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A Celebration of Maud Hart Lovelace & the Betsy-Tacy books!
June 26 – 30, 2015
Make plans to attend this event. Fun for the entire family!
Activities include: Betsy & Tacy House Tours, Betsy-Tacy Neighborhood Tour, Narrated Horse-drawn Trolley Rides, Discover Deep Valley Bus Tours, Deep Valley Victorian Tea, Book Festival, Fashion Show, Play, Living History Actors, Programs, Speakers & Re-enactments, Gift Shop & Exhibits & Music, Vintage Car Show, food & crafts and more!
Registration form and schedule is in progress and will be posted very SOON!
DVH NEWS!
We are excited to announce that Melissa Wiley will be the feature speaker at the Deep Valley Homecoming (DVH) this summer. Melissa Wiley is the author of The Prairie Thief, Fox and Crow Are Not Friends, and the Inch and Roly series, as well as Little House in the Highlands and seven other novels about the ancestors of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Melissa wrote the forward to the HarperPerennial ModernClassics 2010 edition of Carney’s House Party and Winona’s Pony Cart by Maud Hart Lovelace.
Joining Melissa Wiley as featured speaker will be Nancy McCabe, author of From Little Houses to Little Women. Her book is a memoir about her return to the beloved books of her childhood and travel to places related to her favorite authors, including Laura Ingalls Wilder, Maud Hart Lovelace, Lucy Maud Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott.
Melissa and Nancy will participate in the Deep Valley Book Festival on Sunday, June 28 and will each speak during the DVH programs on Monday, June 29. We’ll have more details about what you can look forward to from these authors and all of our other speakers and presenters in the coming days.
For more information, visit the Betsy-Tacy Society website. Hope to see you there!
Claudia Mills is the author of many chapter and middle-grade books, including 7 x 9=Trouble!; How Oliver Olson Changed the World; Kelsey Green, Reading Queen; and, most recently, Zero Tolerance.
Mills shares a wonderful list of her family's favorite books that feature girl protagonists—she encourages you to share them with both boys and girls, alike.
“The scene is the center of the American line. Most of the attacks on the flanks have been repulsed by now, or nearly so, and the sun is near to setting. The American lines are now almost set into the famous ‘fish-hook’ formation that one can find on so many maps. But the operative word is ‘almost.’
“In the center, there is a gap…”
The writer is Lt. Col. Robert Bateman, and his recounting of the events in the weeks leading up to Gettysburg has had me enthralled for days. I’ve followed him from Fredericksburg, Virginia—the town, incidentally, where I graduated from college, and where I met Scott—north to Pennsylvania, his posts spanning the months of June and July, 1863, just over 150 years ago. I don’t particularly want to be in Gettysburg right now; my attention ought to be far to the south, in Alabama. But I can’t look away. Lt. Col. Bateman’s account is riveting.
“In the center, there is a gap because one American Corps commander took it upon himself to move well forward earlier in the fight. The rebels are now finishing crushing that Corps. But ever since that audacious Union Corps commander created that gap in the first place, a succession of recently arriving units have been fighting to keep the middle from collapsing. Now, as the sun sets over Seminary Ridge, the game is almost over. But there is a half-mile opening in the remaining American line, and two whole rebel brigades are headed straight to it.”
You’ll have to read the entire post to get the full thrust of what’s on the line in this moment—heck, you ought to read the whole series—but some of you will understand why this next passage made me gasp.
The American Corps commander now in charge of the section of the line closest to the hole, a fellow named Hancock, sees what is about to happen. The rebels are moments away from breaking the center of the Union line. His own Corps line ends several hundred yards to the north. The next American unit to the south is a quarter mile away. Hancock can see the reinforcements he has called for, as can others on the crest of the hill. Those troops are marching at full speed up the road. By later estimates, the relieving troops are a mere five minutes away from the ridgeline. But the Confederates are closer.
I talked about psychology yesterday. I wrote about how sometimes something that can only be described as moral ascendency (or perhaps morale ascendency) can make it possible for a smaller force to defeat a larger force — first emotionally, then physically. Rufus Dawes and his 6th Wisconsin Infantry pulled that off on the First Day, albeit at a horrendous cost. General Hancock understands in an instant the bigger picture. This is not some small slice of the field. He sees that if the rebels make it to the ridge, they might gain the psychological advantage over the whole Army of the Potomac, much of which is still arriving. So the rebels must be stopped. Now. Here.
And now, what I am about to describe to you transcends my own ability to explain. Hell, it is beyond my own understanding, and I have been a soldier for decades.
