EVERYONE should read this series at LEAST once.

for the first time in my young adolesence as a Betsy, this story helped me believe that not only could I be pretty and popular and go out on dates, but when preparing for said dates, I could even do adorably clumsy things like burning my bangs off with a curling iron, and I would still come out alright in the end! Thanks Maud (no E, just like me!) Hart Lovelace!

A sweet read! I read this entire series as a girl. They delighted me then and now. There are so many of these old ways I wish we still kept. However, if it meant all of them or none of them, I'll keep my own time period, thank you.

It’s hard to watch her make mistakes but it’s cool at the same time to watch her grow up!

Lifting one out of the doldrums into more of a calm -- it's what you make of it

When her sister Julia goes away to college, Betsy promises to herself that she will do best to make up for her absence by working on her music, being a good sister and daughter, and her social life.

The social life part seems to come easily enough when Betsy, Tacy and Tib form a high school sorority in imitation of the ones rushing Julia at college. But eventually Betsy realises being included in one exclusive thing also means being left out of others, and that her pursuit of being popular has led her to neglect other aspects of her life and her friends.

The lessons seem trite but what I like is how real and relatable Betsy and her friends seem and all their social games, sixteen but playing at being grown-up; and also how the mold for what it means to be a teenager in a teenage novel is so firmly established - this book is set in 1908-09!

Period typical sexism (interrogated, to some extent, for example their father wanting Julia to go to college and find a husband but then conceding that she wants to put her career in music first) and racism (not interrogated at all).

I’m sure part of my problem with the last couple of books in this series is that I’m reading them so close together. They seem repetitive and somewhat shallow, but if I’d read them as published, it would have been like catching up with an old friend. That Betsy! I know I would have loved these books when I was in high school. And I’m still enjoying them now. Great writing, great lessons by the end of the book, great characters and friendships. I will finish the series.

Loved these books when I was a kid! This is a good one to read to your children at night until they take over and read it for themselves.

This book is so hilarious, maybe more so than the other Betsy-Tacy stories. Okay, maybe it's not funny for Betsy ... but to me it is! She seems to forget a lot of the hard-learned lessons from the last couple years. She gets into all kinds of trouble. Most of the time it doesn't end too disastrously (even if she does have to stay up all night pressing flowers), but sometimes it leads her to almost lose friends, such as with the Okto Deltas. She seems only focused on fun this year ... and of course she must learn a lesson from this!

Also, it's just so good to see Tib again! The trio just isn't a trio without her. And just because there are only two of them then ...

~Kellyn Roth, Reveries Reviews

“If a fairy godmother had ever appeared in her vicinity waving a wand and offering favors, Betsy would have cried out unhesitatingly for beauty” and popularity. “The purpose of the sorority…is to have a good time. The only theory it has to expound is, ‘Laugh and the world laughs with you.’ Requirements are being jolly, sticking by the bunch, and treating everybody square…Let’s us–the three of us–start a sorority…the word means–sisterhood…A thing like this would hold us together always…If we made vows of friendship…I can’t think of anyone I’d feel safer about promising to like…Wilt thou, Betsy Ray, take me, Tacy Kelly, in holy bonds of friendship? I wilt.”

But as the girls discover, clubs are based on exclusivity. “They leave too many people out…a fellow who was left out the U…was cut up about it. Do you know what they call the ones who don’t join? ‘Barbs,’ ‘barbarians.’” When Julia is “tried and found wanting,” the ostracizing of others strikes home. They witness their oldest sister wrestle with and accept rejection, they “learn to take knocks” with empathy and resilience.

“You couldn’t make sisterhoods with rules and elections…with your friendships fenced in by snobbish artificial barriers…After all, you couldn’t go through life rolling your friendships into one gigantic snowball…It would be like living an a pasture when you could have the whole world to roam…You wanted different kinds of friendships, with different kinds of people.”

Betsy Was a Junior introduces us to “another new teacher here, a young Swedish woman named Miss Erickson…Miss Erickson was pretty, with a pompadour like the rising sun. Her light blue eyes were like marbles and her shirtwaist suit was forbiddingly neat…Miss Erickson’s [face] was…stiffly starched… Before you judge Miss Erickson, I suggest that you judge yourself.“

“Life consisted of making resolutions and breaking them, of climbing up and slipping down…you never slip down to quite the point you started climbing from. You always gain a little…to see that you grew up into the kind of human being you wanted to be.”

I don’t know what it is about these books. They’re full of the whirl of high school life: dances, essays, ambitions half-buried under fun and friends, the Ray family being one great big loving mutual admiration society, tongue-in-cheek minutes written by Betsy the sorority secretary-treasurer. Attempts to charm the opposite sex, confidences with Tacy. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib staying up miserably all night to finish the assignment they had all year to start on.

Yes, they’re charming. They’re funny (and well-written). They’re quaint. (Imagine parents not knowing what a sorority is!) Since it could not be otherwise in a slice-of-life story, the fundamental seriousness of life and Growing Up makes an appearance here and there, but never in a very heavy way. They don’t even pretend to aspire to the finesse of F. Scott Fitzgerald or the psychological depth of a Russian novel.

And yet they always touch me. And I always find Betsy has a place nearer my heart than really any other heroine I can think of.

n  ”We’re growing up,” Betsy said aloud. She wasn’t even sure she liked it. But it happened, and then it was irrevocable. There was nothing you could do about it except to try to see that you grew up into the kind of human being you wanted to be.

“I’d like to be a fine one,” Betsy thought quickly and urgently.n

Betsy Was a Junior is perhaps the most fun-filled book of the entire Betsy-Tacy series. It opens with Tib's return from Milwaukee, which is met with joy and happiness by Betsy and Tacy. Three strong once again, the girls busy themselves with attending dances, performing in school recitals, and, of course, hanging out with their Crowd.

Prompted by older sister Julia's rhapsodic descriptions of sorority life, Betsy decides to follow suit by creating a high school sorority called Okto Delta. Although the eight members have a terrific time throwing parties and eating delicious refreshments (I defy anyone to read MHL's books without getting up and going the refrigerator just once!), they soon learn that a sorority has its drawbacks. Realizing that she and her sistren are alienating other members of Deep Valley High School (particularly Tony), Betsy dissolves the group and reverts back to her gregarious self.

Tib provides an extra dash of glamour to this book, what with her "blonde, stunning looks" and "lilac-trimmed dresses" that contrast fascinatingly with her practical, independent personality. One suspects that even Irma the Siren felt some competition once Ms. Muller joined the ranks of Deep Valley High School.


The Betsy-Tacy books were highly autobiographical and Lovelace perfectly captures the innocence and magic of childhood. If you read this book and love it, please read the series. It will be books that you will never forget as long as you live. I also recommend the "Betsy-Tacy Companion" which is an amazing book that disects each book and compares it to it's real-life counterparts, including pictures of the "real" Betsy, Tacy, Tib and all the gang.

I had the pleasure of visiting "Deep Valley" (aka Mankato, Minnesota) for a Betsy-Tacy convention back in 1996. It was incredible to step back in time and enter Betsy's world. We toured the city and I was actually able to step foot in "Tacy's" bedroom and sit on the famous bench at the top of the big hill. It was truly a life-altering experience. I have to thank my sister, Julie for introducting these books to me and changing my life.

It's obvious how much these books mean to me. My first born child was named Tacy Kelly Maloy. Please read and enjoy. They are a treasure!