Review: Carney’s House Party by Maud Hart Lovelace

She had always known what she wanted to do — get married and have children.  There had never been a moment’s doubt, no other possible choice.  And yet Sam Hutchinson seemed to have molded her future.

He had decided that her oldest child was a boy — and musical.  Carney could almost see him.  He had thick dark hair and a crooked smile.

(from Carney’s House Party, page 129)

Originally published in 1949 and recently reissued by HarperCollins, Carney’s House Party reunites some of “the Crowd” from the beloved Betsy-Tacy series.  Maud Hart Lovelace based the characters in the Deep Valley books on herself and her childhood friends in Mankato, Minnesota.  Carney Sibley (based on Lovelace’s friend, Marion Willard) returns to Deep Valley for the summer following her sophomore year at Vassar College.  Her fashionable and wealthy roommate, Isobel, who hails from Long Island, is intrigued by Carney’s tales of life in the Middle West.  Carney invites Isobel to stay at her home for part of the summer, and she hosts a house party complete with social engagements and nights on the sleeping porch.  She and Isobel are joined by Carney’s friend, Bonnie, home from Paris, and Betsy Ray (who is based on Lovelace herself), who just returned from California.

Carney is eager for news about Larry, her high school boyfriend with whom she has exchanged a letter every week of the last four years since his family moved to California.  She and Larry are so fond of one another that they haven’t dated anyone else, much to the dismay of their parents.  Carney waits for Larry to pay her a visit and determine whether their feelings for one another have remained romantic despite the years that have come between them.  Meanwhile, the girls meet Sam Hutchinson, the son of Deep Valley’s wealthiest man.  Sam and Carney become fast friends, and she suspects that he and Isobel like one another.  But how does Carney feel about the unkempt young man who left college to work in his father’s mill and buys everything on credit — a practice that Carney just doesn’t understand?

Carney’s House Party is a slice of innocent small town life around 1910.  There are certain acceptable gifts a young man can give to a young woman on her birthday when they’re not engaged, like a book, and a young woman shouldn’t allow a young man to even kiss her if they aren’t engaged.  While Carney wants to finish college, she believes her place is in the home, being a wife and mother.  But in Lovelace’s stories and life, women had a choice; Betsy, for instance, is pursuing a writing career.  And like his daughter, Carney’s father is a supporter of women’s suffrage.  The women in Lovelace’s novels enjoy their place in life, and readers never need to question their happiness.

I loved Carney Sibley just as much as I love Betsy Ray.  Both girls are smart and vivacious, but while Betsy is a romantic dreamer who thinks with her heart, Carney is rational and spends a great deal of time thinking out her decisions.  Like all the other Lovelace novels I’ve read, Carney’s House Party is quaint yet timeless.  I could relate to Carney’s hesitance about inviting Isobel into her world.  What if Isobel wasn’t impressed with Deep Valley, if Carney’s stories didn’t ring true to her?  And many of us can relate to Carney’s idealization of first love and questioning whether romantic feelings can span several years and a great distance.

The more I read these novels about Deep Valley, the more real it becomes to me and the more I wish I had grown up in Lovelace’s world, where friends picnic and sing and care about little beyond the plans of the day.  Lovelace wrote with a great fondness for the past, and she and her friends will live on in the hearts of readers for generations to come.

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
Betsy and Joe
Emily of Deep Valley
Winona’s Pony Cart

Disclosure: I received a copy of Carney’s House Party 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.

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Review: Winona’s Pony Cart by Maud Hart Lovelace

“Dignified!  Dignified!” she was saying crossly.  She kicked her heels against the white stones of the wall.  It hurt, but she didn’t care.

She was saying “dignified” because her mother had told her that she ought to be more so.

Her mother had come out of doors a little while before to call Winona in, and had found her sitting on top of the bird bath.  This marble bowl stood on a tall pedestal on the front lawn.  Winona had been calling, “Giddap!  Giddap!” and bouncing up and down and slapping imaginary reins.  She was pretending, of course, to be riding a pony.

Naturally, she had gotten wet — her dress, her two petticoats, even her panties.  There was water in a bird bath; wasn’t there?  Was that her fault?  If she had a pony she wouldn’t have to go riding on so many other things.

