Archive for the 'Betsy-Tacy' Category
June 4, 2010 @ 6:23 am | Filed under: Betsy-Tacy,Books,Music
[Harry] started coming to the Rays’ regularly. He brought Julia flowers and candy. He brought her the score of The Red Mill, and he and Julia sang a duet from it:
“Not that you are fair, dear
Not that you are true…”He lifted his eyebrows and puffed out his chest. He quite eclipsed poor Hugh.
—from Betsy in Spite of Herself
by Maud Hart Lovelace
The Red Mill, an operetta by Victor Herbert and Henry Blossom, opened on Broadway in 1906. Among Herbert’s other works are Babes in Toyland (1903) and Naughty Marietta (1910).
Here’s the score of The Red Mill, including “Because You’re You,” the song Julia sang with the chest-puffing Harry.
Love is a queer little elfin sprite,
Blest with the deadliest aim!
Shooting his arrows to left and right,
Bagging the rarest game,
Filling our hearts with a glad surprise,
Almost too good to be true!
And still can you tell me why do you love me?
Only because you are you, dear!Not that you are fair, dear,
Not that I am true,
Not my golden hair, dear,
Not my eyes of blue,
When we ask the reason,
Words are all too few!
So I know I love you, dear,
Because you’re you!
• The Red Mill at Wikipedia. Fun tidbit:
In 1906, producer Charles Dillingham made theatrical history by placing in front of the Knickerbocker Theater a revolving red windmill powered and lit by electricity. This was Broadway’s first moving illuminated sign.
• Selections from The Red Mill in a Youtube clip. My guess is that “Because You’re You” is the melody beginning around 2:27.
Betsy-Tacy, Betsy-Tacy scrapbook
May 31, 2010 @ 8:23 pm | Filed under: Betsy-Tacy,Books,Music
“I’ve a new waltz I want Mamma to hear. She talks so often of the great Strauss. Here is a piece as good as any of his and it is also by a Viennese.”
He began to play.
The opening phrases were short and artless. They sounded like a rocking horse. But the swing began to grow longer, the rhythm stronger. The waltz began to ask questions, wistful, poignant. It took on a dreamier sweep.
Then a gayer theme sent Uncle Rudy’s fingers rippling over the keys. The melody wove in and out. It circled, swayed, as though it were music and dancer in on. It was irresistible.
—from Betsy in Spite of Herself
by Maud Hart Lovelace
It just freaked me out a little to realize that the Happy Birthday song on Tom Chapin’s Moonboat CD—Wonderboy’s favorite CD, hands down—is set to the tune of the Merry Widow waltz.
• The Merry Widow (first performed in Vienna in 1905)
• Merry Widow hat spoofed in a set of postcards, 1908
• Composer Franz Lehar
Betsy-Tacy, Betsy-Tacy scrapbook, Merry Widow Waltz
April 28, 2010 @ 9:55 am | Filed under: Betsy-Tacy,Books
…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:
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
Heaven to Betsy
Emily of Deep Valley, my hero
The famous Cat Duet
Betsy-Tacy, Carney's House Party, Could I be more excited?, Emily of Deep Valley, Maud Hart Lovelace, Winona's Pony Cart
February 22, 2010 @ 8:35 am | Filed under: Betsy-Tacy,Family Adventures
“…What are you looking for?”
“Presents. Five of them.” She explained, talking very fast, that no Ray ever came home from a visit without bringing presents. “It’s an old family custom,” she said.
“Hallelujah!” he exclaimed, shutting the book. “That’ll be fun, picking out five presents. I hope you have a brother. There’s a corking jack-knife here.”
—from Heaven to Betsy by Maud Hart Lovelace
Our “Betsy” came home from her trip yesterday with presents for everyone, in the grand Ray tradition. We tried to keep up our end of the tradition with a massive housecleaning, but I’m afraid I did not go so far as to scour the metaphorical coal scuttle. Jane’s equivalent of Willard’s Emporium was L.A.’s Little Tokyo: sky-blue chopsticks for Rose, stuffed Mario Kart mushrooms for Bean and the boys, and a pink piggy bank for Rilla. For her daddy, a Totoro keychain and a pack of Black Jack gum. And a bag of dark chocolates for me! That’s my girl.
Plus homemade cookies all around. Customized chocolate-chip cookies—extra dark chocolate in mine. I may have to send all my kids up to Kristen for cookery lessons. I hear Jane got a tutorial in baked tomato sauce. I look forward to sampling her homework.
And yes, I am giggling over equating L.A. with sleepy, one-horse Butternut Center. Then again, San Diego ain’t Deep Valley!
