February 19, 2010 @ 8:43 pm | Filed under: 21st Century Motherhood, Family Adventures
Yesterday the five younger kids and I stood on an Amtrak platform in downtown San Diego, waving wild goodbyes as Jane’s train pulled away, headed for L.A. Big moment for us: the first venturing-forth-alone of one of my chicks. Jane is spending a few days with my friend Kristen and my soon-to-be-goddaughter, who is seriously the most beautiful baby you ever saw. (And I don’t say this lightly. I’ve had some mighty pretty babies myself.)
I thought I would be more freaked out about putting Jane on a train alone, going to Los Angeles for pity’s sake, but to my surprise I was more excited and happy for her than anything else. Maybe it’s all the time I’ve been spending in the high-school Betsy-Tacy books lately: I feel positively Mrs. Ray-ish about this trip: just tickled pink that Jane gets to have such a fun adventure. (Though of course we are missing her like crazy.)
Betsy was just Jane’s age, fourteen, when she went off to Butternut Center for a week on the farm with friends of her father’s. I was exactly Jane’s age when my parents sent me to Germany for seven weeks with a few other kids from school, to stay with some families who had known my English teacher when her husband was stationed in Kaiserslautern. Germany! With no cell phones, no internet! Mom and Dad, now that I know what it’s like, you amaze me.
It was an incredibly fun trip and I am so glad they let me go.
Jane seems to be having an incredibly fun trip, and I am so glad we let her go. 
But I had to laugh at myself just now, when I checked her Facebook page for about the tenth time today and saw no new update. Yes, I am actually complaining that my teenager doesn’t spend enough time on Facebook.
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:::
January 12, 2010 @ 6:09 pm | Filed under: Books
The first wave of news alone was enough to make me shriek with joy—
Fresh on the heels of those swoony reissues of the high-school-and-beyond Betsy-Tacy books, HarperPerennial is bringing back Emily of Deep Valley.
And Carney’s House Party—and Winona’s Pony Cart—these two together in one delicious tome.
You know how much this thrills me. I love Emily so much I actually bought four copies of the last printing to squirrel away for my daughters, just in case she disappeared from bookstores altogether. But now I can give those as presents, perhaps, because there will be these lovely new editions out before too long.
Like I said, that news alone made my week. But the icing on the cake?
I’ve been asked to write the foreword for the Carney/Winona book.
Can you hear me smile? I am so honored. I’m pretty much over the moon!
I had just the same reaction Mitali Perkins did when she read the note from HarperPerennial’s Jennifer Hart, asking her to write the foreword for Emily of Deep Valley:
I re-read the email, heart racing, tears blurring my eyes. The veggie burger guy watched with a look of concern as I managed to word this response on my iPhone:
Do you know how much I love Emily of Deep Valley? I have re-read it countless times since I discovered it as a newcomer to this country years ago in the Flushing library.
I am honored, thrilled, ecstatic, over-the-top, doing-a-Bollywood-Dance delighted.
Oh, Mitali, I hear you. Heart racing, teary-eyed, all of it. Carney’s House Party is one of my favorite of Maud Hart Lovelace’s books—I love how honestly Carney grapples with the complicated process of sorting out her college self from her hometown self. And who doesn’t love Winona Root? As I told Jennifer, the older my girls get, the more I enjoy the Winona in them—the devilish twinkle in the eye, the zest for fun and adventure.
Well, this is very, very exciting. Couldn’t be happier. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go reread Carney. For the dozenth time.
January 12, 2010 @ 4:13 pm | Filed under: Books
This just in from BookClubGirl: the Philomathian Society swept the day during Betsy-Tacy Convert Week.
A paver stone in honor of the Philomathians will be placed outside Maud Hart Lovelace’s home on “Hill Street” that will read:
Philomathians
Convert Week
Winners Fall 09
This proud Philomathian is happy to have been a part of the effort—enthusiastic and successful on both sides—to introduce great numbers of new readers to the Betsy-Tacy books. Thanks to all of you who participated! You’ve made Joe and Winona very proud.
Speaking of Winona, there’s more Betsy-Tacy news to come…Stay tuned!
September 29, 2009 @ 1:01 pm | Filed under: Books
Betsy-Tacy Convert Week is underway!
I received my giveaway copy (destined for Laurie of Seaglass Hearts) and am rooting for Team Philomathian. The reissues are perfectly lovely, I must say. Wonderful feel to the covers (and that swoony vintage art), the classic Vera Neville illustrations, and loads of photos and extras in the back.
