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This series is giving me all of the “Anne of Green Gables” vibes and I am here for it.
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Betsy-Tacy #2
Betsy-Tacy and Tib
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Three of a Kind
Betsy and Tacy are best friends. Then Tib moves into the neighborhood and the three of them start to play together. The grown-ups think they will quarrel, but they don't. Sometimes they quarrel with Betsy's and Tacy's bossy big sisters, but they never quarrel among themselves.
They are not as good as they might be. They cook up awful messes in the kitchen, throw mud on each other and pretend to be beggars, and cut off each other's hair. But Betsy, Tacy, and Tib always manage to have a good time.
Ever since their first publication in the 1940s, the Betsy-Tacy stories have been loved by each generation of young readers.
129 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1,1941
This edition
- Format
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129 pages, Hardcover
- Published
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January 1, 1941 by Thomas Y. Crowell Company
- ISBN
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9780690138764
- ASIN
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0690138768
- Language
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English
Characters More characters
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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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Jule Ray
Betsy Tacys mother, a talented pianistmore...
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Robert Ray
Betsy Rays father, the owner of a shoe store and a great jokermore...
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Mrs. Kelly
Tacy Kellys kind mother, who has 10 childrenmore...
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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Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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Not quite on the level of the first book, but still really, really good! It's so fun to read about their absolutely bonkers 8 year old escapades. I really like that they're getting a couple years older with each successive book, so we can see their friendships at every stage of life!
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This is the cutest little book! I love the crazy things the girls do and the events leading up to them. I wish I had read this as a child.
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9/2012 Stet
12/2007 Re-reading this book hardly counts as reading, since I know it like the back of my hand. The entire series is so well-written and just plain fun that revisiting it is a treat. Lovelace's essential voice is unchanged throughout the series, yet she writes in a tone designed to engage readers of the characters' ages especially. My favorite part of this book is where Tib's family's "hired girl" Matilda catches them at mischief:
'"The dining room looks all right now," Betsy added. "Doesn't it, Matilda?"
Matilda looked at the tidy dining room. She swept it with a stony glance.
"I hear," she said meaningly, "that Mrs. Ray's kitchen looked nice too after you kept house for her one day."
And she stalked back into the kitchen.'
One thing I noticed this time through is that in the books, the Big Hill is described as ascending past Betsy's back yard, but when I was in Mankato it went up past Tacy's. Is this my imagination, fellow convention-goers?
12/2007 Re-reading this book hardly counts as reading, since I know it like the back of my hand. The entire series is so well-written and just plain fun that revisiting it is a treat. Lovelace's essential voice is unchanged throughout the series, yet she writes in a tone designed to engage readers of the characters' ages especially. My favorite part of this book is where Tib's family's "hired girl" Matilda catches them at mischief:
'"The dining room looks all right now," Betsy added. "Doesn't it, Matilda?"
Matilda looked at the tidy dining room. She swept it with a stony glance.
"I hear," she said meaningly, "that Mrs. Ray's kitchen looked nice too after you kept house for her one day."
And she stalked back into the kitchen.'
One thing I noticed this time through is that in the books, the Big Hill is described as ascending past Betsy's back yard, but when I was in Mankato it went up past Tacy's. Is this my imagination, fellow convention-goers?
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This second book in the series was even better than the first. Everything pudding, unintentional haircuts, and a bout of diphtheria...Betsy, Tacy, and Tib have a lot of fun together but also love each other through the rough patches too. I can’t wait to read the next installment.
Ps. Why aren’t there movies of these books?!
Ps. Why aren’t there movies of these books?!
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I love reading these books to my girls so much. They make us laugh and they are silly. I was thinking about how I feel like there aren’t that many adventure books about girls from this time period (I could be totally wrong). This one gave me a little bit of the Pippi Longstocking vibe. Lots of “what are you doing?” moments. My 11 year old said “It’s funny that they get these absurd ideas.” It’s so true. And my 9 year old stayed another truth. “Tib has no imagination.” We laughed out loud at so many things and had to look up a few things as well, because they were teens we were unfamiliar with. I can’t say that this book would be even close to the same as me reading it to myself, but as a read aloud it has been delightful.
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Re-read, COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020: These books are EXCELLENT. And especially great because there's a chapter about quarantine, which contains a sentence that Kiernan and I will NEVER not find funny about Betsy and Tib bringing Tacy gifts via fishing pole: "They sent notes and stories and pieces of cake and bouquets of flowers and a turtle." And then they talk about what happens if they die and cut off all their hair to "remember each other by" and Kiernan and I laughed so hard we nearly cried.
A TURTLE! It never appears in the book again.
Kiernan's review: "can you give a book 75 stars?"
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2012 review: Just finished reading this one out loud to Kiernan. Still love Betsy. Forgot how grown-up a lot of the topics in these books are -- Tacy gets diptheria, the girls talk about God, there's discussion of how parents don't want to discipline children who might die. Besides wondering whether I should explain to Kiernan to multiple meanings of the words "queer" and "gay" as used in the text, just perfect.
A TURTLE! It never appears in the book again.
Kiernan's review: "can you give a book 75 stars?"
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2012 review: Just finished reading this one out loud to Kiernan. Still love Betsy. Forgot how grown-up a lot of the topics in these books are -- Tacy gets diptheria, the girls talk about God, there's discussion of how parents don't want to discipline children who might die. Besides wondering whether I should explain to Kiernan to multiple meanings of the words "queer" and "gay" as used in the text, just perfect.
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I especially liked the chapter with the pebbles.
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