General Hancock sees a single American regiment available. But, though it is a “regiment,” this is in name only at this point. A “regiment,” at the beginning of the war, would be roughly 1,000 men. Before Hancock stand 262 men in American blue. Coming towards them, little more than 250 yards away now, are two entire brigades of rebels. Most directly, half of that force — probably about some 1,500 men from a rebel brigade — were coming dead at them. Perhaps a thousand more, at least two entire additional regiments, were on-line with that main attack, though probably unseen by Hancock. But what does that matter? The odds were, already, beyond comprehension.
“My God! All these all the men we have here…What regiment is this?” Hancock yelled.
“First Minnesota,” responded the colonel, a fellow named Colvill.
First Minnesota.
That’s right, Lovelace readers. The very regiment Emily Webster’s grandfather fought in, the one Carney’s Uncle Aaron (her great-uncle, surely) died in—in that charge on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
“When Colonel Colville told us to charge,” [Grandpa] said, nobody ran out on that field any faster than Aaron Sibley.”
“You ran fast enough to get a bullet through your arm.”
“Only winged, only winged,” he answered impatiently. “It might have been death for any one of us.”
It was for a good many of them, Emily remembered. She had heard her grandfather say many times that only forty-seven had come back out of two hundred and sixty-two who had made the gallant charge.
Every single man of the 1st Minnesota,” writes Lt. Col. Bateman,
“placed as it was at the crest of the gentle slope, could see what was going on. All of them were veterans, having fought since the beginning of the war. Each of them understood the exact extent of what they were being asked to do by General Hancock. And, it would appear, that they all understood why.
“On this day, at the closing of the day, there was no illusion that they might win. There was not any thought that they could throw back a force more than seven or eight times their own size. Not a one of them could have entertained the idea that this could end well for them, personally.
“I suspect, though of course nobody can actually ‘know,’ that there was only a silent, and complete, understanding that this thing must be done. So that five minutes might be won for the line and the reinforcements and that their widows and children might grown up in a nation once more united, they would have to do this thing. Then, as men, the 262 men of the 1st Minnesota followed their colonel as he ordered the advance, leading them himself, from the front.
“They charged, with fixed bayonets, to win 300 seconds for the United States. Union and Confederate sources agree on this next point: There was no slacking, no hesitation, no faltering. The 1st Minnesota charged, en masse, at once alone and together. One hundred and fifty years later, those 300 seconds they then won for the United States have proven timeless. Because it worked. They threw a wrench into the rebel attack, stalling it, before the inevitable end.
“And, as Fox’s Compendium pointed out in cold, hard numbers, it only cost 82 percent of the men who stepped forward.”
Grandpa Webster and Aaron Sibley are fictional characters, but they are based on real people, just as Emily and Carney were. In the afterword to HarperPerennial’s 2010 edition of Emily of Deep Valley, Lovelace historian Julie A. Schrader tells us that Grandpa Cyrus Webster represented a man named John Quincy Adams Marsh, the grandfather of Maud’s classmate Marguerite Marsh, the “real” Emily. He was not, however, a Civil War veteran. Schrader writes,
“Maud appears to have based Grandpa Webster’s experiences on those of Captain Clark Keysor (Cap’ Klein)…. General James H. Baker, a veteran of the Dakota Conflict and the Civil War, was the basis for the character of Judge Hodges. In 1952 Maud wrote, ‘Old Cap’ Keysor and General Baker used to visit the various grades on Decoration Day to tell us about the Civil War…’”
Emily is, as I’ve often mentioned, not only my favorite Maud Hart Lovelace book, it’s one of my favorite novels period. Grandpa Webster is very real to me. I can’t describe my astonishment to find him there, suddenly, in Lt. Col. Bateman’s account, rushing unhesitatingly toward that gap in the line. 262 men made the charge. 47 survived. One of them was Cap’ Clark Keysor, who visited Maud’s school classrooms and told her stories she never forgot. Nor shall I.
For more background on the real people who inspired Maud Hart Lovelace’s characters, I highly recommend Julie Schrader’s book, Maud Hart Lovelace’s Deep Valley.
“The Lovelaces seem to do the impossible. They are writers who can actually work together day after day without the lightning of clashing temperaments…Maud does all the historical research, Delos all of the plots.”
via Betsy-Tacy’s Deep Valley, a wonderful new blog for Maud Hart Lovelace fans, written by Julie Schrader, author of Maud Hart Lovelace’s Deep Valley. I loved this article about one of my favorite (perhaps my very favorite!) literary couples. Julie’s new blog is a treasure trove for Betsy-Tacy fans—don’t miss it!
