In Miss Bangeter’s Shakespeare class they sat side by side at the back of the room. Miss Bangeter, with her dark magnetic eyes and sonorous voice, had almost transformed that roomful of desks and blackboards into the Forest of Arden. Trees with love songs hung and carved upon them seemed to rise between the desks. The sun slanted down through leafy aisles upon gallants and fair ladies, shepherds, shepherdesses, clowns, and courtiers. The Forest of Arden always made Betsy think of the Big Hill.
She underlined a sentence and passed it across to Joe. “Fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.”
“That’s what I’d like to do,” she whispered.
“That’s what we’ll do next spring,” Joe whispered back, while even Miss Bangeter looked pleased.
(from Betsy and Joe, page 445)
Betsy and Joe is the eighth book in Maud Hart Lovelace’s beloved Betsy-Tacy series, which is based on her childhood in Mankato, Minnesota. (Just a warning — In my plot summary, I stick to the basics of the plot, but if you haven’t read the previous seven books, you might find out more than you want to know.) In this installment, Betsy Ray and her best friends, Tacy Kelly and Tib Muller, are in their senior year at Deep Valley High School. The girls have a lot on their plates as they prepare for graduation, and things change rapidly as the year progresses. Their lives are full of extracurricular activities, college plans, and of course, boys and clothes.
Betsy and Joe Willard, her longtime rival in the school’s Essay Contest, began corresponding the summer after their junior year. Betsy and Joe have a love of reading and writing in common, but while Betsy is outgoing and living a basically carefree life, the orphaned Joe must work several jobs to pay for the room he rents. As their relationship takes off, Betsy’s personality rubs off on Joe, and he begins taking part in class activities, sharing them with Betsy.
However, Tony Markham, Betsy’s first crush who has become more like a brother in the years since they were freshmen, takes a romantic interest in Betsy. He hangs out with a rough crowd, but he begins to change under Betsy’s influence — and Betsy is afraid that saying no when he beats Joe in asking her to a dance will push him away. Betsy must choose whether to ruin a good friendship or upset Joe.
Like the previous Betsy-Tacy books, Betsy and Joe is a charming look at life in a small town in the early 1900s. Lovelace does a good job showing Betsy’s transformation into a young woman and Joe’s evolution as his fondness for Betsy grows. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib are typical girls when it comes to clothes and boys, although their conversations about the opposite sex often turn toward marriage — which is not on the minds of most 18-year-old girls today. Despite Betsy’s feelings for Joe, however, she is determined to pursue a career in writing, and her family and friends provide much encouragement. Betsy and Joe’s budding romance is sweet and very innocent. I know that has a lot to do with the time in which the story takes place and the year it was published (1948) — and some might argue that such a courtship isn’t realistic today — but it was a breath of fresh air to read a book about young love that is more about common interests than sex.
I can’t believe I only have two more books in this series to read. Part of me wants to hurry up and finish them because I’m dying to know what happens, but the other part of me wants to savor them because I know it’ll be hard to say goodbye to Betsy and the gang. I just love how Lovelace’s characters feel so real to me, and while some might see the books as old-fashioned and outdated, Lovelace writes about universal experiences. Betsy is one of those characters you can’t help but love, and her adventures and antics are always entertaining.
Other Maud Hart Lovelace reviews:
Betsy-Tacy
Betsy-Tacy and Tib
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
Heaven to Betsy
Betsy in Spite of Herself
Betsy Was a Junior
Emily of Deep Valley
Disclosure: I received a copy of Betsy and Joe from HarperCollins for review purposes. I am an Amazon associate.
© 2010 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.
sounds like you are really loving this series of books. Glad to see you enjoy them…wonder if The Girl will read them too.
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I’m sure she will at some point, but right now, she’s into scary stories.
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Lovely review, Anna! I need to read more of these books.I enjoyed the early relationship between Betsy and Joe, and the thought that their relationship might become something more. The author writes about universal experiences with such beauty and subtlety. I understand your desire to savor this world. 🙂
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I can’t wait for you to read more of the series! Sounds like you appreciate the same things about them that I do.
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I stopped reading your review at the disclosure warning b/c I think I would like to read these someday. Nice of your to spotlight a series that a lot of modern readers may be unfamiliar with.
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I’m just thankful that HarperCollins reissued them and for the TLC tour last year, or I’d probably never have read them.
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This sounds like a good series for me to read next summer!! Maybe I need to buy updated cover versions and see if I can get them checked out more!
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I hope you get a chance to read them. I wonder if the new covers would catch their attention.
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Lovely series, someday I am going to get these books… I know I have been saying this over and over..but I will definitely get them.
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Oh, I do hope so! I think you’ll really enjoy these books.
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[…] Betsy and Joe […]
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They still sound so very sweet :=)
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Sweet is a good word to describe these books. I’m sure the last two will be more of the same, and that’s fine by me! 😉
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These books just sound so cute – I have to read them at some point!
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Definitely! They are cute but not overly so.
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Sounds like you are really getting a lot out of this series. It does seem like the kind of series where you can get very involved with the characters and their lives.
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And after 10 books, it’s going to be so hard to say goodbye. Ah, well, at least I can re-read them at some point. 😉
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Oh, I love these books. I knew my future roommate in college understood me when she referred to a male friend of mine as “possibly my Joe or Gilbert”. (He wasn’t but that’s ok, I found my Joe eventually.)
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So glad you found your Joe! 😉
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I love your review! Betsy and Joe is one of my all time favorite books and I love all the Betsy-Tacy books. It is so hard to describe how wonderful these books are to people.
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Thanks, Susan! It really is hard to put your thoughts into words when it comes to these books.
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