"You Are All Sheep!!", or Dawn Saves the Planet, #57

"Do you think kids can save the planet?"  Sure, if they are not obnoxious asshats like Dawn is in this book.  Seriously, Dawn really annoyed me in this one, normally only Kristy gets on my nerves as much.  But I get ahead of myself...

The book opens with Dawn in her science class, and they are beginning the study of ecology.  Dawn's somewhat hippie teacher Mrs. Gonzalez (sorry, AMM described the teacher as having a long braid down her back, and I'm just thinking hippie.  Roll with me, people) asks the above question, and Dawn gets super pumped and excited, raising her hand with every environmental question, practically singing out the answers.  Alan Gray makes fun of her in class, which makes me like Alan Gray just a little bit.

Anyway, Mrs. Gonzalez assigns everyone the task of coming up with a project on ecology. Dawn can't figure out what she should do until she is babysitting the Barrett kids and starts teaching them about recycling.  At one point, she picks up the plastic rings that hold a six pack of Cokes together and lectures the kids about how these need to cut up to save the dolphins and tuna and stuff.  And I get an instant flashback to Can't Hardly Wait.





Sara Rue is awesomesauce.  Anyway, Dawn figures out that she should lead an afterschool class for the BSC charges about how to save the planet.  And since Stacey also has Mrs. Gonzalez for science (a different period, though), they decide to team up and teach the class together, focusing on subjects like recycling, water conservation, saving energy, yada, yada, yada.  They end up having 13 kids "sign up" for the class, and then the Green Machine sweeps through the kids of the 'Brook.

The Pike kids decide to form the "Green Police" (sounds vaguely SS-ish from WWII) and lecture Mallory and Jessie every time they use a paper towel instead of a dish cloth/cloth napkins, or if they try to serve lunch on paper plates instead of real dishes (they do realize that running the dishwasher/washing machine uses energy and water, right?).  Every time Mallory and Jessie have an infraction, they have to go to Green School.  Most of the other kids in Stoneybrook get equally annoying, I mean socially active, as well.

Meanwhile, Dawn realizes that there is no centralized recycling center and Stoneybrook, and starts a campaign to have one started as SMS.  However, her version of "campaigning" is to lecture every single kid in school about recycling, even yelling at them if they throw an aluminum can in the trash.  She even lectures between calls at the BSC meetings, and yells at Claudia for buying individually wrapped candies (umm...I don't want your hands touching my Hershey Kisses, back off, wench!!).  Seriously, I can totally see Dawn growing up to be one of those PETA protesters at Fashion Week who throw red paint at people who wear fur coats.  "MURDER!!  FUR! IS! MURDER!!"

Continuity alert!!  Dawn is horrified when Styrofoam fast food containers fall out of the locker next to her, owned by the popular Shawna Riverson (the cheater from Claudia and the Middle School Mystery returns!!) Anyway, Dawn asks Shawna Riverson if she cares about saving the planet, and Shawna is all, "No" and rolls her eyes. And now I like Shawna a little bit, too.  (For the record, I do recycle, I just can't stand obnoxiousness.)

The recycling center is approved, but after Dawn has alienated the entire student body, no one votes for her to chair the recycling committee.  Mrs. Gonzalez gets chosen instead (why would it make sense to even have a 13 year old girl on the ballot for such a position?  I mean, really).  Dawn sulks at the Grand Opening ceremony when no one publicly recognizes her efforts, but the BSC end up calling her out at the next meeting for being a total jerk.  Even Mary Anne is mad at Dawn, and that's saying something.  Dawn realizes the error of her ways, and apologizes to everyone. 

At the end of the project, the BSC charges throw a "Green Fair" to show everyone how much they have learned about saving the planet.  The sell reusable canvas shopping bags, bird feeders made out of milk cartons, and so on.  Mrs. Gonzalez attends the fair, and ends up giving Dawn and Stacey an A on the project.  Plus, she invites Dawn to be the student co-chair of the recycling center.  Yay.

Oh, and something completely random thrown into this book: two 8th grade boys decide to protest the awful school lunches by bringing Brie cheese, pate (ok, I couldn't figure how to get the accent mark over the "e" in pate, sorry), and sparkling cider, and eat all of this on china and a cloth tablecloth.  Umm...really?  I'm sorry, do most 13 year old boys even know what those foods are?  Wouldn't they get picked on something fierce for having the equivalent of a candelit, romantic dinner together?  Plus, don't you get suspended for bringing your own silverware to school these days?

Fashion show time!!

What Stacey wore:  "Today she was wearing floral leggings, a pink shirt with big sleeves, and a long vest covered in antique pins.  A black fedora with a red cloth rose was perched on top of her shoulder length hair."  Very Pretty in Pink.