in the kitchen or whatever, and says, this is a liberated doll

00:46:29.760 family, which I thought was very funny. Yeah. I really enjoyed that. Yeah. And she's like trying

00:46:35.280 to teach the little kid, right? Like she's playing with the April, the store owner's son,

00:46:39.680 because she doesn't have childcare, right? Enough days of the week. And that's in part what

00:46:44.380 motivates the creation of the daycare center and then there was just one other little thing at some

00:46:49.620 point when they're trying to suss out the mystery christy says smells like a rat as watson would say 0.82

00:46:56.280 and i was like what what's with like why did she go to the trouble of flagging that that's like a

00:47:01.180 watson quote in particular isn't that weird i had also forgotten that his name was watson yeah yeah

00:47:08.620 it's it's it's such a good like rich rich guy name and you know i mean now that it's back in

00:47:15.960 my life if we get a pet in this house like a hamster i'm gonna put watson forward for the

00:47:22.460 that's a perfect name for a hamster yeah um this it might also amuse you that in our uh canon of

00:47:29.400 the extended babysitters club universe we have decided that watson um is the the either like

00:47:35.820 heir or um sort of ceo founder of the of sunbeam toasters so toaster ovens in particular because

00:47:44.860 in one book it mentioned him like using like three toasters to make breakfast and we're like

00:47:50.220 yeah for all the kids yeah that was a logical conclusion yeah do we think watson's hot because

00:47:56.820 i also reading i do i think watson i think watson's pretty hot and i think that christy's

00:48:01.740 mom might be a smoke show too yeah i reading reading it now i'm realizing that the parents

00:48:07.800 are probably my age oh yeah they're younger joe they're younger than us yeah yeah yeah yeah totally

00:48:13.700 totally that's a weird thing to think about when you're weird yeah it's very weird esme did you

00:48:18.720 have other things i just you know i thought it was hilarious that the 11 year olds have these

00:48:23.080 jobs through project work too i thought that was a stretch yeah jesse's job seems especially

00:48:27.500 demanding yeah it's working hard in the movie theater for sure jesse i mean again i just yeah

00:48:33.780 i think that they're working jesse way too hard but also jesse and mal are in a different grade

00:48:38.500 why are they working why are they also doing a project the whole school's doing it the same

00:48:42.380 time i don't understand is it a three-year cycle it's very confusing yeah when you think about

00:48:46.580 11 year old they look very young yeah no that's not seeing like 11 year old in little like movie

00:48:51.960 theater uniforms like sweeping the floor yeah no yeah borderline problematic yeah borderline

00:48:58.080 problematic yes uh well speaking of jesse she's working at cinema world that's her job but it

00:49:05.600 seems like a pretty cool job except she does mention on a page about a movie she had to see

00:49:10.660 10 times and she was like oh it wasn't very good right so i was trying to think what movie it could

00:49:17.180 in april 94 so i did a quick rundown of what was out in april 94 in the movie theaters and also

00:49:23.700 then kind of edited out like any movies jesse wouldn't be able to see that it's not r-rated

00:49:28.800 yeah i try i try to keep it to things that she would be interested in as an 11 year old

00:49:33.720 don't tell mom the babysitter's dad that's well see that would be a good movie though

00:49:37.760 yeah she wouldn't say that was bad yeah i don't know yeah so there's like there's a lot of sequels

00:49:44.580 out white thing too i feel like anything with an animal she would like white thing too yeah uh

00:49:50.080 monkey trouble was out beethoven beethoven second was out so these are all movies she would really

00:49:57.240 like i feel yeah um and then the movie that i saw that i think she would see 10 times that was not

00:50:05.080 good is the movie clifford oh no starring martin short where martin short plays a little boy

00:50:11.980 oh god oh no no yeah but it's just funny because i recently re-watched that movie

00:50:18.920 re-watched it recently interesting like last month because my husband 10 times in one month

00:50:24.780 yeah yeah 10 times in one month and it's not good yeah no but it is it's not good i watched a youtube

00:50:31.620 interview with martin short about that movie what was interesting is that before clifford came out

00:50:37.580 the movie problem child came out remember that movie oh i do i do i do i do the producers were

00:50:44.640 like i don't know we can't have another movie about the same same idea with like this kind of

00:50:50.040 annoying kid so what they did instead they replaced a child actor with martin short oh no

00:50:56.440 no and that's how they made it different sometimes i think civilization has gone backwards but

00:51:03.120 moments like that makes me think it's a little bit better 30 years later yeah no totally

00:51:07.180 no it's not it's not don't don't second guess yourself friend right right but another fun

