I’ve never been so nostalgic for high school and childhood as I was reading this book. Lovelace perfectly captures those moments when things you’ve loved and known are coming to an end, and even if the future looks bright, its unknown and different. A practically perfect book. (With the unfortunate exception of blackface and a minstrel performance.)

I am a huge fan of Maud Hart Lovelace. I’ve read the whole series countless times. This re-reading was part of my bedtime reading.

I adored this. *happy sigh* :D

As always-I loved reading these books as a young girl and I love re-reading them. It's fun watching and seeing Betsy mature along with her friends Tacy and Tib. Ms. Lovelace is the type of author we still need today for young girls. She has a wonderfully descriptive. The reader really has a sense of the area around Deep Valley. She created a wonderful setting for young people making their way through high school and facing the same problems of young adults

today. I will be quickly moving on to the next in the series-much better than what is offered up to young girls today!













today!!

“One reason was that Tacy and Tib both loved her so much. They thought she was just about perfect, which had always made it easy for her to believe herself that she was pretty nice. You don’t grow up, she reasoned now, until you begin to evaluate yourself, to recognize your good traits and acknowledge that you have a few faults.”⁣
⁣
Betsy and Joe!

I guess it was a foregone conclusion that this one was going to be my favorite Betsy-Tacy book. It struck me while I was reading that Betsy and Joe are a lot like Anne and Gilbert from the Anne of Green Gables books, and this one is like Anne of the Island, I think, where they're both going with other people and then finally come to their senses and realize that they belong together. There's that wonderful academic rivalry throughout, with the essay competitions, and some truly lovely romantic mush. I'm glad, though that the Betsy series doesn't go past Betsy's Wedding, because when Anne and Gilbert got married in Anne's House of Dreams, I lost interest and didn't want to keep reading. And Betsy and Joe have got a lot of living to do, anyway!

Some other highlights--Tib bullying the star quarterback into winning the St. John's football game, Betsy's trip to see her father's German customers, and above all, A MAN FOR TACY! I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop since Lovelace said that Tacy wasn't really interested in boys. There was just going to be that one person who swept her off her feet. Good for her--high school boys are idiots (well, except Joe, and Tony, and Cab...and Gilbert Blythe).

I'm looking forward to seeing how Betsy acquits herself in the Big World!

Love, love, love this book number eight of the series. This is possibly my favorite book of the series. Maybe. I love them all.

Kiernan and I LOVED reading this one aloud - Julia's letters, Betsy finally taking high school seriously, BETSY AND JOE. It is honestly pure joy in reading form, and I love how Betsy gets better when she's with someone who also is smart and takes her seriously and knows she can be great and smart and a fantastic writer.

These books could always use more Tacy.

ONE NOTE: My experience re-reading the Betsy-Tacy book series to Kiernan is that there's a lot less overt racism (though still pervading whiteness and centering of white experiences for sure) than the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. (Yay?) But there are two things that folks might want to be aware of for discussion in the high school books and this one specifically:
- There's a play in the book, and oblique references that make it clear that one character is mimicking a minstrel show and performing in blackface. You can only really confirm from the picture at the beginning of the chapter, and if you didn't know what you were looking for (a reference to cork, basically) you might not notice it in the text. But it's there, and only commented on approvingly as great entertainment by the Rays, and worth indicting/investigating/discussing.
- Tom Slade's grandma is discussed approvingly for her stories of having settled Deep Valley, and in several of the books (I remember it more in Betsy was a Junior and Betsy in Spite of Herself, but it's here too), there are references to the stories she tells about how terrifying/terrible/unreasonable the Dakota were during the period of time where Mankato was settled by white people. It's complicated, because there's a sense of agency with which folks are referenced, but it's very slanted from the perspective (which makes sense in 1910 for white people living in Mankato, I suppose) that white people were the victors and the Dakota were monsters to be defeated, and everything turned out right and good as it should have. Kiernan's studied the Dakota War and the unfair treaty process that led up to it so it was fairly simple for us to discuss the problematic perspective of the text, but it's worth googling if you don't live in Minnesota and have a child studying that version of history (which is not the one I studied as a child in MN) and it has definitely informed the places we go see as part of our jaunts to Mankato to visit Betsy-Tacy sites.

Betsy's senior year contains several losses that help her to grow in wisdom and maturity. Many of her childhood friends find their callings. Even Tacy, who has never been interested in boys, meets "Mr. Right." It would have been a very satisfying ending to the series, but there are still two more to go!

besty-tacy books are wonderful. the writing is descriptive and as an adult brings me right back to feelings of my youth. i love that my girls have read them so often and really absorbed the values taught - honesty, laughing at your mistakes, repenting and valuing your family. positive, uplifting and an easy read.

For some reason I don't ever enjoy this one as much as the others. Betsy is totally wrapped up in Joe and nothing much happens besides that.

Loved seeing more of Joe! Another great installment! Can’t wait to see what Betsy does in the Big World!