This is also part of a fabulous series. The stories are engaging and also give a great window into a past time, while making it feel real and alive. - Laurie Zaepfel
Number one because every time I read it, I discover something new, and it’s about the best friendship in the world. – Teresa Gibson
It’s wrong that I never read one of these as a kid, isn’t it? But honestly, though my name was Betsy, I sort of eschewed any books that toted my moniker. Understood Betsy. Betsy and the Boys (note to self: Use this title in a blog post at some point). And, best known of all, Betsy-Tacy. Actually, I didn’t even know about these books as a kid. It wasn’t until I started taking classes in children’s literature so as to get my MLIS degree that I discovered the name Maud Hart Lovelace at all.
The description of this book from the publisher reads, “There are lots of children on Hill Street, but no little girls Betsy’s age. So when a new family moves into the house across the street, Betsy hopes they will have a little girl she can play with. Sure enough, they do–a little girl named Tacy. And from the moment they meet at Betsy’s fifth birthday party, Betsy and Tacy become such good friends that everyone starts to think of them as one person–Betsy-Tacy. Betsy and Tacy have lots of fun together. They make a playhouse from a piano box, have a sand store, and dress up and go calling. And one day, they come home to a wonderful surprise–a new friend named Tib.”
By the way, I’ve been a Betsy all my life and in that time I have never EVER met a Tacy. Not one. No Tibs either, now that I think of it.
According to Anita Silvey’s 100 Best Books for Children, the books in this series (Betsy-Tacy was the first of ten) were always based on Lovelace’s own childhood growing up in Mankato, Minnesota. She would tell her own daughter stories of growing up there, later writing them down. Then, “Lovelace submitted Betsy-Tacy to a publisher’s children’s book contest, but it failed to win. She then became a client of the New York literary agent Nannine Joseph, who also represented the illustrator Lois Lenski. Joseph asked Lenski to prepare illustrations for the book, and Lenski then brought the book to her longtime friend, the editor Elizabeth Riley. In 1940 the first of the ten-book Betsy-Tacy series appeared.” She also would set three additional books in the same location (called Deep Valley a.k.a. Mankato, Minnesota):The amusingly titled Carney’s House Party (1949), Emily of Deep Valley (1950), and Winona’s Pony Cart (1953).
It’s fun to compare and contrast what did and did not happen in Maud Hart Lovelace’s life that is reflected in the books. Her entry in Contemporary Authors Online states that, “Lovelace did live in a small yellow house on a street that ended at a big, green hill. Her father (like Betsy’s) owned a shoe store, but later became the treasurer of Blue Earth County. Her sisters, Kathleen and Helen, appear (slightly disguised) in the books as Julia and Margaret. Kathleen, who studied singing, performed in many concerts and operas, and Helen, the youngest, became a librarian. Almost all her characters were based on old friends.”
A proto-feminist? Could be. In Feminist Writers Norma C. Noonan suggests that Lovelace, “can perhaps best be described as an unconscious feminist for most of her life. Growing up in the era of the suffrage movement, she supported the fem
0 Comments on Top 100 Children’s Novels #52: Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace as of 1/1/1900
This afternoon, Jennifer Hart (aka @bookclubgirl) posted a picture of the Carney’s House Party/Winona’s Pony Cart and Emily of Deep Valley reissues with those gorgeous Vera Neville covers. The official pub date is less than a month away. Squee!
I got a sneak peek at Mitali Perkins‘s foreword for Emily of Deep Valley, and it is quite moving: an account of her discovery of the Maud Hart Lovelace books—and Emily in particular—as a young newcomer to America, “wandering the stacks of the children’s book section in the Flushing Public Library.”
My own foreword for the Carney/Winona double volume was a joy and an honor to write. But having Carney, Winona, and Emily back in print is the greatest joy of all. If you haven’t yet read the Deep Valley novels—companions to the Betsy-Tacy series—you are in for such a treat!
This coming weekend, Laura Ingalls Wilder fans and scholars from all over the country will gather in Mankato, MN, for the first-ever Laurapalooza Conference. I was invited to attend, but alas, I couldn’t swing a weekend away the week before Comic-Con. When your hubby’s a comic-book editor in San Diego, July is ALL ABOUT Comic-Con.
I’ll be LauraPaloozing in spirit, though, and eagerly following news of the conference on Twitter and at the Beyond Little House site.
Mankato, as you may know, is not only rich in LIW history, it’s the town on which Maud Hart Lovelace based the Deep Valley of her Betsy-Tacy books. As you can imagine, Mankato is high on my list of Places I Absolutely Must Visit Someday.
Laurapalooza speakers include LIW biographers John Miller, William Anderson, and Pamela Smith Hill. Visit Beyond Little House for more information.
