Karen Brewer

Karen Brewer is the seven-year-old protagonist of Ann M. Martin's Baby-Sitters Little Sister series (which is a spin-off of The Baby-sitters Club book series). Karen's first appearance is in the Baby-sitters Cub's first book, Kristy's Great Idea, when she is five years old.
Biography
In the Baby-Sitters Little Sister series, Karen is a seven-year-old that lives in fictional Stoneybrook, Connecticut (which is said to be a town approximately thirty miles from Stamford). She has one younger brother, Andrew Brewer, who is four years old, and both children are the younger stepsiblings of Kristy Thomas, president of The Baby-sitters Club. Karen’s actual birth date has never been stated (although she turned seven in Baby-Sitters Little Sister #7, Karen’s Birthday), but it is believed to be in mid-April . In Baby-Sitters Little Sister #100, Karen's Book, she writes that she was born in the spring. She celebrates a half-birthday party in Baby-Sitters Little Sister #78, Karen’s Half Birthday, which takes place in the middle of October. The series began in 1988 with the publishing of the first book, Karen's Witch, and ended twelve years later in 2000 with the publishing of Baby-Sitters Little Sister #122, Karen's Cowboy. In all books after her seventh birthday, Karen remains a seven-year-old second grader.
Karen calls herself and Andrew "two-twos," as their parents are divorced, causing her and Andrew to live in two different houses and have two different sets of clothes and toys. As both parents have remarried, Karen and Andrew now have two different families. This includes Seth Engle (their stepfather) and Elizabeth Thomas Brewer (their stepmother) and her children, Charlie, Sam, Kristy, and David Michael Thomas. Karen refers to her mother and stepfather’s house as "the little house" (since it is smaller) and her father and stepmother’s house as "the big house" (since it is larger, and it is a mansion). Later, more additions come to the big house when Karen and Andrew's father Watson and stepmother Elizabeth decide to adopt a two-year-old girl from Vietnam, whom they name Emily Michelle Brewer, and Elizabeth's mother, Nannie, comes to help take care of Emily Michelle and the rest of the family.
Karen’s best friends are Nancy Dawes and Hannie Papadakis; they call themselves "The Three Musketeers" or the "3M." All three girls attend Ms. Coleman's second grade at Stoneybrook Academy. Nancy lives next door to the little house, and Hannie lives across the street and one house down from the big house. She was also close with Amanda Delaney, until the Delaneys moved away in Baby-Sitters Little Sister #19, Karen's Good-Bye.
Karen is quite gifted; she is younger than all of her classmates since she skipped the first grade. She won many spelling bees (going so far as to compete in the State Bee) and has many hobbies which consist of reading, writing, arts and crafts, softball, and running small neighborhood businesses, such as walking dogs and having lemonade stands. She is also very fond of witches and ghost stories, and is convinced both that her big house neighbor, Mrs. Tabitha Porter, is a witch named Morbidda Destiny, and that the ghost of her father's grandfather Ben Brewer resides on the third floor there. Karen wears glasses (which she received in Baby-Sitters Little Sister #5, Karen’s School Picture), and she uses two pairs of glasses; a blue pair for reading and a pink pair for the rest of the time.
Although Karen is typically a happy seven-year-old, she has had to deal with dramatic changes in her life; namely her parents’ divorce and remarriages (which occurred before the series began), a broken wrist and ruptured spleen (both the result of accidents), the death of her stepgrandfather, the death of the family cat, friends moving away, and her little house family’s relocation to Chicago, and later, back to Stoneybrook. During these issues, Karen turns to the support of her family and friends.
Karen has shown that she can bossy and a bit of a know-it-all (for example, in The Baby-sitters club #20, Kristy and the Walking Disaster, Karen whines and complains after Margo Pike suggests that they spell "Krushers" with a K). She deals with her parents' divorce and remarriage and sometimes disobeys them, such as when Karen wanted to buy toy guns for Andrew and herself in Baby-Sitters Little Sister #65, Karen's Toys. But in the end, Karen is still portrayed as a loyal friend and a kind sister.

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