This is the first book in the series of "older" Betsy even though it is actually the 5th book in the series. Heaven to Betsy is one of the most characteristic of this loved series. If you haven't read any of the others, you'd still enjoy it! Betsy and Tacy enter the wider world of the Deep Valley High School, the "Crowd," sings around Julia's piano, fudge, Heinz's . . . full of gentle humor, vivid characterization, and affection. It's Betsy Ray's freshman year at Deep Valley High School, and she and her best childhood chum, Tacy Kelly, are loving every minute. Betsy and Tacy find themselves in the midst of a new crowd of friends, with studies aplenty (including Latin and--ugh--algebra), parties and picnics galore, Sunday night lunches at home--and boys!

There's Cab Edwards, the jolly boy next door; handsome Herbert Humphreys; and the mysteriously unfriendly, but maddeningly attractive, Joe Willard. Betsy likes them all, but no boy in particular catches her fancy until she meets the new boy in town, Tony Markham . . . the one she and Tacy call the Tall Dark Handsome Stranger. He's sophisticated, funny, and dashing--and treats Betsy just like a sister. Can Betsy turn him into a beau?

An entertaining picture of school clubs, fudge parties, sings around the piano, and Sunday-night suppers in Betsy's hospitable home.

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!

Not my favorite in the series. It was sad to jump from being a sweet little girl to a boy crazy young lady so quickly but I guess everyone grows up sometime. I did not agree with some of the choices Betsy made in this part of her life. I enjoyed her reflections about things at the end of the book and am still excited to keep reading about her growing up adventures.

I remember well how appalled I was on first reading this seventeen years ago (at age 30). Betsy had turned boy-crazy and the new illustrator made all the characters look like vacuous dolls. I recovered from these twin blows enough to persevere with the series, and even managed to enjoy it, especially the later books, which were the only ones I reread.

Still, it's been a surprise, a very nice one, to reread the books now, after letting them lie fallow for a good long time, and to find I appreciate them far more. Somehow, I am more willing to be tolerant of Betsy's silliness over boys this time around, more willing to be amused and to recognize that Lovelace doesn't necessarily mean for us to find it admirable! I was also far more willing to be interested in Betsy's new high school friends, especially Carney (originally, I agreed with Betsy's first assessment of her as "a stick"), having gotten to know and really like her in one of those later books, Carney's House Party.

I still dislike the illustrations as much as ever, and tried not to look at them.

A note on the edition: I was surprised and a little saddened to find that the copy of the book I read this time around (an older one, a 28th printing of the original hardback) is the only one the Queens library system owns (and this is the library with the largest circulation numbers in the country, I've been told). Worse, they don't have any of the books that come later! And the New York Public Library, which I also use, only has them in electronic versions. O tempora, o mores! I'll never be among the most fanatical of the Betsy fans, but it still makes me sad to think these books aren't as readily available as they should be for the rising generation.

in which betsy begins high school! i was a little dubious about making the transition to teen fiction with maud hart lovelace, but i needn't have worried. i just loved this installment, and lovelace is spot-on in her descriptions of homesickness, the excitement of new friends, and what it feels like when the boy who used to like you likes another girl. (that cad!) "heaven to betsy" makes me want to put my hair up in a pompadour and sing around the piano.

This book was perfection. It has been a while since I read the first four books but I immediately felt the magic of Betsy and her world, maybe even more so than in the first books.

Betsy has grown up quite a bit and yet is still her well known and beloved self. She goes through some very typical problems of a teenager, first love, finding her place and setting her priorities right.

I absolutely love the setting, the time, the characters, pretty much everything about this book. It's cosiness and nostalgia and simply beautiful and heart-warming.

Not sure how I missed these books when I was young. I read Anne of Green Gables and the Little House books and Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden and Little Women, how did I miss Betsy-Tacy? I'm sure I would have loved them, the girls are spunky and fun and thoughtful, and it's set in my favorite time period.

I think this may be my favorite so far of the Betsy Tacy books. It was a really lovely look at friendship and growing up. I thought Betsy's boy craziness and her heartbreak were true to life and also a little funny. It even gets her a bit in trouble at the end of the story. And while Tacy doesn't feature as prominently in this book and is not boy crazy they way Betsy is, I appreciated that they are still friends while also expanding their friend circle in way that felt authentic to the high school experience.