…over these gorgeous covers for the new reissues of the Maud Hart Lovelace Deep Valley Books!
These lovely reissues of Emily of Deep Valley (with a new foreword by Mitali Perkins) and Carney’s House Party / Winona’s Pony Cart (foreword by yours truly) will arrive in bookstores on October 12th.
I am counting the days!
Posts I’ve written about Maud’s wonderful books, because I love them with a mad passion:
I reviewed Betsy's twentysomething books earlier. Exploring Europe on your own, setting up your own life, focusing on career, getting married -- Betsy's life isn't so different from anyone today; tho (as we know from the excerpts from The Betsy Tacy Companion, included as backmatter in this book) Lovelace shifted the "real" timeline.
Anna Quindlen's foreword is her 1993 speech to the Betsy-Tacy Society. It focuses on the feminism in Betsy's world, where Betsy's writing, her talent, her future success is never doubted by her family or friends. Betsy gets to have her cake and eat it, too; as Quindlen points out, "the most important thing about Betsy Ray is that she has a profound sense of confidence and her own worth." Hopefully, knowing Betsy helps her readers have those things. As I watch Mad Men, set in the late 1960s, I think of these last two volumes, written in the mid 1950s. And I think, I bet Peggy Olsen read these books; I'm sure Betty Draper did not. Once again, the backmatter contains excerpts and photographs from The Betsy Tacy Companion; along with a brief "what happened to so and so" chapter.
What a gorgeous cover! I'm so so so happy that these new editions are coming out. These two were, I think, my favorites. I just loved seeing how things turned out for Betsy & Joe and also that Betsy remained herself through it all.
Oh, I am so excited to see this book! I love the Betsy and Tacy books, and I can't wait to add this to my class library. Thanks for sharing this with us!
As I explained earlier, yes, I posted about Betsy: The High School Years; but with the opportunity to see what was being done with the reissued books, well, I had to post about the new forewords or back matter.
Meg Cabot (who, like me, came to Betsy as an adult reader) writes the introduction to Betsy's junior and high school years. "Slipping into a Betsy book is like slipping into a favorite pair of well-worn slippers," she writes, and we sigh and agree and open up the book once more. A foreword like this is meant for those who have already read the books; to say, let's sit together one more time. Cabot explains Betsy's appeal in that Betsy is not perfect. She makes mistakes. Good lord, the Okto Deltas! A terrible decision, but what a wonderfully illustrated example of why to not have "your friendships fenced in by snobbish artificial barriers." (Tho Cabot being Cabot, she is quick to tell us that Elle Woods teaches us that not all sororities are bad). Cabot reminds us what a whole and satisfying journey Betsy makes, in moving from girl to woman, from a girl who writes to a writer.
Once again, the backmatter contains excerpts and photographs from The Betsy Tacy Companion, a must-read for fans.
Because when you fall for Betsy Ray, you fall hard. So be prepared for posts about the last six of the Betsy Ray books, reissued in three volumes.
These first two books span Betsy's freshmen and sophomore years in High School. Laura Lippman, mystery writer, writes the foreword. Reading what other Betsy admirers has to say is like meeting a friend; and reading what someone like Lippman has to say offers new insights into understanding just what is the attraction about turn of the century Deep Valley and the people who lived there.
Speaking as a teen who read Betsy, Lippman remembers that "Betsy was the most relatable character I could find." She talks about Betsy and her writing, and how "the person who comes between Betsy and her writing in her first two years of high school is ... Betsy." And how through it all, Betsy writes -- moves forward in her dream of writing, despite everything -- with the support of those who love her. A fine role model for anyone.
I also reviewed The Betsy Tacy Companion, a must-read for fans. Harper has the applicable excerpts from the Companion in this volume! Including the photographs of the "real" people and places! So you can read the books and get instant gratification by reading the "true" story behind the books.
I didn't learn about Betsy until I was an adult, but I bought the whole series. It is just so sweet! But not too much.
Anonymous said, on 10/7/2009 5:26:00 PM
I loved these books as a kid/teen
I hope they also reprint the companion books, especially Carney's House party my copy is a discarded library edition. I loved seeing Betsy's world from the viewpoint of one of the other characters.
The Betsy-Tacy reissues are out! And just in the nick of time: my old copies are about to fall apart from an abundance of love.
Over the next few weeks, a number of bloggers will be sharing their enthusiasm for the books of Maud Hart Lovelace in the Betsy-Tacy Book Blog Tour. Of course, my own enthusiasm has been spilling all over this blog for the past many weeks. I am tickled pink to see these books back in print. (I’ve been sitting here searching for the right adjective for “books” in that sentence: wonderful? delightful? important? fabulous? life-affecting? Everything sounds hackneyed or overused, but they’re all true.)
