This series is giving me all of the “Anne of Green Gables” vibes and I am here for it.

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!

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.

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?

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?!

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.

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.

I especially liked the chapter with the pebbles.

There are a lot of memorable adventures in this one, including the girls chopping off their ringlets and pigtails to fill lockets, the Being Good Club, and Betsy and Tib using a fishing rod to deliver notes and gifts to a diphtheria-stricken Tacy.

The joys of friendship, playing outside, and using the imagination! Wonderful!

2012 - Read aloud with E age 4
2020 - read aloud with E age 12 and W age 5.

Oh, Tib. She makes me laugh. I don't even know how many times some variation on the lines, "Tib was always saying things like that, but they liked her just the same," are used. This one and the first one are very similar as they almost feel like short story collections.