(from Winona’s Pony Cart, pages 289-290)

Winona’s Pony Cart, originally published in 1953 and recently reissued by HarperCollins, is another Maud Hart Lovelace novel set in Deep Valley, Minnesota, which is based on her home town of Mankato.  Although Betsy, Tacy, and Tib of the beloved Betsy-Tacy series (with Betsy Ray based on Lovelace herself) make an appearance, their fun-loving friend, Winona Root (based on Lovelace’s childhood friend, Beulah Hunt), takes center stage in this novel.

Set in the early 1900s, Winona’s Pony Cart is a short novel about Winona’s eighth birthday.  She has already asked her parents for a baby doll and a small printing press (her father is the publisher of the Deep Valley Sun), but then she gets her heart set on a pony and a pony cart, so she asks for them, too.  Her mother, fearing Winona acts too much like a rambunctious boy, is against the idea, and although Winona stops mentioning the pony to her parents, she never stops hoping and believing she will receive one on her special day.

Winona’s mother plans a new party dress for Winona, and her father prints the party invitations at work.  There are only 15 invitations, and her mother has selected the children who will attend.  Winona has her own guest list, and she’s determined that her other friends will attend, so chaos (of the innocent variety) ensues.

Lovelace’s stories about her childhood and that of her friends in the small town of Deep Valley are charming and timeless.  It was a simple life, where everyone knew one another, children played outdoors as much as possible, and families sat down together at every meal.  There’s something so attractive about this life and the innocent pursuits and concerns of the children.

Children will make friends with Winona and her friends, and adults will remember begging for birthday gifts and fouling up the parties so perfectly planned by their parents.  And while we might not be able to relate to the way Winona’s family handles her disappointment and might find her spoiled, we can feel the family’s love and share in their carefree fun.  Lovelace’s stories are old fashioned, but they are sweet and give us a glimpse of a time long past.  Winona’s Pony Cart takes readers to a happy place and offers a feel-good read for children and adults alike.

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
Betsy and Joe
Emily of Deep Valley

Disclosure: I received a copy of Winona’s Pony Cart 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.

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Maud Hart Lovelace Reading Challenge Wrap Up

A Library is a Hospital for the Mind hosted the Maud Hart Lovelace Reading Challenge during the  month of October.  I’d hoped to complete the last 4 books in the Betsy-Tacy series and read the 2 Lovelace books recently reissued by HarperCollins.  Well, I read three out of the six, which is good enough for me.  Here are the links to my reviews:

Emily of Deep Valley

Betsy Was a Junior

Betsy and Joe

Those of you following my reviews of Lovelace’s novels know how much I love the charming stories taken from her childhood, how she transports readers back to a simpler time, and how she’s given me a friend in Betsy Ray.  It’s not too late for you to discover the beauty of these books, since I only started the series for the first time last year.

A big thanks to A Library is a Hospital for the Mind for hosting the challenge!

© 2010 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

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Review: Betsy and Joe by Maud Hart Lovelace

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.

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Review: Betsy Was a Junior by Maud Hart Lovelace

But all of them were growing up, Betsy thought intensely.  They would never be quite so silly again.  The foolish crazy things they had done this year they would do less and less frequently until they didn’t do them at all.

“We’re growing up,” Betsy said aloud.  She wasn’t even sure she liked it.  But it happened, and then it was irrevocable.  There was nothing you could do about it except try to see that you grew up into the kind of human being you wanted to be.

(from Betsy Was a Junior, page 292)

First published in 1947 and reissued by HarperCollins in 2009, Betsy Was a Junior is the 7th book in the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace.  I really wish I’d discovered these gems when I was  younger, but I’m enjoying them nonetheless.  Lovelace based Betsy Ray on herself, and the rest of the characters in the Betsy-Tacy series are based on her family and friends in Mankato, Minnesota.  Betsy Was a Junior covers Betsy’s junior year at Deep Valley High from 1908-1909.

Betsy makes a lot of plans for her junior year and has a lot of great ideas that don’t always turn out like she planned.  She plans to “go with” Joe Willard, her rival in the annual Essay Contest, but he’s seeing the rich and beautiful Phyllis Brandish, the sister of Betsy’s ex-boyfriend, Phil.  So she attends dances and parties with the silent but handsome Dave Hunt.  When her sister, Julia, starts her freshman year at the University of Minneapolis and decides to join the Epsilon Iotas, Betsy and her best friends, Tacy Kelly and Tib Muller (who just moved back to Deep Valley from Milwaukee), start their own sorority, the Okto Deltas.  However, the exclusivity of the Okto Deltas may have been exciting and mysterious to start, but the consequences threaten to ruin Betsy’s junior year.