This week I reread my favorite of the “young” Betsy books. (The series divides neatly into the young books—the first four titles, during which Betsy grows from age 5 to 12—and the older books, one for each year of high school, plus Betsy’s year abroad, and the year of her wedding. There are also a few related titles: Winona’s Pony Cart, another “young” book, and two older ones: Carney’s House Party and Emily of Deep Valley, which you know I adore.)
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, the third book in the series, is one of those books that stays with you a long time. Snippets and images from Big Hill pop into my head all the time, especially when I’m witnessing quarrels between my daughters—a great deal of the plot centers on a disagreement between Betsy-and-Tacy and their older sisters, Julia and Katie. Like so many of the childhood events that weigh heavily on small shoulders, this quarrel over who is to be the Queen of Summer—which begins lightheartedly but turns tense and ugly—is deeply distressing to ten-year-old Betsy, who is torn between angry frustration and a desire to put things right with her beloved and much-admired sister. Lovelace’s sensitivity and good humor are in full force as Betsy and the other girls struggle to find their way out of the mess.
But in the book’s opening, there is no hint of a storm on the horizon.
Oh, Betsy’s ten tomorrow
and then all of us are ten!
We will all be ten tomorrow,
We will all be ladies then.
Who can forget the fun of that opening scene! Tib turned ten in January, and Tacy was ten in March, but with Betsy lagging behind—she’s an April birthday—the others are too polite to make a big deal about having reached such an advanced age. Now it’s the day before the long-awaited April date, and the three friends are ready to put childish things like parades behind them and commence being ladies, prinking their little fingers over tea and expanding their vocabulary to include mature words such as “prefer” and “indeed.” And with the sixteen-year-old King of Spain making a stir in all the papers, it is inevitable that such sophisticated persons as Betsy and Tacy will decide it’s high time they fell in love. It’s a bewildered Tib, they decide, who ought to marry him—after all, her new accordion-pleated dress is fit for a queen. Alas, she is not of “the blood royal,” and the girls feel compelled to pen a letter explaining to the young king why the marriage cannot take place. That’s what sophisticated ladies would do, you know.
In the first two books, we got to know Betsy, Tacy, and Tib in the cozy setting of their small-town neighborhood: their kitchens, their yards, their school, and the gentle, grassy slope of the Big Hill that rises beyond Betsy and Tacy’s houses. Now that they are such grown-up young ladies, the trio of ten-year-olds ventures beyond the crest of the hill all alone for the first time. The adventure that meets the girls on the other side is wholly unexpected and unexpectedly thought-provoking.
Here in Betsy’s beloved Deep Valley, Minnesota, we expect to meet folks like the kindhearted Scandinavian neighbor, Mrs. Ekstrom, Tacy’s bustling Catholic family, and Tib’s proud German mother. What we don’t, perhaps, expect to find in this turn-of-the-20th-century small Midwestern town is a thriving community of Lebanese immigrants—refugees from religious persecution, recently arrived in America and proudly working toward American citizenship.
The community called “Little Syria” in the Betsy-Tacy books is, like most of the events in this series, based on real people. Just over the hill from Mankato, Minnesota (Deep Valley in the books) was a village called Tinkcomville, named after its founder, James Tinkcom. Tinkcom bought the land in 1873, expecting to sell it in lots for development, but it turned out to be too far from town to appeal to most Mankato folks. Finally, in the 1890s, he sold the lots to a group of immigrants from Lebanon. In Big Hill, Tinkcom—that is, “Mr. Meecham”—is described as a reclusive and curmudgeonly sort, living in a big brick house near Little Syria and not mingling overmuch with the Deep Valley folks. However, there’s a place in his heart for anyone who befriends the good people of Little Syria—which is exactly what Betsy, Tacy, and Tib find themselves doing when their last pre-double-digits parade takes them over the crest of the Big Hill to a slope overlooking the village.
The girls’ shock at having walked so far alone dissipates quickly when they remember how grown-up they are now, on this eve of Betsy’s big day.
“Well, I’m surprised!” said Tacy. “I never knew we could walk to Little Syria.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Betsy.
“You’re not?” asked Tacy.
“No,” said Betsy. “Remember I’ll be ten tomorrow. It’s the sort of thing we’ll be doing often from now on.”
“Going to other towns?” asked Tacy.
“Yes. Little Syria, Minneapolis. Chicago. New York.”
“I’d love to go to New York and see the Flatiron Building,” said Tacy.
