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The tenth and final book in Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy~Tacy series - thank goodness for the three related Deep Valley books, as I don't think I'm ready for my reading experience to be over! - Betsy's Wedding picks up just where the previous installment, n Betsy and the Great Worldn, left off. When Betsy's ship docks in New York, her estranged sweetheart, Joe Willard, is waiting for her, and the two are soon engaged. Settling near the Rays in Minneapolis (of course!), once they are married, Betsy and Joe begin their life as newlyweds.
Delightful, charming, heartwarming: Betsy's Wedding was an almost completely unalloyed pleasure to read! Joe was an admirable husband, and Betsy a devoted wife. Even their trials and tribulations - Betsy's struggle to master the art of cooking (oh, that meat-pie!), and Joe's determination to earn a decent living (what a schedule!) - proved entertaining. I appreciated that, good-hearted as she may have been, Betsy was no paragon, and really had to struggle to accept the fact that Joe's Aunt Ruth would be coming to live with them. I could have lived without her belief that Joe should have the final word in all decisions ("One person in a family has to have the final word. I want it to be Joe, always."), but that was one of the only irritants in an otherwise engaging narrative.
I also liked the way that Lovelace handled the issue of World War I, and the patriotic feelings of German-Americans like Tib. So many children's books from or about that period tend towards jingoism, that it was a pleasure to read an account in which the common bonds of American citizenship are paramount. As Tib explains to Betsy, at one point: "Of course I love the German people. But you must remember that Grosspapa Hornik was a Forty-eighter," highlighting the fact that those qualities which led many immigrants to leave Germany and Austria in the first place, would make them loyal Americans as well.
From Tacy's babies to Margaret's beaus, company dinners at home to dancing out, this book was just so much fun to read! I even know what the Violent Study Club is, now! Truly, a fitting end to a lovely series!
Delightful, charming, heartwarming: Betsy's Wedding was an almost completely unalloyed pleasure to read! Joe was an admirable husband, and Betsy a devoted wife. Even their trials and tribulations - Betsy's struggle to master the art of cooking (oh, that meat-pie!), and Joe's determination to earn a decent living (what a schedule!) - proved entertaining. I appreciated that, good-hearted as she may have been, Betsy was no paragon, and really had to struggle to accept the fact that Joe's Aunt Ruth would be coming to live with them. I could have lived without her belief that Joe should have the final word in all decisions ("One person in a family has to have the final word. I want it to be Joe, always."), but that was one of the only irritants in an otherwise engaging narrative.
I also liked the way that Lovelace handled the issue of World War I, and the patriotic feelings of German-Americans like Tib. So many children's books from or about that period tend towards jingoism, that it was a pleasure to read an account in which the common bonds of American citizenship are paramount. As Tib explains to Betsy, at one point: "Of course I love the German people. But you must remember that Grosspapa Hornik was a Forty-eighter," highlighting the fact that those qualities which led many immigrants to leave Germany and Austria in the first place, would make them loyal Americans as well.
From Tacy's babies to Margaret's beaus, company dinners at home to dancing out, this book was just so much fun to read! I even know what the Violent Study Club is, now! Truly, a fitting end to a lovely series!