Lovelace writes with a fondness and a tenderness for her past and for her family and friends.  I love the glimpses of life at the turn of the century — the music, the fashion, the courting customs, the old traditions.  And I especially love the happiness and closeness of the Ray family and the innocence of Betsy and the Crowd.  There is a seriousness to Betsy Was a Junior that isn’t in the previous books because, for the first time, Betsy realizes that she and her friends are growing up.  Life can’t always be fun and carefree, and that’s a lesson we all have to learn at some point.  Though I wasn’t as outgoing or popular as Betsy during my high school years, Betsy Was a Junior brought me back to all the fun times I had with my friends and the sadness as we realized we’d all be going our separate ways soon enough.  Lovelace created an endearing character in Betsy, a girl who loves life and makes us love her — flaws and all.

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
Emily of Deep Valley

Disclosure: I received a copy of Betsy Was a Junior 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.

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Review: Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace

She did bring home books from the library, in armloads, replenishing them every two or three days.  She read avidly, indiscriminately, using them as an antidote for the pain in her heart.  But they didn’t help much.  There was no one to talk them over with.  They were almost as useless as the newspapers.

“I know what I’ll do,” she decided.  “I’ll go up to the high school.  We had such fun that day we went before.”

But the visit was not a success.  It was not at all like the merry expedition with the girls.  The seniors were chattering about class pins and caps.  The Philomathians and Zetamathians were having their annual fight for members.  And none of it concerned Emily any more — not even the debating club.

(from Emily of Deep Valley, pages 103-104)

I fell in love with Maud Hart Lovelace’s charming, old fashioned stories based on her childhood in Mankato, Minnesota, when I read the first six books in the Betsy-Tacy series last year (click here for links to all of my Betsy-Tacy reviews).  Emily of Deep Valley is one of the three books in Lovelace’s Deep Valley series (which recently were reissued by HarperCollins), and many of the characters from the Betsy-Tacy books make brief appearances.

The book opens in 1912 with Emily Webster preparing to graduate from Deep Valley High School.  Her cousin, Annette, and their friends are getting ready to leave for college, but despite Emily’s longing to study sociology and become more like Jane Addams, she must stay in Deep Valley to take care of her grandfather.  Her parents and grandmother have been dead for many years, and even though there is enough money to hire someone to handle her grandfather’s care, she wouldn’t think of leaving him.  While Betsy Ray is outgoing and vibrant, Emily is quiet and reserved (yet outgoing enough to be very persuasive when it comes to debates).  When the Crowd leaves for college, Emily falls into a depression, and when everyone comes home for the holidays, she realizes they now have little in common.

Piano lessons, dance lessons, and a reading group focused on the works of Robert Browning breathe some life into Emily, and her interactions with children from the nearby Syrian community change many lives, including her own.  She befriends Jed Wakefield, a new teacher at Deep Valley High, but she still has feelings for Annette’s beau, Don, who seems to enjoy knowing that Emily is pining for him.

While some might say Lovelace’s stories are outdated, I loved reading about life in a small town in the early 1900s.  And the more I get to know Lovelace’s characters, the more I realize that her books are timeless.  It was easy for me to identify with Emily, from her bouts of depression to feeling out of place as friends grow apart — and of course, most of us remember having crushes on guys who didn’t deserve our attention.

Emily of Deep Valley is a heartwarming coming-of-age story, and I enjoyed watching Emily grow and find herself.  I loved Emily’s grandfather and his stories of marching to Gettysburg in the Civil War, and I admired Emily for making a such a sacrifice for the man who took care of her for so many years.  Lovelace did a great job bringing her numerous secondary characters to life (even if it can be difficult to keep track of them all), mainly because they are based on people from her childhood.  In fact, the book ends with a special feature telling the story of Marguerite March, who inspired the character of Emily.

Disclosure: I received a copy of Emily of Deep Valley 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.

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Review: Betsy in Spite of Herself by Maud Hart Lovelace

The humiliating truth was that she had not succeeded in changing herself.

She had had fun telling Tacy that she was going to change, and even more fun plotting out with the admiring Tib a thrilling glamorous transformation.  But facing the facts in her lonely bed, Betsy realized that it was much easier to plot out something than it was for her to do it.  Just as, when they were younger, she and Tacy had loved to dream up wild deeds but it had usually been Tib who carried them out.