Tib looked puzzled.
“But Little Syria,” she said, “is just over our own hill. We didn’t know that it was. But it is.”
“Well, we certainly didn’t find it out until today,” said Betsy.
“We certainly never walked to it before,” said Tacy.
“That’s right,” admitted Tib.
This sunny confidence is what makes Betsy irresistible to the Deep Valley small fry—and to generations of readers. (In the high-school books, her confidence will waver a little, and she is sometimes prey to a kind of listless depression—but this, too, is part of Betsy’s appeal. She’s a real girl, imperfect, wrestling with moods and passions and uncertainties, trying to figure out who she is and who she wants to be, and sometimes puzzled by how vehemently her family and friends declare she’s just right just the way she is, imperfections and all.)
One day Betsy will roam the Great World, but right now, poised atop the Big Hill and at the brink of ten, the path before her is full of adventures she—yes, even she of the big imagination—could never have imagined. First there is the encounter with Naifi, one of the Syrians, “a little girl so strange she seemed to have stepped out of one of Betsy’s stories.” Strange, that is, to the eyes of a Deep Valley girl who has never seen a child with earrings and a “long skirt, like a woman’s,” speaking a language Betsy, Tacy, and Tib cannot understand. The language of picnics is universal, however, and over their different kinds of bread, a friendship is born. Before long the Deep Valley trio will find themselves springing into battle to defend their new chum, venturing into houses where the grandpas smoke hubble-bubble pipes and the grandmas pound lamb with mallets, and, eventually, learning from these new neighbors a deepened pride and appreciation for what it means to be an American.
And then, of course, there’s that sisterly quarrel still to patch up. Who will be the Queen of Summer? And whatever became of the letter Betsy, Tacy, and Tib sent to the King of Spain?
Would you believe I was supposed to write about two books in this post? I could easily go on yapping for several more pages about Big Hill. Could spend about a week mining the riches of Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown. But this post is already a ridiculous 1400 words long. So let me ask you: Which one do you like best—Big Hill or Go Downtown? (I mean: the Christmas shopping, the play, the delicious Mr. and Mrs. Poppy, the horseless carriage! The three telephone calls! Oh!)
Several Betsy-Tacy fan club chapters around the country are hosting special events to celebrate the reissue of the books. If you’re in the vicinity of any of these—I’m jealous!
9/30 Aliso Viejo, CA, at the Aliso Viejo Library
10/3 Mankato, MN, at the Betsy Tacy Houses
10/3 Mesquite, TX, at Borders
10/23 Bainbridge Island, WA, at the Library (This date is tentative.)
11/7 Highland Village, TX, at Barnes and Noble
These two books are being reissued on one volume by Harper Collins, Betsy and the Great World/Betsy's Wedding. The Plot: In Betsy and the Great World, Betsy goes -- alone -- to visit Europe. In Betsy's Wedding -- wait, I hope this isn't a spoiler? -- Betsy gets married.
The Good: For the first time, I'm glad that I didn't read the Betsy-Tacy books sooner. Because with these two books, Betsy is firmly in the grown-up world, and for children or young teen readers, that would have presented a barrier.
In Betsy and the Great World, Betsy is not in Deep Valley and she doesn't have familiar friends and family around her. (As a matter of fact, we find out that the whole Ray family has moved to Minneapolis!) Lovelace never has Betsy set foot on American soil, except in flashbacks. Great World has all those types of historical details I adore -- not just sailing to Europe and all that an Atlantic voyage involved, but also things like going to a Custom House to get your bags and not needing a Passport for a "mere trip to Europe."
Betsy is like the present day backpacker through Europe, except with a heck of a lot more luggage. Instead of hostels, she stays at a pensions and boarding homes. While her parents have arranged for some chaperoning, just as often Betsy is on her own to explore Munich, Germany, Venice, London. And as for her parents -- Betsy has dropped out of college. While her father isn't necessarily pleased with her college career to date, he does not give her grief. He talks to her about it matter of factly -- and offers to take the money that would have been spent on college tuition and expenses and use that to support her visit to Europe, agreeing that the life experiences she will get will be as valuable an education as college.
Betsy sails for Europe in January 1914 at age 21; she stays for months until war forces her home. Before that, we see a lost to us old Europe, before the World Wars. A Munich not associated with the birthplace of the Nazis; and because this is written in the 1950s, after both World War I and World War II, I read it as Lovelace's deliberate choice to portray Germans and Germany in a different light. For the most part, Betsy is open to all she meets, to all people and experiences. Oh, she's not perfect about it. When she encounters true poverty in Algiers, she is scared and put off by the anger and hostility that goes along with poverty. Once in Munich, alone, she is lonely for the first time in her life and has trouble adjusting, realizing for the first time that making friends doesn't just happen.
