The one thing I wasn't comfortable with was the way that Mimi died. It was nice to see Claudia's friends rallying around her and talking about their favourite memories. Janine is the one who finally gets the family to sit down and talk about Mimi and what they're going to do with her room. Both parents throw themselves back into their work but Claudia doesn't know how to cope and is offended when her friends at school avoid her out of awkwardness. I found it to be a pretty good portrayal of a family experiencing grief after the death of a relative. So I decided it was a good time to read this book. Basically, her body started to shut down and we got the news on Tuesday that she was in a coma and would die within 24 hours. She's suffered from Alzheimer's for years, to the point where she no longer recognised her own children, and this winter she came down with a chest infection and had to be hospitalised. I think this book will always hold special value for me because I read it on the day that my Grandma died. You really got this out-of-joint feeling from it, which works.

Better do it while you can! Anyway, this is also one of the books where the mood of the book and the mindset of the character actually kind of affected the storytelling in the book, which was neat. So they get to try to help that kid communicate with her parents about cultivating a relationship. There's also some other Good Family Messages when Claudia and Mary Anne (who aren't usually 'paired up' together for anything) end up working with kids for an arts and crafts class and one of the kids there is one of those 'must have lessons all day every day' children. Claudia's parents deliberately distract themselves with work and she's kinda like 'Wait, how do I get through this?' Her sister, who's usually portrayed like she has no feelings because she's smart and nerds are just nerds, actually takes a lead role in bringing the family together. But I was actually kinda glad that instead of acting like Mimi's death is a surprise that the kids reading won't expect, they end up making the family's grief part of the plot. 'Sad Good-bye'? Picture of Claudia's beloved grandma on the cover? You do the math. I always hated when the cover and title of these books told me exactly what was going to happen.

As an adult, I kind of wish it had been fleshed out a little more.īut I do love the Mimi memories and the way Kristy cautions Claudia not to just drop the Sitting Charge of the Book because for as durable as people say kids are, Kristy knows that they do get broken, especially by careless people. (She doesn't remember Mimi's funeral for one, and sort of relies on Stacey's memories, although we only get bits and pieces of those.)Īs a kid, I loved this book.

Claudia's grief seems to mess with the timeline more than any other book I can think of off the top of my head. One of the things I didn't fully remember was the strange way time is utilized in the book. It's funny how you can remember certain things so clearly despite the gulf of time between readings. and then he died while the hospital seemed content to do absolutely nothing. And then my father had a stroke earlier this year. It's been years since I read Claudia and the Sad Good-bye, mostly because I was pretty sure that if Louie's death in Kristy and the Snobs would still affect me after all this time (and the loss of grandparents and pets), Mimi's death would be even worse. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.Īfter living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. They inspired her to become a writer herself. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.Īnn has always enjoyed writing. But many of her characters are based on real people. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. She's now a full-time writer.Īnn gets the ideas for her books from many different places. After graduating from Smith College, Ann became a teacher and then an editor of children's books. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane. Ann Matthews Martin was born on August 12, 1955.

Grandpa and granddaughter heart sketch