maud hart lovelace's betsy-tacy series
[there are actually ten books in the series, but since the first few are shorter, i'm only counting it as eight books.]
for some reason, most of my favorite books when i was a kid were written decades before i was born--we're talking books by edward eager, noel streatfeild, l.m. montgomery, whoever wrote mrs. mike, and, of course, maud hart lovelace, author of the betsy-tacy books. written in the 1940s-50s, this series takes place in rural minnesota in the early 1900s, and follows the irrepressible betsy--who longs to be an author--and her best friend tacy, along with many other assorted characters. when i was a kid, i only owned the first three volumes of the series, because the rest were out of print. i distinctly remember checking the rest out from the carnegie library in squirrel hill--every week i'd get a new one and i knew exactly where they were on the shelf [the same was true for other books that struck my fancy later--like up the down staircase and the girls of huntington house).
i remember being perhaps a little inconsolable when i finished the final book (betsy's wedding) and there were no more adventures to follow. i've reread the first three more than a few times over the years and was pretty gleeful when i rcently discovered that the whole series had come back into print. being the obsessive sort of girl that i am, i promptly bought the seven i was missing and devoured all ten in more-or-less one go. the first three were just as i remembered, and the fourth followed suit (these first four are also all illustrated by lois lenski, a great author in her own right). however, i hit a snag with the fifth (heaven to betsy), which follows betsy and her older sister in their quest to convert to episcopalianism (??), and which was a little off-putting, being so, well, christian-y. luckily by the sixth and seventh things picked up again (betsy is occasionally a prig in those, but in a very realistic teenage way) and when i couldn't not read the eighth immediately upon finishing the seventh, i knew i was as hooked as i'd ever been.
hallmarks of the series, for me, include the characters' early stirrings of feminism, the accurate reflections of teen life (these books are very autobiographical, apparently), betsy's constant worries about her hair, the loyalty to friendships throughout all the books, and--of course--the intellectual, self-made hunk based on lovelace's husband. i think joe willard was the first fictional male i ever had a crush on (definitely before gilbert blythe, and probably also before dickon from the secret garden).
now if only the complete works of streatfield would come back into print!
6 comments:
L.M. Montgomery was such a favorite of mine back in the day. When I was 11 or so my dad gave me $100 for my birthday and told me I had to spend it at a bookstore...and I bought a stack of Montgomery paperbacks (not the Anne ones, I'd already read those a few times) like Magic For Marigold and the short stories about Avonlea and stuff, and it was heavenly. I'll have to check out these other books you described, as I've never even heard of them
And....I majorly crushed on Gilbert Blythe myself. Still kind of do, actually. I'm reading Anne of GG to Lula right now, and I can see the relationship Anne and him have in that book with such clarity now that I'm older, and it's so fascinating.
robin--it is so cool that you're reading anne to your daughter! all of those other authors would make good mother-daughter reading as well--they're all books my mom recommended to me. :)keep in mind that b/c they're all old there might be some weird gender things going on--the streatfeild books tend to be about dancers and preacher's families and things, but i recommend ballet shoes wholeheartedly.
i also love montgomery's non-anne books--actually the only ones i have here aren't anne books (i have blue castle and kilmeny of the orchard). the male lead of blue castle is also a mischievous romantic rogue of a character.
but gilbert blythe is still the best!
I read the Betsy-Tacy books (and there was a Tib in there somewhere, wasn't there?) and I remember loving them, but not so much what they were about.
Except that it was desireable to have your boyfriend's shirt collar fit around your waist. That's what I remember. A waist the size of a neck!
heh, that collar thing isn't really a major plot point (i didn't even remember it until reading your comment, and i only read that book like two days ago!). hey, do you remember in the little house books that before ma and pa got married, he could encircle her waise with his hands? (i have pretty small hands, so i always found that pretty freaky, imagining a waist that could fit between them.)
and yes, there is definitely a tib, but she's not in all the books. (the second one is betsy-tacy and tib, though.)
Is streatfield the author of the shoes series??!?!?! I've been bugging my roommate David about this series and he has no recollection of them. _Ballet Shoes_ was my favorite I think. Although I remember the figure skating one pretty clearly.
elizabeth--YES!!! besides ballet shoes, she wrote books like theatre shoes, skating shoes, dancing shoes, circus shoes, family shoes and its sequel new shoes . . . a quick search also turns up traveling shoes, movie shoes, and tennis shoes. she also wrote a TON of other books, like the gemma series. most of these are out of print, very unfortunately. i looooved ballet shoes (despite my hatred of ballet) because of its unconventional p-named sisters.
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