Babysitters Club British editions?

[Star555]

As an expat in the US since childhood, I grew up reading the original US editions of the Babysitters Club series. I recently learnt that in the UK the books were revised with British words replacing American ones! I know that US editions of Harry Potter, Horrid Henry, etc. are all revised with American words replacing British ones, but I never knew it had also happened the other way round. (Usually the UK is more accepting of foreign things than the US!)

However, amazon.co.uk only seems to show previews of the US editions of Babysitters Club. Are the UK editions still around? I'm curious to see how such a quintessentially American series reads when 'Britishised'! (Extra thanks if you actually have a UK copy and can post screenshots of a few pages!)

My DD has recently got into the Babysitters Club after watching the Netflix series, and I've ordered her a couple of bundles of the books second hand from ebay. They definitely do have British versions where they replace "mom" with "mum" and "vacation" with "holiday" etc, I read a few of them for nostalgia's sake and that stood out to me as strange when the books are clearly set in the USA so I would have expected them to be written in Americanised English. If I get time later I'll try and find them and see if I can find a couple of examples.

That's interesting. I read loads as a child in England, and always thought of them as American. I don't remember what exactly, but I'm sure mentions of school were American (grades rather than years, no uniform etc). I mostly borrowed from the library, so I guess likely to be UK versions. I wonder if it was mainly vocab. I don't have any now sadly. Following with interest!

Ooohh, thank you @Fionnula ! I would love to see some examples. Were the versions that you yourself read as a child in the UK not already Britishised? If not, I wonder when the change took place.

Ok, here's a couple of examples of the language being changed to be more British, Mum instead of Mom and sweets and biscuits instead of cookies and candy. I think biscuits are actually something completely different in the USA so that's definitely been changed. I don't remember them being written like that when I was younger although the cover design is definitely the original artwork rather than the updated version.

I remember reading Mary Anne's bad luck mystery and at the bottom of a page was a little asterisk and a note explaining that black cats are bad luck if they cross your path in the US. Never really thought about how it was always Mum and not Mom, what a weird job it must be to edit books like that!

It must be a new thing - I remember the black cat note too! Also the photos that Fionnula posted didn't have the "handwritten" notes from their log book that the original versions had. I'm certain that I remember the original ones talking about school grades not year groups, mom not mum, vacation not holiday.

This one does have the handwritten notes, just not at the start of every chapter.

Thank you @Fionnula! This is very interesting. It seems that your book is partially, but not completely, Britishised. For example, on the first page, 'Mom' has been changed to 'Mum' but 'sweater' has not been changed to 'jumper'. Then on the second page, 'candy' has been changed to 'sweets' at the top, but at the bottom it is still 'candy'! Seems like the editor was highly inconsistent.

@Florence Yes I remember when I first moved to the US as a child, this black cat superstition struck me as very odd! But apparently it is common in Europe too (according to Wikipedia).

This used to drive me nuts. I was obsessed with American books. Judy Blume, Paula Danziger, Sweet Valley, Sweet Dreams etc and although I did like Babysitter's Club I always felt they seemed so fake because they had been 'translated'. I knew they were American books, set in America where people say Mom, 8th Grade, Candy, Diaper etc. There was one publisher that did this a lot (Lions - now part of Harper Collins) and it actually put me off some books because it just made it seem weird and unrealistic. I mentioned this about the Anastasia books by Lois Lowry on the thread about them the other day. I liked several of Lois Lowry's other books but I just couldn't get on with Anastasia because of it.
I had one Babysitters Club book that was an American edition. Not only did it have a better cover but I considered my one and only 'proper' copy - almost like having a music album on cassette that was the actual thing not a bootleg made by your best mate

Since it seems that you lot remember reading the original American language as children (in the 90's or early 2000's I assume), this pseudo-British editing of the language must have occurred relatively recently, as in after Harry Potter became a global phenomenon. I wonder if the US edition changes to the HP books inspired UK publishers of original US books like BSC to do the reverse!

Also, the cover that Fionnuala posted is very different from the US covers I had! If this is the "original" cover you had in the UK as children, then you were reading books with UK covers but US text inside. The original US covers had the BSC logo as letter blocks (see picture).

They changed 911 to 999. Also in the first book the paragraph where they design their logo is different, to match the logo on the front of the books (a roof design in the British version and baby blocks in the US one). I was far too invested in these in the mid-late 90s!