I have a Ramona-ish confession. I always wonder about toilets and bathrooms. Lovelace, of course, does not share terribly personal toilet details; but she does share the lack of a bath! In Great World, Betsy does not have access to a bathtub. While she wants one (understatement of the year, no doubt) she never mentions lack of immersion bathing leading to herself (or others) being smelly. And one of Neville's illustrations of Betsy bathing is quite revealing!
Betsy's Wedding is about the first few years of Joe and Betsy's marriage. The book begins in September, with Betsy's return from Europe and ends a few years later, as Betsy's husband and the other young men she knows prepares to leave for World War I.
If Betsy and the Great World is one of my favorite Betsy books, Betsy's Wedding is, so far, my least favorite of the series. Tho, saying that is misleading -- it's like saying Mint Chocolate Chip is the last favorite of my favorite ice cream flavors. I love Mint Chocolate Chip! It's just not Coffee. This last, final book of Betsy's life has some great stuff. We see glimpses of many of the people we met and fell in love with in Betsy's life: Tib and Tacy, of course, as well as the fabulous Rays, but also Carny and Cab.
What else is good? Mr. Ray's common sense insistence that Joe have a job before he and Betsy marry, so Joe taking something other than his dream job. Finding out that Joe makes $155 a month and Betsy's budget allows for no more than $30 a month for rent. Think about this; it's less than 20% of his salary. And they get a one bedroom!
Betsy's adventures with cooking are intriguing; one could easily find articles today complaining about how today's kids aren't being taught to cook for themselves and what will happen when they are out on their own. Betsy's family, while not rich, do have a full time housekeeper/cook; but, we've seen both Mr. Ray and Mrs. Ray cook and bake. Betsy even had "domestic science" in school. Yet, Betsy's first attempts at cooking are not until she's married and in her own apartment, and, oddly enough, I kept on thinking of Julia Child, especially as Betsy is proud of serving canned peas and marshmallow pie. Betsy's cooking successes and failures are the same of many today, in their first kitchens, cooking for themselves.
Other wonderful details include Betsy and Joe getting a cleaning lady for help with the big stuff; Joe supporting Betsy's writing; Betsy supporting Joe's night shift job by adjusting her own hours to match his. The peak into the life of twentysomethings in the early 1900s.
So what is it that made this my least favorite? Well, out of a series ONE has to least, right? Part of it is all the young marriages. Tacy and Betsy discuss Tib not being married, and instead working and wanting her own car. Tacy: "When girls don't marry young, they get fussier all the time." Betsy: "And Tib will soon be earning so much money that she won't meet many men who earn as much money as she does." Tib: "That would be bad." Betsy: "And then she'll start driving around in her car, and getting more and more independent, and she won't marry at all, maybe! And then what will she do when she's old?"
Yeah.
Don't worry! Tib gets married by the end! Don't you worry about that money and independence and fussiness!
And then, all the husbands go to war, all the High School boys are in uniform, with a patriotic wedding, shiny uniforms, three month officers, as if going on a great adventure. And you know? Reading this while listening to Maisie Dobbs? I wonder at the pure enthusiasm Lovelace is able to muster to write about a war, given that she saw Europe before, saw not one but two World Wars, and -- I would think -- had seen the loss of war. I wonder, is this the difference between the English experience and the American experience? Did Lovelace see those boys and men return, uninjured, so her book doesn't reflect, even as a shadow, the despair and death and waste of a generation?
And so, the two reasons I don't like the book? Have nothing to do with the book itself. I haven't yet read The Betsy-Tacy Companion: A Biography of Maud Hart Lovelace; but I know that Lovelace and her husband, Delos, didn't marry until 1917, three years after Betsy and Joe. I have no idea what her experience with the war was. In a way, I can understand why Lovelace made these changes; these books are fiction, after all. And it is her story to tell, and Betsy's Wedding does end on a moment of happiness and contentment, with the three girls together as women. Perhaps Lovelace didn't want to cast a shadow on the joy of these three, even if the reader knows the shadow was coming. Maybe I am being too much a reflection of my times, it not understanding Lovelace's portrayal of the war.
Now, off to track down the Carny and Emily books and to read the Companion!
