‘The Baby-Sitters Club’: Is the New Netflix Show Based on the Beloved Children’s Books You Grew Up With?
Starring Alicia Silverstone and Mark Feuerstein, The Baby-Sitters Club is the latest original series to hit Netflix. But based on the title, many are wondering if it is directly based on the beloved children’s novels they grew up reading. Here’s a breakdown of what the show is about and when it premieres.
Yes, ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ is based on the books
For kids growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, The Baby-Sitters Club book series was a staple read. And now Netflix is bringing the literary sisterhood to life with its new original series.
“The Baby-Sitters Club is based on the best-selling book series, that follows the friendship and adventures of Kristy Thomas (Sophie Grace), Mary-Anne Spier (Malia Baker), Claudia Kishi (Momona Tamada), Stacey McGill (Shay Rudolph), and Dawn Schafer (Xochitl Gomez) as the middle-schoolers start their babysitting business in the town of Stoneybrook, Connecticut,” the Netflix synopsis reads.
The show is produced by Ann M. Martin, the author who created The Baby-Sitters Club book series in 1986 and wrote the first 36 novels. With the new Netflix adaptation, Martin brings her inspiring and diverse young characters to TV and explores the bonds that bring them together.
The Netflix series starts with the first 10 books
When it comes to The Baby-Sitters Club novels, there are plenty of stories to tell. But according to showrunner Rachel Shukert, the Netflix show will be based on the first 10 books of the series.
“The books are such a wonderful blueprint,” Shukert told Variety. “The first eight to 10 books, I would say, set up the world and the club, and their relationships get cemented, [as well as] the bigger stories of what’s going on with their parents and how that affects them. It’s laying the architecture, so it felt like that was a good jumping-off point.”
Just like the books, Shukert says she designed the Netflix series to tell each girl’s story one by one. For the first few episodes, viewers will get to dive into the character’s separate lives and see who they are at their core.
“We did think about the Netflix of it and how you can watch one [episode] right into the other, so the end of the previous episode ends the story into the next person,” said Shukert. “They’re each the protagonist of their own episodes, which is actually a really fun way to get to know these characters because you see someone through someone else’s eyes and you get to know them that way, and then you hear their internal monologue and hear what they think about their friends and family.”
When does ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ premiere, and how long is it?
Just in time for summer vacation, The Baby-Sitters Club hits Netflix on July 3 and will air with 10 episodes. Along with Shukert, Lucia Aniello serves as executive producer and director. The series also stars Alicia Silverstone and Mark Feuerstein as Kristy Thomas’s parents, Elizabeth Thomas-Brewer and Watson Brewer.
