Really loved a lot about this one, such as how Betsy's parents encouraged her toward reading better books and the way Tacy and Tib supported her and how they broadened their friend group.
The hypnotizing part wasn't my favorite and I don't know that my kids understood it at all. I forgot about the blackface mention until I read the reviews, since it was so brief and I skipped over it when reading aloud. Still, it's an unfortunate part of history.

I must have read these Betsy -Tact books as a girl. I know for a fact I read at last the first two in the series; the first one many times. But seeing as how I don't remember the rest of the books, it is highly probable that I moved from one town (Clarinda) to the next (Ft. Madison) and didn't manage to find them in my "new" library. Either way, I am enjoying them greatly now as an adult, and can picture myself being friends with the girls at each age in these books...it's like I'm having another childhood along with them as they grow up in the books. As much as I want to rush through them all, I also want to savor each book and read them slowly; soaking in all the wonder and joy I can from each page.
It makes no difference that these books are set in a time period over a century ago, in a time when my Great Grandma was a little girl and growing up.... the stories are timeless, the values remain the same, and the joys are endless. ❤️

This book was fun, and very diverting-I loved the introduction of new technology! This definitely felt like the girls were growing up, as their play had a different tenor and wasn't quite as fanciful as previous books, though it was still very playful and fun.

I recommend this book to fans of the series, as well as those looking for a fun children's read.

Jolly good. SUPER happy ending. Everything really went right. Love it!

9/2012 Six stars. Ninety-six stars. Down Town is my favorite of the first four books and ranks near my favorites in the series entire. I'm prissy about my copy, which is, in fact titled Down Town. None of this namby-pamby Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown stuff. Nope, just Down Town, because like Winona, I like to go in doors marked "Private, Keep Out."

There are so many good stories twining though this book- Mrs. Poppy's, of course. We meet Miss Sparrow here, the librarian who gets so many great lines ("Tom Sawyer- classic- going to be!") and we learn some things about Mrs. Ray's childhood. The Christmas shopping trip! The bobsled, where we first meet Betsy's trick ankle. What fun these people have, and how they love each other.

And did you ever notice how in this book Lovelace draws attention to Margaret's thick and lovely eyelashes?


12/2009 This is my favorite of the pre-high-school Betsy-Tacy books. Among the BT cognoscenti, whole weeks have been devoted to debating which books in the series are the best. This does sometimes devolve into name-calling and braid-tugging, but generally Down Town ranks near the top.

The girls are 12 and they don't quite fit anywhere- not with Julia and Katie who are being walked home from school by boys, and not with Margaret and Freddie who are rioting through the streets shouting. They want to be one or the other but they can't quite decide which. Their parents are becoming more interesting, with backstories of their own- but at the same time less central to the lives of the girls. Betsy is developing some of that tender empathy which will both help her and break her heart in future books. Tacy is settling into her role as champion and cheerleader and Tib... is just like Tib, forever and ever, amen.

The lost uncle plotline makes me weep as hard as the Ladies Home Journal story in teeny-tiny writing makes me laugh.

I didn’t know Betsy, Tacy, and Tob’s stories continued until I was in junior high. And then I thought Tib was left out of their fun and so I couldn’t bring myself to read any further books.

But she wasn’t and it took me too long to discover my error. It seems like books are always showing me a new way to think an old thought gone wrong.

This book was a lovely jaunt through the childhood of several girls in my favorite era. I love the lack of screens, the deep snow, the simple joy of a new library and 15 cents to spend for lunch, and for the hard work that was done to provide meals and transportation and clothes. But always there was another day for a new adventure: playing with friends, going downtown, meeting a neighbor who was lonely because no one thought she’d accept any unlike her. Of course if would be a child to show the way.

I loved the way everyone encouraged Betsy in her writing, no naysayers or reality spoilers. Just love for who she was and what she could do.

A childhood favorite. I said recently on Twitter that it’s hard to overstate the importance of Betsy Ray. This is the one with Mrs. Poppy and Uncle Keith. They’re all wonderful, of course, but it was a pure pleasure to re-read this one.

Betsy, Tacy and Tib are a year older which means their tastes and amusements are changing. Among their new hobbies is a fascination with plays! Attending them, of course, but Betsy tries her hand at writing some and all the girls act them. Along with this new endeavor, the girls make some new acquaintances including Mrs. Poppy (currently married to the hotel owner and fabulously wealthy, but former singer/dancer/actress) and Winona Root (daughter of the town's newspaper editor) who both are instrumental in bringing the girls' dreams to life.

If I were to put this on a shelf, I feel like it would be right at home with The Happy Holisters, the classic Nancy Drews and the oldest Boxcar Children books. There are some elements of The Little House books, but overall the time period and narrator's voice remind me of those first series. So, if you like those, by all means pick these up!

For this book in particular, I was very proud of the girls for growing up in how they make and treat friends. Their relationship with Winona starts out going all the wrong direction, as they plan to use her to get what they want and could really care less about Winona herself, but they realize this and instead put her and being good friends first. I also liked how intuitive Betsy is about Mrs. Poppy and how she is consistently, but respectfully and politely, asking adults to step up and help out.

No content issues; the girls do go see Uncle Tom's Cabin but descriptions are all using period-correct language.

Once again, this fourth book in the Betsy-Tacy series is well written and full of emotionally lovely moments. As an adult reading it for the first time, I saw the story lines coming from a million miles away but I thoroughly enjoyed them anyway. Some of the more old-fashioned stuff such as the furs and performance of the play Uncle Tom’s Cabin (the latter of which I’m sure was ahead for its time) rubbed me slightly the wrong way, and I’d have loved to hear more about the new library and Betsy’s library books, but I loved the parts about Mrs. Poppy and, as usual, everything about the friendships of the girls. These books are a real pleasure. The next two: Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself, which I’ll read next, are the only two I read when I was young, at least I’m reasonably sure that I did; I’m eager to find out what I remember from them.

I am just loving how we are seeing these characters grow and develop throughout these books. You can see these books transitioning from anecdotal chapters to books with an overarching plot. Really excited to keep reading about Betsy and Tacy!!

Ahhhh, there’s the problematic content I knew must be coming. A play in blackface (Uncle Tom’s Cabin must’ve been wildly popular back then as it’s come up before), and some thinly veiled fatphobia (for such a stout lady, she was very pretty, etc…eventually the author stops talking about Mrs Poppy’s weight when she enters the action but it takes 3/4 of the book). Mrs. Poppy does have a lot of backstory and they talk about how well she dresses, how kind she is, how nice she smells, how lonely she is despite being wealthy, how well connected she is amongst the artists, her expertise in singing and acting, etc - things the author would and does discuss about all her characters, so why not leave out the “in spite of being fat” stuff??
This one would give you plenty to discuss with a child if you were reading it with them!

I continue to be amazed at how much I've been enjoying this series on this long-overdue rereading of it. I feel like I know the characters so well, but I found I didn't remember the incidents at all, so it all felt fresh and delightful. My favorite part of this particular book was the Christmas shopping chapter, but I also was very amused at the part when Betsy Tacy and Tib attempt to hypnotize Winona. I'm not particularly a fan of Lois Lenski's illustrations, which I find blocky and wooden (and writing this, I realize that this probably contributed to a false impression on my first reading that the text was correspondingly wooden). However, the picture of the three girls staring at Winona is hilarious.