00:51:14.380 thing i thought we could talk about is what store we would want to work at at the mall

00:51:17.700 oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah natural wonders oh that was gonna be mine or the nature store

00:51:24.920 yeah nature company nature company yeah we've talked about this a lot in the podcast before

00:51:29.640 so in in this in this world i'm 13 right hot topic baby hot nice that's a good one yeah

00:51:38.480 yeah i feel like i would like it's either claire's or the bookstore yeah yeah yeah interesting

00:51:46.200 you were you that into accessories no but well i was really into earrings

00:51:51.120 okay yeah i do have like 13 holes in my ears still do you wow

00:51:57.200 that's the most impressed has been on the podcast i have 10 i have 10 in my ears and

00:52:03.620 one in my face i've got 10 i have seven left um but the thing is i just once i take

00:52:12.280 earrings out i just never put them back in i'm so bad at putting them back in

00:52:16.940 yeah I just never take them out wait so do you have five in each ear Emily yeah Emily I have

00:52:23.580 six in one and four in the other oh you're such an individual such an individual that's really

00:52:28.200 that's really Stacey Stacey-esque oh wow um Claire's Claire's yeah you'd be like

00:52:36.380 getting the three earrings or getting that discount so that was kind of what I want to

00:52:41.020 talk about just the mall stuff but also there was a lot of good food a lot of good junk food

00:52:46.180 i wrote it down there there was orange orange julius right oh yeah yeah yeah that's just

00:52:52.620 quintessential mall oh such a treat uh there's some pretzels of course yeah oh remember hershey

00:53:00.180 minis i feel like they haven't brought up hershey minis before yeah and why why does chrissy like

00:53:05.220 special dark i feel like that's an old man flavor yeah like you know like rereading it and i remember

00:53:12.640 this was striking to me as a kid i didn't have any friends with diabetes it seemed like something

00:53:17.180 very exotic and different at the time but like they really hammer diabetes hard yeah hard it is

00:53:26.440 just like every every mention of food stacy's like but there was a special food because i can't eat

00:53:31.260 that yeah yeah it's just it's really and it's always pretzels or crackers actually well in this

00:53:38.640 in this book i think she got some cookies with sweden with fruit juice actually yes also sounds

00:53:44.340 so gross yeah when she goes to the donut shop she has a bagel she does she does which feels

00:53:51.380 like it would maybe spike her insulin yeah bagel does not seem yeah low yeah no no less direct

00:53:57.520 sugars but yeah all those carbs turn into sugar yeah um chido paws oh i've thought about those

00:54:04.240 yeah they've never meant uh chrissy got an m&m cookie at the mall which is obviously

00:54:10.280 there's some ringdings famous catears yeah there was some you know thorns julius some good food

00:54:17.780 in here lots of food yeah good excellent oh and burritos of course oh yes yeah wait what is it

00:54:24.140 that logan learns how to make that he's all excited about the chef like teaches him how to

00:54:27.840 enchiladas also lol at the fact that everyone is like kind of sussing out their career aspirations

00:54:37.060 by working at places that align to their interests and then logan works at casa grande

00:54:42.740 but then he thinks he might want to be a chef he's like into it he does this is how you learn

00:54:49.560 things about yourself and that's why project work is such a special program it really is a special

00:54:54.580 program picturing him in the kitchen like nowadays anyway the people in the kitchen are most likely

00:55:01.420 to be speaking spanish regardless of what kind of kitchen and whether or not it's a classic grande

00:55:04.960 and he's like this young teenager with a southern drawl like what's he talking about with the guys

00:55:12.180 right yeah fabulous not a lot of tallies in this book so joe we track the like stereotypes they say

00:55:20.680 about each other in their descriptors at the beginning so but we do have the return unfortunately 0.99

00:55:25.080 of both almond shaped eyes and exotic for claudia which has been gone for like eight books wow

00:55:31.060 sort of optimistic that they were starting to phase it out in the mid-90s but it is back

00:55:34.980 um and one shy one sensitive and one individual for dawn even though she's out here on the left

00:55:40.440 coast they had to mention that she's an individual i do remember almond shaped eyes look very very

00:55:46.880 well i do yeah yeah my eyes i'm in shape and likes to do a bit where she tries to figure out

00:55:53.080 what kind of nut our eyes are shaped like oh what kind of what kind of nut are my eyes shaped like

00:55:58.400 oh you have pretty big eyes yeah well i've got fake eyelashes on because i was just recording

00:56:02.920 2020 and so my babysitter helped me put fake eyelashes on oh my god amazing

00:56:08.280 maybe like so appropriate for a bsc podcast recording to follow yeah i feel like like a

