Books like Keep Out, Claudia!

this is my first time reading this book!in this SERIOUS ISSUE book, the bsc starts sitting for a new family, the lowells. the lowells are the perfect picture of aryan goodness -- you know, like the goebbelses, before their parents murdered them.anyway, the lowells like mary anne and kristy fine but don't like claudia and jessi. claudia has apparently (according to her) never experienced racism (uhhhh...) so she has no idea why the kids are staring at her face and laughing. eventually it becomes apparent that the lowells are awful blatant white supremacists, and the baby-sitters don't sit for them anymore. meanwhile, the bsc kids all start a huge band (playing keyboards, violins, kazoos, oatmeal containers as drums, and more real and fake whimsical instruments) and perform the music of fiddler on the roof.highlights:-the lowell kids are clearly uncomfortable with catholics, saying that they think the pikes might be catholic bc they have so many kids. it's pretty funny. like, who is uncomfortable with catholics in 1992? that is some serious protestant supremacy silliness.-jackie rodowsky suggests naming the band "all the children" because there are kids from different backgrounds in the band. with a name like that I'm picturing usa for africa or live aid or something -- oh, or \ the greatest love of all\ -claudia is bewildered by racism since she's apparently never experience it before (which I doubt, considering she lives in the same sketchy connecticut town that treated the ramseys terribly because they were black). there's a well-handled scene where janine informs claudia about the internment camps for americans of japanese descent during WWII, and claudia is shocked. really good subtlety of sneaking in a teaching moment for kids here. I definitely didn't learn about that until high school and was completely shocked when I finally did.-when kristy suspects that the lowells are racist, she tells her parents and nannie. when they back her, kristy says that she had hoped they would tell her she was wrong. well I guess this is growing up.-claudia says: "when we get hungry we eat and when we get tired we sleep and we laugh and cry and fall in love." nice shylock speech ripoff, ann! no but seriously I actually liked this part a lot, considering the journey claudia had to go through to get to this point in the book.lowlights/nitpicks:-claudia says early in the book that "anyone with half a brain" would spell psychiatrist "sikiatrist". why you gotta be so mean about people who know how to spell? it comes from the greek psykhe (mind) and iatreia (healing). there is a scene where claudia attempts to use stacey's reverse psychology methods to convince the lowells not to eat oreos by telling them to eat the whole package and it backfires (they WANT to eat the whole package). maybe it backfired because reverse psychology was mad at you for not knowing how to spell the root psych- and being a jerk about it!-mary anne is such an idiot. the lowells are watching a show that has asian people and the kids laugh and say "look at their eyes!" and mary anne doesn't realize they're racist. she's all, "hmm I don't get the joke!" when I see or hear kids say something that is harmful, I recognize it for what it is and use it as a teaching moment. has mary anne really never seen/heard a kid say something problematic before?-stacey says that skinheads are people who beat up people that aren't like them. no, that's neo nazi skinheads. not all skinheads are like that.-late in the book mrs. lowell actually asks for the blonde-haired, blue-eyed sitter she's heard about. I dunno, she seems a little more like an insidious racist to me -- I doubt she would actually be that up-front about it.-stacey indicates that if claud told the lowells the bsc doesn't sit for blonde-haired, blue-eyed people, that would be reverse racism. that's not a thing. not associating with blonde-haired blue-eyed people on principle may be prejudiced and messed up but it is NOT reverse racism.claudia outfit:-"I caught sight of my black leggings and high-topped sneakers, my fringed blue-jean vest and beaded Indian belt, my six silver rings..."jackie disasters:-knocks the fin off a lego rocketship-drops his kazoo in the piano-trips over his untied shoelaces, falls over mathew hobart, and loses his kazoo-drops his kazoo two more times (during the performance)jessi's kid kit (which goes unused bc mrs. lowell won't even let a black person in her house):-Blueberries for Sal, The Snowy Day, A Chair for My Mother, and Good Dog, Carl.-art materials-easy jigsaw puzzles-matchbox car and trucks-office set (a plastic box filled with colored pencils, magic markers, pens, erasers, paper clips [red, white, and blue], blunt scissors, tape, memo pads, rubber bands, stickers, animal stamps, writing paper, and envelopes)snacks in claudia's room:-ring-dings under a pile of papers and drawings on her desk-payday bars in one of her bureau drawers-unsalted stone-ground wheat crackers (n.s.)