My daughter has taken an interest in a series of books called the Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne. So when she brought home from school those forms to buy books and a set of 33 books was on it - and she really, really wanted them - how could I resist? I am a push-over when it comes to books. Video games, no. This, no. That, no. Books, oh yeah.Yesterday the books arrived and my daughter informed me that she planned on exceeding my feat of reading 52 Books in 52 Weeks, by reading all 33 Magic Tree House books in one week. Nice.
An article in the WSJ today caught my attention. It was about another series of children's books called The Baby-Sitters Club by Ann M. Martin. There were 131 titles in this series which was released from 1986 to 2000. Over 176 million copies of the books were sold.
The premise of this series is quite interesting especially given today's current economic struggles. The girls discovered an inefficiency in the local market for baby-sitting. That is, parents would have limited number of baby-sitters to choose from and hope that they were available when called upon. The sitter, on the other hand, would have to wait for the phone to ring in hopes that a few parents they knew would call asking for their services. So the girls formed a club to make available their baby-sitting services. Parents could place one call and almost be assured a sitter and the girls would end up getting more sitting jobs.
This kind of creative thinking might be quite useful to many people today who are having a very difficult time finding employment opportunities.
The books are currently out of print but the series is scheduled to be reissued next month.
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