(Just ask Larry Humphreys.)
February 15, 2010 @ 1:15 pm | Filed under: Betsy-Tacy,Books
You won’t want to miss this event tomorrow TODAY, Tuesday the 16th:
Get out your party dresses! Wellesley Booksmith and the Betsy-Tacy Society are brightening up February break with An Edwardian Tea Party in celebration of HarperCollins’ reissue of the classic Betsy-Tacy series of children’s books by Maud Hart Lovelace. Set at the turn of the 20th century, these beloved books chronicle the adventures of Betsy Ray and her best friend Tacy Kelly as they grow from little girls to young women.
Teatime starts at 2pm. More details at the link above. Wish I could join you!
And did you see that Betsy Ray and Joe Willard were included this list of Best Literary Couples? You know, I just finished rereading Betsy and Joe (yes, again) and I have to say that is one of the most satisfying resolutions to a stumbling-blocked romance ever. “After Commencement, the World—with Betsy!” :::sigh:::
August 28, 2009 @ 7:14 am | Filed under: Betsy-Tacy,Books
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.
And I think I’ve mentioned how excited I am that the six high-school-and-beyond Betsy books are coming back into print in September.
(Remember how I wept when they began going out of print?)
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!)
Also, today is the last day to sign up for Betsy-Tacy Convert Week. If you’re a B-T devotee, and you know someone who isn’t—yet—hop over to Book Club Girl’s blog and find out how you can get a copy of the about-to-be-released reissue of Heaven to Betsy/Betsy in Spite of Herself (two books in one) to give to your lucky convert. Laurie of Seaglass Hearts, I’ve got my eye on you!
Betsy-Tacy, books for girls, Maud Hart Lovelace
September 23, 2008 @ 7:33 pm | Filed under: Betsy-Tacy,Books
This is another easy one, a kind of warm-up for the overloaded shelves to come. As I mentioned yesterday, I am short, so I tend not to crowd too much onto the higher shelves. So here again, one of the living-room bookcases, second shelf from the top.
First we have a stack of books lying flat on their sides. Working from the bottom up:
Our nice big family Bible, a beautiful wedding gift from one of Scott’s cousins.
The Mary Frances Housekeeper in hardcover. Why is that way up there where no child can possibly see it, much less use it to learn to keep house? Must remedy this.
Uh-oh, an overdue sign language instructional DVD from the Deaf Missions Video Library. Must get that packaged up for tomorrow’s post-office run.
Next to this stack, filling the remaining two thirds of the shelf:
A bunch of Math-U-See DVDs.
Our Maud Hart Lovelace collection, or most of it anyway. When the Betsy-Tacy books began to go out of print, sob, I rounded up our copies and shelved them here, up high, on purpose, to ensure that they will not be lost or scattered. This explains why the children’s bathroom stepstool is very often on the floor in front of this bookcase. These are some of our most beloved books, and it seems someone around here is nearly always in the middle of one of them. What’s on the shelf right now:
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
Emily of Deep Valley (my favorite; I posted about it here)
Winona’s Pony Cart (yes, a second copy, this one in hardcover—my editor at Harper knew what a fangirl I am and sent me some extra copies she had lying around)
(So it looks like Betsy Was a Junior is in circulation somewhere.)
The first four are the “young Betsy” books—she starts out five years old and is, I think, about ten in the fourth book. (Isn’t Big Hill the one where they sing “O Betsy’s ten tomorrow and then all of us are ten! We will all be ten tomorrow; we will all be ladies then…” to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic?) The Winona book belongs in that time frame; the girls are around eight years old, I think; but it’s a stand-alone story and I like it better after Big Hill.)
Then come the four high-school books, which are a deep delight, and then Great World and Betsy’s Wedding. The books about Carney and Emily come before Betsy’s wedding in the Deep Valley chronology, but they were written later and once again I think it’s best not to break up the flow of Betsy’s own narrative. Carney is a fun treat afterward (especially the brief glimpse of her college life), because you get to go back in time a few years and see a summer of the gang’s life that wasn’t portrayed in detail in Betsy’s books, and then, well, there’s Emily of Deep Valley to put a soul-satisfying coda on the whole series.
Back to the shelf. Next to the Lovelace treasures there are some DVDs. Chris Rock, Monty Python collection, two Bruce Springsteen concerts (detect a trend?), The Office, Bob Newhart, Schoolhouse Rock. So that’s where Schoolhouse Rock is. I was looking for it.
That’s it for shelf #2. And now I’m in the mood to go read some Betsy-Tacy.