The publishing information inside the book for the one I posted upthread says it was published in 1990. The ones that have been re-released to tie in with the Netflix series have the alphabet block title but the illustrations are very different and more cartoony, see the image in this post. I got DD the first 6 new on re-release but I've struggled to find any beyond that without having to scour ebay for the vintage ones.

Image didn't upload, trying again.

And I've just ordered her the first Anastasia book too thanks to @Legoisthebest .

Not sure I know the answer to your question OP re British or American wording, but I absolutely adored these books in the 90s. I’d go as far as to say they were instrumental in me becoming a childminder, which I’ve done for the last 12 years!

I've just found a box of these in my attic, I didn't open them up as I'll need to photo to put on ebay etc. Trying to remember and I'm sure 10 year old me had to ask what 911 was, so pretty sure they were still Americanised! Will have to go back and have a read.... although that might mean a detailed re read and them never getting decluttered before the house move!

@FionnulaTheCooler

The publishing information inside the book for the one I posted upthread says it was published in 1990. The ones that have been re-released to tie in with the Netflix series have the alphabet block title but the illustrations are very different and more cartoony, see the image in this post. I got DD the first 6 new on re-release but I've struggled to find any beyond that without having to scour ebay for the vintage ones.

Yes these newer covers with blocks are the ones I saw on Amazon UK. But the 'look inside' feature for this book (Kristy's Great Idea) shows American spellings and terms ('Mom', 'freshman', etc.)!

Does this mean that in the UK, the books were originally released with American language/spelling in the late 80's/90's (the copies you first read as children), then Britishised in the 90's (since Fionnuala's Claudia book says 1990), and finally re-Americanised in the 2020's to tie in with Netflix? That's quite an editorial trajectory!

I read the 'translated' books back in the late 80s/early 90s. Way before Harry Potter even existed.

I definitely read Americanised versions in the 80s/90s. I don't really understand why they'd change these details. The enjoyment for me in reading those sorts of books was immersing myself in an American girl's life (phone in their bedrooms!, school lockers!, no school uniform!) and imagining the sheer glamour of living somewhere such as...Connecticut.

Ooohhh, the plot thickens!
So the 'translated' Britishised versions that @Legoisthebest read existed in the late 80s/early 90s, and yet @Gusthemouse, @FionnulaTheCooler, @BendingSpoons and @StrychnineInTheSandwiches remember reading original American language versions as children.

We know for a fact that as of 1990 some Britishisation had occurred, based on Fionnuala's Claudia book above. The first book in the series was published in 1986 so that's when the whole story begins.

Perhaps BOTH the original American and Britishised versions were in circulation in the UK in the late 80's / early 90's? This seems highly unrealistic though with regard to copyright issues. Perhaps libraries that still have copies of these books from the 80's/90's could shed some light on this mystery. Do let us know @Gusthemouse if you get around to unboxing your books and have further evidence for us! I'm genuinely intrigued.

Give me a few days and I'll investigate further, just need to navigate the baby bump and packing boxes! I'm not sure where my books came from, I read them in the 90s but bought a job lot (1 -60) I think in one go and picked up odds and ends from car boots etc. Pretty sure I have the book ends, key ring and vhs too. Does anyone recall Shannon having bangs? Racking my brains here, but I'm sure it was BSC that taught me bangs was the (ridiculous) name for a fringe! Trying to think of other americanism!

Thank you @Gusthemouse, and good luck! I don't remember much about Shannon the girl (I remember Shannon the dog though!), since she wasn't a regular member of the club. I do remember being asked by the hairdresser if I wanted 'bangs' every single time I got a haircut as a child in America, and yes it annoyed me a lot! 'Bangs' sounds so unnecessarily violent for an innocuous little fringe, doesn't it?

@FlorenceNightshade

I remember reading Mary Anne's bad luck mystery and at the bottom of a page was a little asterisk and a note explaining that black cats are bad luck if they cross your path in the US. Never really thought about how it was always Mum and not Mom, what a weird job it must be to edit books like that!

That's quite funny, because black cats crossing you path can be bad or good luck depending on who you ask in the UK!

@UpDownRound

They changed 911 to 999. Also in the first book the paragraph where they design their logo is different, to match the logo on the front of the books (a roof design in the British version and baby blocks in the US one). I was far too invested in these in the mid-late 90s!

Just to add, these versions I was reading in the late 90s I'd say and absolutely all copies seemed to have the same covers - at the library and at friends' houses. I probably read nearly 100 of them and I think only one rogue book a friend had had the cover like the one upthread. A lot of the text still had American terms despite the British 'translations' though - I remember them using the word barrette a lot for example.