Baby Sitters Club Week: Spotlight on Shannon

Shannon Louisa Kilbourne is an associate member of the Baby Sitters Club. She has also served as Alternate Officer. Shannon lives in Kristy's new neighborhood. She is first introduced in Kristy and the Snobs where she and Kristy start off with a rocky relationship (although if I can recall, she does appear in Kristy and the Big Day as an unnamed character at the end of the book). The two play pranks on each other, mainly because Shannon feels threatened by Kristy on her territory. Eventually they make up and become friends. Kristy invites Shannon to join the BSC as a full time member but due to Shannon's extracurricular activities she cannot make meetings 3 times a week. Instead she is offered the position of associate member, like Logan, and will be called in cases of emergencies.

Shannon has 2 younger sisters, Tiffany and Maria. She attends Stoneybrook Day School, which is a private school. She is an overachiever and pretty much does every extra curricular activity you can think of. As a peace offering to Kristy, after the Thomas' dog Louie died, Shannon gave them a puppy from her own dog's litter. Therefore, Kristy's brother David Michael named the dog Shannon. It can be awkward at times when Shannon the person and Shannon the dog are in the same room.

Why did I pick Shannon to spotlight? Well, frankly because I think she totally got shafted throughout the entire series. I would have loved to have read more about her but alas that was not meant to be. In almost every book when she is described, it's always mentioned that she has blonde hair, blue eyes and a ski jump nose. Oh and that she's really interesting looking whatever that means, although from the covers she seems to be really pretty so I guess they were jealous? She's REALLY smart, in fact I think she is the smartest out of all the members in the BSC. Yes she goes to a private school but still she wants to learn.

There's also the fact that she got one measly book. Meanwhile Logan not only got TWO books, he also get several narratives in the super specials. I think Shannon gets one in Baby Sitters Remember and that was just because she was lucky to be alternate officer when Dawn was in California. Other memorable storylines featuring Shannon include Buddy Barrett having a crush on her (storyline includes him hitting a softball on her head), Shannon helping Kristy with finding out her secret admirer, Shannon being such an overachiever that her sister feels threatened and a weird instance with her singing during a meeting and no one knowing why. Also during the first super mystery when most of the BSC goes off on vacation and Jessi and Mal are the only two full time members left in Stoneybrook, Shannon is brought into the story, but her character there is really flighty and acts superior to the two junior officers.

I really wish we could have gotten to know her better. Since book 11, she's mentioned in every single book because of her associate member status. It's usually less than 2 lines and always mentions how she's from Kristy's neighborhood. It's not until she takes over for Dawn does she get bigger coverage in the stories, but then when Abby comes, she fades away again. I also think that in the Friends Forever series, she quits the club completely. Also the both the movies and TV show never featured her, the games never mentioned her, pretty much she was totally left out. This wouldn't be a such a big deal if Logan hadn't gotten mentioned. I just think it's not fair that just because he was Mary Anne's boyfriend means he got special treatment. I was really glad when Shannon's Story came out because it was high time she got her own dang book! I might try to go and reread that one again.

So anywho this post is for you Shannon Kilbourne, we barely got to know you, but you were always a favorite of mine.

As far as I can remember, the four pictures in this post are the only four covers that Shannon is featured on.





(notice how Shannon is wearing the same uniform in both these books. Also I always thought Shannon looked super pretty and actually normal on this cover and looking on the web apparently a lot of people agreed with me)



I have no idea which blonde is supposed to be Shannon on this cover and which is Stacey. Dawn is not here because she's in California. There is a picture inside here which does show Shannon but she looks just like either Dawn or Stacey again.