I can't remember when I first starting reading this series but 2 years ago I bought them all again to read and own because as a child I had always checked them out from the library. I re-read them all and although the first stories are meant for child level readers I enjoyed a trip down memory lane with Betsy, Tacy, and Tib (a character who comes later on in the series). The reading level grows with the characters which is good for young readers. Utterly delightful stories of adventures and friendship.

If you’ve known me for a long time and I haven’t recommended this series to you, I’ve been a bad friend.

Featured in grandma reads with sessions. . .AJW age 10

When grand-dau and I finished our latest read, she asked for an American Girl book - she has many of them in her collection at home, and so I know she has the motivation for finishing those. She asked about books I read as a child. . .and I immediately thought of Betsy and Tacy - Maud Hart Lovelace was right up there with Laura Ingalls in my childhood book wishes. Checked our library and there it was and we were up and reading. She's a few states away from me - far enough away to make visits just a-coupla-time-a-year thing so we zoom once or twice a week.

Once we did the few-chapters-in checkup on finishing commitments she was all in. "I'm a bigger girl than these two," she said, "but I like how they like each other and think up big stories and act them out, using lots of imagination. Like Anne!" (Our companion read is Anne of Green Gables, more challenging for her, but she's just as keen on it!) Today we finished reading about Betsy Ray and Tacy Kelly, with the latest new friend Tib Muller moving into their world. My reading buddy asked if this was a series, and whooped when she heard the next book is Betsy, Tacy & Tib! We will be starting that in our next session.

We found more of the author's history in writing these books and because I always want to give illustrators their credit (and who could overlook Lois Lenski? Not me!) we included her in our investigations - which brought up more bubbly conversation.

Reading out loud with someone you love (to each other in turn, using books that have been chosen together) is one of the most satisfying and joyful experiences there is. . .regardless of age or relation or format!

5 stars (drawn in Lois Lenski style) recommending the book and the opportunity it affords readers to experience how childhood is so very different, yet so very similar from the date it was written to the present.

Alice read this to me

Ah! The world of little children. We forget what life was like when we were 4, 5, 6 years old, the wide-eyed wonder of the world, the power of our imagination, the love of our family, and the pure joy of the the friends we laughed and played with. If you have children and grandchildren then you experience it again through their lives. And you can experience through the words of a wonderful book like Betsy-Tacy. It's a timeless story that's just as beautiful to read today as it was when it was written.

Thank you to Goodreads friends Ginny & Constance: I saw Betsy-Tacy among your favorites listed on your profile pages and borrowed this book from the library – even by chance got the original 1940 edition which was pretty cool.

How did I miss this series of Betsy-Tacy books when I was a child?! I would have really enjoyed them. The titles Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself do sound familiar so maybe I did read those; I don’t remember.

This Betsy-Tacy book is so well-written, and the illustrations are wonderful too. It certainly describes a more innocent time (no worries about child kidnapping here!) and it shows a mostly idyllic childhood for these two girls, although the story does not shy away from life’s difficult parts either. I loved the depiction of the friendship. Captured so well how imaginative young children can make such good use in play of such items as old appliance, in their case piano, boxes. I grew up well after these girls and in a city, but I recognized the rhythms and the specifics of these girls’ play so well from my own childhood. Adored Betsy's storytelling!

Note for modern kids: Reading it for the first time in my fifties and in 2007, I did notice the sexist language, but it would be obvious to young readers that this story took place a long time ago, and I’m sure that many of my favorite books from my childhood have the same issue. And I’d happily still recommend all of them.

Read this aloud to Sophie. We both loved the book :) Nice classic story about true friendship between little girls. Would definitely love to read the rest in this series!

What a sweet book. I partly picked this up to read because my seven year old sister read it (happy, happy because it was her first full length book to read, and I was sooo proud of her)! Betsy and Tacy are such good friends and they do everything together. They are typical five year old girls, and the author has portrayed their ages perfectly.

I do not remember these books when I was little. I guess I was too wrapped up in Little House on the Prairie books and Anne of Green Gables. Reading this book now is truly delightful. Such innocence, freshness and imagination of two little girls.

My all-time favorite series as a child. I read every book in the Betsy Tacy (and Tib!) series multiple times and fervently wished I lived on Hill St. with them at the turn of the 20th century. I am so obsessed with this series that I want to visit Mankato, MN and see all things Maud Hart Lovelace related. Maybe I can force my daughter to get interested in this series when she is old enough?? Then, I'll have an excuse to read them all over again.

Sacrilege that it is for me to say this, as a child of the 1970s, I preferred this series to the Little House books (even though I read all of them multiple times as well). I suppose I am just much more of a bourgeoise Edwardian than I am a pioneer gal.

Given that the main characters are five-years-old, I think, if I had read this when I was a young girl, I think I’d rank this as a five-star read.

{Content note: One chapter deals with the death of Tacy’s infant sister. Other than that chapter, it is light and fun. It is full of make-believe, little girl adventures, and friendship. You know, the things little girls should experience as little girls.}

For the life of me, I cannot recall how on earth this title crossed my radar. Did I see mention of it in another book? Was a friend reminiscing about favorite childhood reads? How ever it came to my stack of library loans, it was fun to visit its pages. Reading Betsy-Tacy was quite like revisiting The Boxcar Children or, for older readers, Little Women(insert Little Women): full of nostalgia and warmth.

First in a impressively long semi-autobiographical series about growing up in a small Minnesota town at the turn of the last century.

There are three qualities that are greatly to be admired in this series. The first is Lovelace's dedication to fidelity. She really did strive hard to get events right -- consulting her memory, her diaries, and her numerous friends and relations to make sure the details were correct. Something of a consequence is that, at least to me, events that she made up for the purpose of the plot (as opposed to adapted) can be noticed as being slightly "off". But most of the story really happened, or at least was close enough to having happened.

The second is that the writing itself changes -- this, the first book, which takes place when Betsy (Lovelace's alter ego) is 4 - 5, is simply written, and easily accessible to a young child either reading or being read to. But in subsequent books, as Betsy ages, so does the prose - vocabulary, sentence structure, and ideas become more complex.

The third is that Lovelace has a keen eye for what girls want, and gives it to them. She has a striking understanding of her audience, which I suppose comes from the same source that allows her to write with such fidelity -- she had a remarkable memory for both events that had happened and her emotional reaction to these events.

I had never heard of these books before Goodreads friends introduced them, so cheers to all those who have commented about Lovelace's oeuvre.

I have read this one, and I think the second, out loud to a mixed audience and even the boys liked it. (Though the later into the series you go, the girlier the books get.) My older daughter, as she has become older, has continued on with later books and is now somewhere midway through the series. Soon she'll be ready for the ones that have a bit more romance. I, myself, am not ready for her being ready for that.

There is a Betsy-Tacy society, https://www.betsy-tacysociety.org/ , that maintains Lovelace's (and her friend Tacy's) houses in Mankato. These are only open on Saturday or by special appointment, so I wasn't able to visit during my last Minnesota trip, as both Saturdays I was somewhere in the midst of a twenty-hour drive. But perhaps next time?

Update: finished team read with DD#2 (6). She did a paragraph, I did a paragraph. She was very enthusiastic about it, and wants to continue on with the series.