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Pretty good, I just didn't really like the kings and queens parts. I DO appreciate how they really just said "
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Betsy-Tacy #3
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
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Betsy, Tacy, and Tib can't wait to be ten. After all, getting two numbers in your age is the beginning of growing up—exciting things are bound to happen. And they do! The girls fall in love with the King of Spain, perform in the School Entertainment, and for the first time, go all the way over the Big Hill to Little Syria by themselves. There Betsy, Tacy, and Tib make new friends and learn a thing or two. They learn that new Americans are sometimes the best Americans. And they learn that they themselves wouldn't want to be anything else. Ever since their first publication in the 1940s, the Betsy-Tacy stories have been loved by each generation of young readers.
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 1,1942
This edition
- Format
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180 pages, Paperback
- Published
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April 5, 2000 by HarperCollins
- ISBN
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9780064400992
- ASIN
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0064400999
- Language
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English
Characters More characters
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Alfonso Xiii Of Spain
Alfonso XIII (Spanish: Alfonso León Fernando María Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena; 17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941) was King of Spain from 1886 until the proclamation of the Second Republic in 1931. Alfonso was monarch from birth...
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Betsy Ray
a spunky, overly imaginative girl with brown braids in turn-of-the-century Deep Valley, Minn....
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Tacy Kelly
a red-headed girl with a big Irish Catholic family in turn-of-the-century Deep Valley, Minn....
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Katie Kelly
Tacy Kellys older sister; she and Julia Ray are best friendsmore...
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Bee Kelly
the youngest of the 10 Kelly children...
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Jule Ray
Betsy Tacys mother, a talented pianistmore...
About the author
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Maud Hart Lovelace was born on April 25, 1892, in Mankato, Minnesota. She was the middle of three children born to Thomas and Stella (Palmer) Hart. Her sister, Kathleen, was three years older, and her other sister, Helen, was six years younger. “That dear family" was the model for the fictional Ray family.
Maud's birthplace was a small house on a hilly residential street several blocks above Mankato's center business district. The street, Center Street, dead-ended at one of the town's many hills. When Maud was a few months old, the Hart family moved two blocks up the street to 333 Center.
Shortly before Maud's fifth birthday a “large merry Irish family" moved into the house directly across the street. Among its many children was a girl Maud's age, Frances, nicknamed Bick, who was to be Maud's best friend and the model for Tacy Kelly.
Tib's character was based on another playmate, Marjorie (Midge) Gerlach, who lived nearby in a large house designed by her architect father. Maud, Bick, and Midge became lifelong friends. Maud once stated that the three couldn't have been closer if they'd been sisters.
Maud's birthplace was a small house on a hilly residential street several blocks above Mankato's center business district. The street, Center Street, dead-ended at one of the town's many hills. When Maud was a few months old, the Hart family moved two blocks up the street to 333 Center.
Shortly before Maud's fifth birthday a “large merry Irish family" moved into the house directly across the street. Among its many children was a girl Maud's age, Frances, nicknamed Bick, who was to be Maud's best friend and the model for Tacy Kelly.
Tib's character was based on another playmate, Marjorie (Midge) Gerlach, who lived nearby in a large house designed by her architect father. Maud, Bick, and Midge became lifelong friends. Maud once stated that the three couldn't have been closer if they'd been sisters.
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Going on ten seemed to be exactly the right age for having fun.
The three girls look forward to their tenth birthdays, and all the new thrills that "being older" will bring. With the young king of Spain's coronation grabbing the headlines, the pals become royalty obsessed, and decide to crown their own Queen of Summer. Too bad some other girls have had the same idea.
Don't worry - despite some rough moments, fun times, love, and laughs always prevail.
The three girls look forward to their tenth birthdays, and all the new thrills that "being older" will bring. With the young king of Spain's coronation grabbing the headlines, the pals become royalty obsessed, and decide to crown their own Queen of Summer. Too bad some other girls have had the same idea.
Don't worry - despite some rough moments, fun times, love, and laughs always prevail.
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It was coincidence I happened to read this the week of Trump's inauguration, and with it immediate actions taken against refugees entering the country (and, possibly, staying).
