I'm too old for the Baby-Sitters Club books by just a couple of years. I was 12 when Kristy's Great Idea was published, but I was already busy turning my nose up at the Sweet Valley High books - first published only a few years earlier - which were all the rage in the 6th grade. I think I maybe read one complete SVH book, and then had a thing where I would read them to the point when a variation of this sentence appeared: "Elizabeth was only four minutes older than Jessica, but sometimes it felt like four years." After that, I never finished another Sweet Valley High book. By 13, I was busy reading books well above my pay grade, ruining and misunderstanding a whole swath of literature because I was vewy vewy serious. Two years too old or twenty years too young; story of my life.

Despite the fact that I've never read a single BSC book my whole livelong life, this is still pretty much the best article ever. The obsessive cataloging, the vague taxonomies, the nerding. I totally get the obsessive fervor of one's earliest literary crushes. For those of you who were into Baby-Sitters Club, I imagine this article will timesink your morning into oblivion. You're welcome. 

Oh, also? Go watch Young Adult right now kthxbai. 

[Sidebar: I have some style guide issues with this series. For sure there's a hyphen between baby and sitters - even though I would never do that - but is there an apostrophe too? I would think there would be no apostrophe, or if there were, it should be after the s in sitters, not before. I've seen it both ways.]