00:56:14.460 brazil nut is pretty big right well i'm brazil nutting yeah yeah

00:56:21.340 oh my god okay what were our favorite lines from the book there weren't a lot of good one-liners

00:56:28.980 in this one no mine yeah i didn't under i didn't underline a whole lot yeah i put baby tell me a

00:56:35.040 story because i just thought it was funny yeah such a weird name i mean liberated doll family

00:56:40.200 is up there for me i think yeah oh i like liberated doll family yeah yeah yeah yeah

00:56:44.440 i also just like we'll get him that's a good one we'll get him but yeah let's go with liberated

00:56:50.140 doll family liberated doll family liberated doll family i think i would make that the name of my

00:56:55.120 like mom jam band i was gonna say ideas ideas ideas ideas yeah yeah maybe nice things can have

00:57:05.220 like a venue there too just waiting for the nice things merch like i want that tote bag i want a

00:57:12.840 hoodie do you want to do you want to know my my mad marketing plan for nice things there'll be a

00:57:18.860 mural on the side of the building much like books or magic where by the way sicilian inheritance is

00:57:23.980 launching at books or magic in brooklyn no you should definitely come but so there's a mural

00:57:30.440 that says nice things but will give you signs to hold in front of it that says i deserve nice

00:57:34.940 things or he should get me nice things or i broke yeah i broke my nice things i love that that's a

00:57:42.300 great that's very grammable yeah i know always be selling always be selling my friends okay well

00:57:49.680 joe thank you so much for coming on our podcast so again to sell inheritance out april 2nd

00:57:56.480 everyone go get it everyone go get it now yeah it is my favorite i have a lot of really nice blurbs

00:58:01.960 but my favorite is from jane green who's an author that i love she's like it's just the perfect

00:58:06.580 travel book and i'm like that's great yes amazing we'll have it linked on our on our bookshop too

00:58:11.460 everybody so with all of joe's books that are available on bookshop we'll put them up there

00:58:15.820 and is there anything else you'd like to mention your podcast where people can find you yeah you

00:58:22.500 No, I have the podcast Under the Influence, which started out being a podcast about social

00:58:28.760 media and still is, but it's also kind of widened to what it means to be a woman in

00:58:32.860 the world.

00:58:34.120 And you can find me on the Instagrams, which I hate, but I'm on them anyway, at Joe Piazza

00:58:40.060 Author.

00:58:41.640 Sounds familiar.

00:58:42.860 That's sort of how we feel about it, too.

00:58:44.260 Just hate it.

00:58:45.000 But, you know, not going to stop because got to sell books.

00:58:48.100 So, yeah.

00:58:49.300 Got to be Christy.

00:58:50.640 Got to be Christy. 0.96

00:58:51.400 so joe we like to close every episode with a pizza toast like the girls raising their pizza

00:58:57.640 and uh toasting to their friendship so we like to propose something from the book to toast to

00:59:02.860 it can be saccharine and earnest or it can be ridiculous and tangentially related um do you

00:59:10.520 have any thoughts on what we should toast to from this book i i'm gonna go a little saccharine i

00:59:15.120 want to toast to the future of these children these children who are living in the mall and

00:59:19.060 just you know i want to it's a hopeful toast that thing that things look up for them

00:59:24.080 i love that despite what what happened with the bc a pizza toast to the homeless kids at the mall

00:59:30.400 and their future

00:59:31.680 homeless kids future awesome thank you so much joe this has been amazing thanks so much for coming on

00:59:40.400 thank you this episode of stuck in stony brook is now adjourned

00:59:44.400 Thank you to Anna Martin for everything.

00:59:49.180 Stuck in Stony Brook is edited by Emily Crandall,

00:59:51.320 theme song written and recorded by Gary Schaller,

00:59:53.300 performed by the band Kit Kit.

00:59:54.940 You can follow us on Instagram at Stuck in Stony Brook

00:59:57.280 or find us on our website, stuckinstonybrook.com.

01:00:00.740 Need some books that we mentioned?

01:00:02.140 Buy them from our bookshop

01:00:03.180 and support both a local independent bookstore

01:00:05.020 and your favorite series literature analysis podcast.

01:00:07.740 Find us at bookshop.org slash shop slash stuck in Stony Brook.

01:00:12.100 Lastly, if you're feeling deeply generous

01:00:13.820 and you want to rate us and review us on Apple Podcasts,

01:00:16.080 that would be super helpful.

01:00:17.400 You're the best friends a girl could ask for.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - March 17, 2024

Sunday Nice Things： Back to the Babysitters Club

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