Written in the '40s, the book is based on Lovelace's Minnesota childhood around the turn of the century. When Betsy and Tacy go over the hill they find a warm and (once they have an in-road) welcoming community of Syrian immigrants. Lovelace sneakily and impressively brings together a gratifying resolution out of the episodic threads. It feels a bit "Father knows best," but the American-born parents are also kind, welcoming, and sensible towards the immigrants and their community.
Lovelace at one point emphasizes the Syrian immigrants' Christianity to deepen the readers' connection to the community, and while this feels quite dated, in the process she also highlights that other countries and cultures aren't monolithic, and refugees have complex and deep histories. These immigrants don't have much agency in the story, but Lovelace eludes to their complicated feelings about their multiple identities.
I also love that she ever so lightly and slyly skewers the value these American place on European monarchy, while staying true to the little girls' innocence. There's a Pollyanna air that also shows the book's age, but the girls are at times vivid characters, and the conflicts feel real and even stressful while remaining child-sized. When so much historical YA and children's fiction has kids resolving enormous conflicts, when these girls take on local bullies, it feels historically reasonable and also brave, and concerning for the reader. It just occurred to me: the conflicts are all with American-born characters--again, very low-key. And how lovely that one of the key arguments between the girls and their old sisters is much more nuanced than the predictable one about whose opinion "counts" in their popularity contest.
1942, its publication date, was certainly a time to assure native-born Americans that immigrants, especially not from Europe, were valuable and their equals.
For me, the creaking joints on this old book were mostly either charming or at least socially interesting.
Eighty years later, it was disheartening to see us here, again... I guess our president was reading other books as a kid.
Written in the '40s, the book is based on Lovelace's Minnesota childhood around the turn of the century. When Betsy and Tacy go over the hill they find a warm and (once they have an in-road) welcoming community of Syrian immigrants. Lovelace sneakily and impressively brings together a gratifying resolution out of the episodic threads. It feels a bit "Father knows best," but the American-born parents are also kind, welcoming, and sensible towards the immigrants and their community.
Lovelace at one point emphasizes the Syrian immigrants' Christianity to deepen the readers' connection to the community, and while this feels quite dated, in the process she also highlights that other countries and cultures aren't monolithic, and refugees have complex and deep histories. These immigrants don't have much agency in the story, but Lovelace eludes to their complicated feelings about their multiple identities.
I also love that she ever so lightly and slyly skewers the value these American place on European monarchy, while staying true to the little girls' innocence. There's a Pollyanna air that also shows the book's age, but the girls are at times vivid characters, and the conflicts feel real and even stressful while remaining child-sized. When so much historical YA and children's fiction has kids resolving enormous conflicts, when these girls take on local bullies, it feels historically reasonable and also brave, and concerning for the reader. It just occurred to me: the conflicts are all with American-born characters--again, very low-key. And how lovely that one of the key arguments between the girls and their old sisters is much more nuanced than the predictable one about whose opinion "counts" in their popularity contest.
1942, its publication date, was certainly a time to assure native-born Americans that immigrants, especially not from Europe, were valuable and their equals.
For me, the creaking joints on this old book were mostly either charming or at least socially interesting.
Eighty years later, it was disheartening to see us here, again... I guess our president was reading other books as a kid.
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Betsy, Tacy, and Tib all have two numbers in their ages now (that is, they are 10), so they have more freedom. They decide to walk all the way over the "big hill" in their small town to the location known as "Little Syria" because many Syrian refugees live there. I was pleased to see the Syrians not treated as "other" or inferior in any way by the author, although some kids in the book insult the Syrians by calling them "dago." (My husband, an eye-talian, doesnt' understand why this would be the insult of choice or Syrian, since it is usually used for Italians. I figure maybe the insulting kids are just stupid.)
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It's definitely my favorite my book I really loved reading it
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Another delightful book in the Betsy and Tacy series. I appreciate it that the girls are not sickeningly sweet, but that they learn and grow as they relate to others. In this installment they befriend a little girl who is a Syrian refugee and through her they learn some important lessons about kindness, forgiveness, and patriotism.
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Again, an excellent installment of this series. This one deserves particular recognition for a very well done approach to diversity and cultural understanding.
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This book had more of a storyline than the first two. I enjoy reading about the friendships of these three sweet girls, but could especially relate to the bond, competitions, and love of sisters.
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