(from Betsy in Spite of Herself, page 553)

Betsy in Spite of Herself, the sixth Betsy-Tacy book, originally published in 1946, finds our beloved Betsy Ray starting her sophomore year at Deep Valley High and preparing to turn 16.  Betsy has a lot of friends — a lot of boy friends — but none of these boys feel anything romantic for her nor she for them.  Like many high school girls now and at the turn of the century, when the book takes place, Betsy wishes she was prettier, more sophisticated, and more mysterious.  When her childhood friend Tib invites her to spent two weeks with her family in Milwaukee — where she has been living for a few years, much to the disappointment of Betsy and her best friend, Tacy — Betsy has a chance to remake herself.  Betsy plans a great transformation to “Betsye” — and she has her eye on the new boy in school, Phil Brandish, a sort of “bad boy” and one of the few people in the small Minnesota town of Deep Valley to own an automobile.

However, Betsy can’t fool her friends Cab and Tony (Tony being the “Tall Dark Stranger” she had a crush on in Heaven to Betsy), who don’t understand why she puts on airs when Phil is around, and Betsy can’t fool herself either.  She is determined to grab Phil’s attention, and she succeeds in winning his affections, but when his jealousy pushes away the boys she counts among her closest friends — never mind the fact that Phil only talks about his car and doesn’t understand Betsy’s love for writing and her desire to compete against Joe Willard in the yearly essay contest — Betsy slowly grows unhappy with the relationship.

Maud Hart Lovelace, who began writing the Betsy-Tacy series for her young daughter (born in 1931), truly remembered what it was like to be a young girl navigating the tumultuous emotions of adolescence, and she wrote about it honestly and eloquently.  Lovelace understood the lengths that girls often go to impress a boy, how sometimes they will lose themselves, but that it’s important to accept themselves as they are.  This understanding of universal experiences and emotions is what makes the Betsy-Tacy books timeless.

With Betsy’s older sister, Julia, graduating from high school, Betsy in Spite of Herself prepares readers for a new chapter in the life of the Ray family.  Having so far accompanied Betsy on the journey from age 5 to 16, she feels real to me, and I can’t wait to continue the series.

If you haven’t already, you can read my other Betsy-Tacy reviews here:

Betsy-Tacy
Betsy-Tacy and Tib
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
Heaven to Betsy

Disclosure:  I received a copy of Betsy In Spite of Herself from HarperCollins for review purposes. I am an Amazon associate.

© 2009 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

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Review: Heaven to Betsy by Maud Hart Lovelace

Julia’s crowd, after calling out greetings, paid little attention to them.  As for Tony and Betsy they forgot that the others were there.  They did not speak to each other; they were too intent upon their dancing.  Betsy danced on the tips of her toes.  Standing so, she was just about Tony’s height, and they moved like one person.

“I believe I like dancing better than anything else in the world,” Betsy thought.

The music stopped, but to Betsy’s amazement Tony’s arms didn’t fall away.  Instead they tightened, and she felt a kiss on her cheek.  She looked, confused, into Tony’s laughing eyes.

“Wasn’t it smart of me to stop under the mistletoe?” he asked.

They were in the doorway between music room and parlor, and there was indeed a mischievous white-berried spray hanging above them.  Blushing, Betsy pulled herself away.

(from Heaven to Betsy, page 210)

I hope you’re not all sick of Betsy-Tacy week here at Diary of an Eccentric; I didn’t plan it that way, but I’m thoroughly enjoying myself.  As you can see, our little Betsy has become a young woman.  In Heaven to Betsy, the fifth book in the Betsy-Tacy series, originally published in 1945, Betsy Ray is 14 years old and starting her freshman year at Deep Valley High.  As if the changes that come with starting high school weren’t enough, Betsy’s parents uproot the family from Hill Street to High Street.  Granted, the family still lives in Deep Valley, Minnesota, but Betsy has grown to love living across the street from her best friend, Tacy Kelly, and while the new house has gas lighting and heating (big advances at the turn of the century) and each of the Ray girls has her own bedroom, Betsy isn’t ready to leave her life on Hill Street behind.

But that’s soon forgotten when she and Tacy start school.  In Heaven to Betsy, Maud Hart Lovelace introduces several new characters — Betsy’s new girlfriends Carney and Bonnie and several boys who befriend Betsy, walk her to and from school and parties, and hang around the Ray house for food and entertainment.  There’s Cab, her neighbor; Herbert, a local boy all the girls think is cute; and Tony, a newcomer whom Betsy nicknames “the Tall Dark Stranger.”  Tony is Betsy’s first real crush, and it takes her on an emotional roller coaster ride.  And we can’t forget Joe, the boy she met in a store during a summer trip who ends up being Betsy’s academic competitor.