May I ask a favor? If you happened to hear about Betsy-Tacy for the first time here at Bonny Glen (I know a few folks have mentioned that this is the case), would you drop me a note in the comments?
I recently located a copy of The Betsy-Tacy Companion: A Biography of Maud Hart Lovelace and have been looking forward to inhaling it just as soon as I emerge from my current reading jag (the YA novels of Laurie Halse Anderson). Liz’s new post at Tea Cozy has me all the more eager. It’s kind of thrilling for me to realize I’m living not too far from some bona fide Maud Hart Lovelace sites here in SoCal. I sense some field trips ahead…
Betsy-Tacy, Maud Hart Lovelace
September 22, 2009 @ 7:14 pm | Filed under: Books
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
11/8 St. Paul, MN, at the Red Balloon Bookshop
4/17/10 Dallas, TX, at the Dallas Heritage Museum
Related posts:
Heaven to Betsy
How I Met Betsy Ray and Her Crowd
Betsy-Tacy, Maud Hart Lovelace
September 3, 2009 @ 5:47 pm | Filed under: Books
In case you missed this at the bottom of a long post earlier this week: A hilarious performance of Rossini’s Cat Duet by sopranos Felicity Lott and Ann Murray. This is the same duet that Betsy and Tacy performed in the school concert every year to the delight of their friends. Easy to see why!
Betsy-Tacy, Betsy-Tacy scrapbook
September 3, 2009 @ 12:38 pm | Filed under: Books
Tomorrow is the last day to sign up for Betsy-Tacy Convert Week.
If you’d like to participate but don’t have a potential convert in mind, Bonny Glen commenters Lenetta and Anna would love to be adopted.
I’m re-re-rereading Heaven to Betsy right now. How could I resist, after all these Betsy posts? It’s the first of the high-school books, chronicling Betsy’s freshie experiences with a new Crowd of friends—irresistible! The setting is early 1900s Deep Valley, Minnesota, aka Small Town America. Betsy’s social life—a merry string of piano singalongs, football games, parties, surrey rides, school dances, and her father’s famous Sunday Night Lunches (where onion sandwiches are the stars of the show)—is enviable, but even so, Betsy grapples with doubts and difficulties:
Walking homeward, looking up at the sky, and around her at the wan landscape, she felt an inexplicable yearning. It was mixed up with Tony, but it was more than Tony. It was growing up; it was leaving Hill Street and having someone else light a lamp in the beloved yellow cottage. She felt like crying, and yet there was nothing to cry about.
She made up poems as she tramped homeward, the snow squeaking under her feet. Sometimes when she reached home she wrote them down and put htem with Tony’s notes deep in the handkerchief box. But she did this secretly.
“What has become of your writing, Betsy?” her mother asked. “Are you sure you don’t want Uncle Keith’s trunk [Betsy's old desk] down in your bedroom?”
Betsy was sure; she didn’t want it, although she still climbed to the third floor and visited it sometimes.
Writing didn’t seem to fit in with the life she was living now. Carney didn’t write; Bonnie didn’t write. Betsy felt almost ashamed of her ambition. The boys teased her about being a Little Poetess. She felt that she would die if anyone discovered those poems in the handkerchief box, and the bits of stories she still wrote sometimes when she was supposed to be doing algebra.
This is a different Betsy from the little girl who entertained her friends with endless tales back in the old Hill Street days. To be sure, the 14-year-old Betsy is still entertaining her chums with her ready wit and lively spirits. But she hasn’t quite figured out what to do with this other side of herself, the serious, introspective side, the place the poems come from. She’ll get there, but it’ll take time. And as life changes, she’ll have to sort the sides of herself all over again: we see her still groping for balance in Betsy’s Wedding, the final book of the series. I love that; it rings quite true.
Related posts:
How I met Betsy Ray and her Crowd.
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
Betsy-Tacy, Maud Hart Lovelace
August 31, 2009 @ 12:13 pm | Filed under: Books
Due to the enthusiastic response, the sign-up period for Betsy-Tacy Convert Week has been extended to Sept. 4th. Remember, HarperCollins will send you a copy of Heaven to Betsy/Betsy in Spite of Herself to give away to the unBetsyed friend of your choice.
The first copies have just arrived in the HarperCollins offices. Squee!
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 are 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.
On a related note: we’ve been giggling over this hilarious performance of Rossini’s Cat Duet by sopranos Felicity Lott and Ann Murray. Betsy-Tacy fans will understand the connection.
Betsy-Tacy, Maud Hart Lovelace
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!
. Over the winter I’d...