I thought I had never read this book, but my dad seemed to remember quite a few details about it which means he did read it to me when I was younger. I guess none of it stuck. It probably reads better for kids who are on the older end of elementary school (which I was not when we read these as a family) or even into middle school. I think the stories will be a bit more relatable.

I rather liked the first four books of the Betsy-Tacy series. This one was ok, but not all that charming. I think the problem is that Betsy and Tacy have gotten a little older, 14 to be exact. They're beginning high school. High school girls, it seems, are primarily worried about their personal looks, their dresses, and how to fascinate boys and capture beaux for themselves.

So, while it was an interesting slice of life from 1906, the year my father was born, it didn't hold all that much interest for me. I'm not likely to continue on with Betsy-Tacy. I loved the first few books when it was just kids playing in the streets or dreaming up fun projects. But once romance rears its ugly head, I begin to be lost. I guess that, being an elderly, repressed Calvinist, I'm not much of a romantic.

About 1/3 into the book, I thought, "Boy, I just am so frustrated with the shift to social-focused, dramatic, and boy-crazy in Betsy. She can be really narcissistic and irritating!" Then I remembered myself at 14.

I started to remember. I had just moved at the start of high school, and I had a really tough year trying to figure things out about myself. Betsy learns a few lessons by the end of the book that it would take me several more years to learn, too!

There is truth to these stories. There is beauty, too, in the simplicity of the writing. You get the details, sometimes a lot of them, but in the mind of a 14-year-old, every little thing is the most important thing. I lament that many girls in the 10-14 age range wouldn't give these books a second glance. I think that at the heart of Lovelace's writing, is a coming-of-age of the soul that many can identify with because of their timelessness.

So, while I am probably identifying more with Mr. and Mrs. Ray these days, I can remember how frustrating I must have been in my most dramatic moments. I can pause to remember that Betsy didn't stay at that age, either!

I have reread this series several times and love them all. However this was not the right book for my current season of stress, etc, right now.

This book is just fine. But there's too much change! Ah!
First of all, Betsy moves! And then, because of that...

My main qualm is that there is way way way too much boy-stuff and not NEARLY enough Tacy. In fact, since Tacy isn't boy crazy she ends up on the periphery of pretty much all the goings on of freshman year. And in turn, I ended up resenting every other girl introduced in this book. In short: screw you, Bonnie and Carney. Give me back my Tacy. ASAP. Also, it was clear all along what a bad seed Tony was, and I was pretty furious with Betsy for falling for him. So yeah. Those are my gripes.

At the same time, I thought it was a fascinating, accurate, and a throughly, surprisingly modern potrayal of coming of age. There are sleepovers, there are b'girl parties, there are boys walking girls home alone(!), ouija boards, , they all get around the piano and sing the same songs over and over (pre-radio, pre-MTV, but still, a teenage culture ruled by musical romanticism). There are lots of kissings on the cheek.
Betsy screws up a lot and cries a little. In the end she realizes "the crowd" is for a time, but her writing is forever, and that she needs to concentrate on it harder. More power to you, Betsy.

AND she and her sister decide they want to be Episcopalian instead of Baptist! And their dad says, well, ok. It's a really well written, tense, and realistic scene. And then he makes coffee, because that's what the Rays do when they're stressed.

It all could have been so cheesy, but every feeling in this book rang so true. Man oh man, I know I'm giving it a three because I resented the Tacylessness, but I was super into it, clearly, and hope the quiet rift between Betsy and Tacy is addressed (sometimes best friends fight, yo) in a later book. Hill Street 4ever, yo.

I love, love, love this series and have since I was little. I bought all the Betsy books when I found out I was pregnant just so my little girl would be able to easily read them too. I know, that may have been a bit early, but I adore these books so much that I just couldn't wait. Plus it gave me the chance to re-read them. I love these books because Lovelace captures the emotions, anxieties, and dreams of a young girl so very well, and the turn of the century setting is a very comforting, charming world to read about.