Betsy makes the transition from childhood to young adulthood fairly seamlessly, making friends left and right and having a grand time.  Heaven to Betsy didn’t stir up any fond memories of my high school experience (that’s a period of my life I’d rather not revisit), but the emotions Betsy experiences with her first crush are universal.  I remember being nervous around boys I liked, and when things didn’t go like I’d hoped, I remember not wanting to get out of bed.  Like Betsy, I’m sure every girl has wished she looked like someone else.

I’ve read five of the Betsy-Tacy books so far, and Lovelace’s writing continues to amaze me.  There really isn’t anything extraordinary about the characters, the setting, or the events that take place within their pages, but Lovelace brings them to life in a way that readers connect with the characters, feel as though they are part of the Deep Valley community, and remember their own growing-up stories.  And the personal connection is deepened when you flip to the back of the book and see pictures of Lovelace’s family and friends who inspired the characters in Heaven to Betsy.

This book has a more grown up feel to it than the previous Betsy Tacy books.  The illustrations by Vera Neville portray a more mature Betsy, and Lovelace also touches upon more serious subjects like religion  (Betsy and her sister Julia feel at home in one church, which is not the church their parents attend) and Betsy and Tacy’s desire to do more than just become wives and mothers.  As much as I’m loving the Betsy-Tacy books, I wonder what it would have been like to read them as a child and to have grown up right along with Betsy.  I’m sure I would have found comfort in these books and a friend in Betsy.

Read my other Betsy-Tacy reviews:

Betsy-Tacy
Betsy-Tacy and Tib
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for allowing me to participate in the blog tour for the Betsy-Tacy books.  To check out the rest of the Betsy-Tacy blog tour dates, click here.  And check back here in the near future for reviews of the final five books in the Betsy-Tacy series.

Disclosure:  I received a copy of Heaven to Betsy from HarperCollins for review purposes. I am an Amazon associate.

© 2009 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

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Review: Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace

She [Tib] looked anxiously now at Tacy’s tear-stained face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Tacy’s father found Lady Audley’s Secret under her bed.”

“And he threw it in the kitchen stove,” said Tacy.  “He said it was trash.”

“Trash!” cried Betsy.  “Im trying to write books just like it.”

(from Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, page 6)

Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, the fourth book in the Betsy-Tacy series, originally published in 1943, is my favorite of the Betsy-Tacy books so far.  Betsy, Tacy, and Tib are 12 years old and are trading in picnics on the Big Hill for solo trips to downtown Deep Valley, Minnesota, and they embark on more grown up adventures to the library and the Opera House.  Like all of the previous Betsy-Tacy books, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown made me laugh out loud numerous times.  In one of these hilarious scenes, Maud Hart Lovelace introduces a new friend, Winona, whose father is an editor for the Deep Valley Press and gets free tickets to various theatrical productions.  Betsy, Tacy, and Tib are determined to persuade Winona to take them to see Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and when giving her gifts doesn’t work, they seem to think hypnosis will.  If the amusing way in which Lovelace wrote this scene doesn’t elicit a laugh, then Lois Lensky’s illustrations of three little girls with a zombie-like stare will do the job!

Lovelace also introduces Mrs. Poppy, a former actress who lives in the hotel her husband built in downtown Deep Valley.  She first befriends Betsy, Tacy, and Tib when she offers Tib a ride in her husband’s “horseless carriage,” which is one of the first automobiles ever seen in the town.  I thought the story of this lonesome new woman in town and her efforts to use her wealth and experience to help others was endearing, but Betsy’s budding career as a writer stole the show for me.

Betsy, sitting in her favorite tree and later at the trunk her mother converts to a desk, aims to mimic the romance novels she borrows from her family’s housekeeper.  She has tons of notebooks from her father’s shoe store filled with stories and poems, and she even turns one of her stories into a play.  I think it’s great that her family supported her desire to write, and her father even went out of his way to plan an every-other-week excursion to the new library, allowing Betsy to walk to town by herself, visit the library, and have lunch.  The idea behind these adventures was to expose her to classic novels so she could improve her writing.  Young girls can learn a lot from this part of the story, as it is important for them to take their interests seriously and actually pursue them.  When Betsy sends a story off to a magazine and never receives a response, she doesn’t give up.

