Mary Anne should never have thrown away that chain letter she got in the mail. Ever since she did, bad things have been happening – to everybody in the Baby-sitters Club. With Halloween coming up, Mary Anne’s even more worried – what kind of spooky thing will happen next?

Then Mary Anne finds a new note in her mailbox: Wear this bad-luck charm, it says. OR ELSE. Mary Anne’s got to do what the note says. But who sent the charm? And why did this person send it to Mary Anne?

If the Baby-sitters don’t solve this mystery soon, their bad luck might never stop!

Out of the Baby-sitters Club books, I have to admit, this is probably one of my favorites from my childhood. I know it may seem weird, but as a child, I was fascinated with the weird, spooky and creepy things. I lived for horror movies, learning about witches (especially since I grew up in the area near the Belle witch legend) and of course, anything related to Halloween. Mary Anne may not have been a lot like I was when I was little, but this was the first time the series offered a truly reasonable mystery for the girls.

I don’t remember much about chain letters, but I do remember how easy it was to get caught up in all of the superstitious there are. In fact, I still hold my breath when I drive past a cemetery. Which might have been something I picked up from this book, now that I think about it. But nevertheless, the girls become convinced they are experiencing an abnormal amount of bad luck after Mary Anne throws away a chain letter. Of course this is absurd and nothing that happens seems all that extreme, but when you are young, you are gullible and that’s one of the things that made these girls so relatable.

Though I probably read this particular book dozens of times as a child, I’ll admit there were still things I forgot about. For one, I didn’t realize this was the first time we get introduced to the awful Cokie Mason and her group of trolls. In fact, I completely forgot that Logan was such a huge cause of drama for the girls in the BSC, especially Mary Anne. But I suppose this offers yet another reasonable and realistic view of Middle School: jealousy over boys and dealing with mean girls. Either way, it was fun to relive this particular book and I find myself fighting the urge to go ahead and pick up the next book already.

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