When the curtain came down on the final act of the "Baby-Sitters Club" series in the year 2000, Ann M. Martin, series author and co-originator, had become one of the best-known names in juvenile publishing. What started in 1986 as an idea for a four-book series to be published over the course of one year had ballooned fourteen years later into a mini-publishing industry with several spin-off titles, a television series, a movie, games, and various "Baby-Sitters Club" (BSC) merchandise to satisfy the needs of legions of faithful BSC readers. With over 180 million books in print in nineteen languages, the "Baby-Sitters Club" had obviously, as Sally Lodge noted in Publishers Weekly, "struck a resounding chord with preteen girls all over the world." Martin bid adieu to her readers with the final BSC volume, Graduation Day, but not good-bye to publishing. She addressed her fans directly over the Internet at "Ann...