The more I read about Maud Hart Lovelace and the further along I get in the Besty-Tacy series, it becomes more and more obvious that the stories are semi-autobiographical.  At the back of Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, there is a picture of the library in Lovelace’s hometown, and it is nearly identical to Lensky’s illustration of the library in Betsy’s hometown.  It’s these little touches that make reading the Betsy-Tacy books a richer, more enjoyable experience.  It’s amazing how Lovelace took ordinary characters and an ordinary turn-of-the-century town and created a captivating story, and the personal connections I’ve made with the characters mean I will treasure these stories forever.  Reading about Betsy and her writing brought me back to fifth grade, when I wrote my first poem (which I can still recite from memory), and to junior high, when I wrote my first short stories.  (It’s embarrassing to read them now!)  I’m looking forward to seeing where Lovelace takes Betsy, Tacy, and Tib as they become young women.

Read my other Betsy-Tacy reviews:

Betsy-Tacy
Betsy-Tacy and Tib
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill

Disclosure:  I received a copy of Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown from HarperCollins for review purposes. I am an Amazon associate.

© 2009 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

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Review: Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill by Maud Hart Lovelace

Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill is the third book in the Besty-Tacy series and was originally published in 1942, but the story takes place in 1902.  Betsy, Tacy, and Tib each turn 10 years old in the beginning of the book, and hitting the double digits is a big deal for the girls.  They fall in love for the first time…with the King of Spain, Alphonso XIII, who took the throne that year at the age of 16.  Betsy, Tacy, and Tib all want to marry him (with Tacy and Tib mainly going along with Betsy’s infatuation), but they think Tib with her dainty frame and accordian-pleated dress (specially made for a school dance performance) would make her the perfect queen.  They pen a letter to the young king:

Dear Sir,–

We are three little American girls.  Our names are Betsy, Tacy, and Tib.  We are all in love with you and would like to marry you but we can’t, because we’re not of the royal blood.  Tib especially would like to marry you because she has a white accordian-pleated dress that she’s going to wear when she dances the Baby Dance.  She looks just like a princess.  So we’re sorry.  But we’re glad you got to be king.  Three cheers for King Alphonso of Spain.

Yours truly,
Betsy Ray,
Tacy Kelly,
Tib Muller  (page 45)

While Besty, Tacy, and Tib dream up ways to make Tib queen, Betsy’s older sister, Julia, has plans to become Deep Valley’s summer queen on account of a song she sang at school.  A signature drive to allow the residents of Deep Valley to choose the queen leads to Betsy, Tacy, and Tib going over the big hill to a neighborhood known as Little Syria for its large population of Syrian immigrants.  The girls learn that the things they’d heard about the residents of Little Syria are not all true, and they discover a new culture and new friends.  But their trip over the big hill causes the fight between Betsy and Julia to grow bigger than before, and they must think about whether crowning a queen is more important than their relationship.

Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill is the first book in the Betsy-Tacy series to have a plot that creates tension and lasts more than a few pages.  At age 10, the girls are growing up, and of course, with growing girls there’s bound to be drama.  Maud Hart Lovelace’s characters seem so real, and getting to watch them grow up and evolve over the course of the series makes them feel like friends.  When I’m reading the Betsy-Tacy books, I feel like a kid again, and I lose myself in Betsy, Tacy, and Tib’s adventures.  Lovelace keeps the story light, though she touches upon a heavy topic — discrimination.  Young readers can learn a lot from Betsy, Tacy, and Tib’s willingness to stand up for the young Syrian girl they met on a trip up the Big Hill.  Lovelace describes the Syrian immigrants’ desire for the American dream and their hopes for the younger generation, and she shows how taking the time to get to know someone and not brush them off because they are different can create long-lasting relationships.

I’ve only just discovered the beauty of Lovelace’s classic series, and while I can’t put the books down, I’m not ready for Betsy, Tacy, and Tib to grow up.  If you haven’t yet made friends with the girls, I urge you to get your hands on the Betsy-Tacy books.  I think if you loved L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables books, you’ll love Betsy-Tacy.  The Montgomery books hold a special place on my shelf, and I’m pretty sure that by the time I finish the Besty-Tacy books, Betsy and Tacy will be shelved right next to Anne.

Don’t forget my other Betsy-Tacy reviews:

Betsy-Tacy
Betsy-Tacy and Tib

Disclosure:  I received a copy of Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill from HarperCollins for review purposes. I am an Amazon associate.

© 2009 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

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