Wonderful post! I see MHL's portrayal of the prelude to war in Betsy's Wedding as being akin to her portrayal of a pre-war Germany in Betsy and the Great World. I suspect that her portrayal of the enthusiasm with which those boys entered into it is true to the way that they would have done so before they really knew what they were getting into. Depicting it laced with the fear and horror of of someone who knows how it all turns out would have been the distortion rather than the reverse. MHL had orignally planned another volume in the series, Betsy's Bettina, but ultimately found herself unable to write it. That book would have had to include first-hand experience of the horrors of WWI and would have dramatically changed the tone of the series. And so, although I would love to have another book in the series, I can't help but think that she made the right decision in concluding it when she did, leaving it as a bit of a time capsule and a tribute to a more innocent time in her life and that of her characters.
I loved that bath scene in GREAT WORLD, the handsome soldier, the conspiracy of the other residents. Oh, and the Italian romance! How could she have resisted Marco?
I have yet to read a single Betsy-Tacy book, and after all your reviews, Liz, I'm going to have to do something about that.
(Side note: I remember the Maud Hart Lovelace Awards from a bookmark my St. Paul library handed out back in the day, but until your posts I had no idea she was a Minnesota author. Clearly the six-year-old me did not catch all the salient details.)
Anonymous said, on 9/4/2009 5:00:00 PM
Don't forget Winona's Pony Cart! It takes place between Over the Big Hill and Downtown.
I know these books are fiction, but I'm really looking forward to the Biography to see what is "real."
And right now i envy the people who will read Betsy for the first time. They are quite the treasure, and I cannot think of a recent (past 10 years) children's series that does this, the historic look at childhood over multiple books and child aging based on author's own childhood.
I came across your site whilst looking at someone elses and I am so glad I did. I have never heard of these books and after reading your post, I am desperate to read this series of books.
Excited much? You bet I am. These books were out of print, and now they’re back. Best book news of the year, if you ask me.
The relaunch coincides with a fresh burst of Betsy enthusiasm around here: Beanie, aged 8, is reading them for the first time. Her two big sisters have been fans for years, of course. My girls have never been to school, but they are part of a group of friends every bit as lively and close-knit as Betsy Ray’s high-school Crowd. And something I love is that Betsy and her crowd are themselves a major part of the bond between my girls and their friends. Seems like every time the other girls come over, they make a beeline for the Shelf of Honor where we keep our precious, tattered copies of The Tomes. The books have become a lending library and they seem to be in constant circulation. And I love this, because I really think the series has helped infuse our group with the spirit of fun and camaraderie you find in Betsy’s high-school stories. Equally important is the seriousness and reflectiveness with which Betsy addresses her own teen crises in the context of a deeply attached, affectionate family and circle of friends. Betsy knows that loving safety net is always there to support her, but she also understands that in order to walk the tightrope of life, she must find her own sense of balance, her own steadiness of foot. I’m glad Betsy is part of my girls’ Crowd, these young women with their own tightropes stretching out before them.
Y’all know I’d do just about anything to introduce new readers to the most wonderful wonderful, out of all hooping Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace.
Well, it’s almost September! And I am giddy with glee. Here they come!
I’ll be participating in the Betsy-Tacy book blog tour, an event that promises to be enormous amounts of fun. All through September, bloggers will be writing about particular Betsy books—my girls and I have been asked to talk about books 3 and 4, and Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill and Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, which will be a pleasure. Betsy’s encounter with the folks in Little Syria has always been a favorite episode of mine. Bonny Glen’s tour date is September 23, always a festive day around here. (Bruce Springsteen’s birthday, of course!)
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, set in the late 1960s, I think of these last two volumes, written in the mid 1950s. And I think, I bet Peggy Olsen read these books; I'm sure Betty Draper did not.
by 
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, the third book in the series, is one of those books that stays with you a long time. Snippets and images from Big Hill pop into my head all the time, especially when I’m witnessing quarrels between my daughters—a great deal of the plot centers on a disagreement between Betsy-and-Tacy and their older sisters, Julia and Katie. Like so many of the childhood events that weigh heavily on small shoulders, this quarrel over who is to be the Queen of Summer—which begins lightheartedly but turns tense and ugly—is deeply distressing to ten-year-old Betsy, who is torn between angry frustration and a desire to put things right with her beloved and much-admired sister. Lovelace’s sensitivity and good humor are in full force as Betsy and the other girls struggle to find their way out of the mess.
(1952) and 
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; but I know that 
Interesting tie to Mad Men. I love that show and I loved these books.
I just discovered these books for the first time - what fun!
What a gorgeous cover! I'm so so so happy that these new editions are coming out. These two were, I think, my favorites. I just loved seeing how things turned out for Betsy & Joe and also that Betsy remained herself through it all.
Oh, I am so excited to see this book! I love the Betsy and Tacy books, and I can't wait to add this to my class library. Thanks for sharing this with us!