So, you’ll remember that my friend SM was having a Maud Hart Lovelace Reading Challenge. She had been gifted a complete set of the Betsy Tacy Series to give away, and when time came to award the books, she couldn’t do it herself, so she had her husband use some randomizer to draw the winner… lo and behold, that winner was ME!

I waited to get the books before I finished the Betsy Tacy Series. Once they came, I quickly read Betsy In Spite of Herself, Betsy was a Junior, Betsy and Joe,  Betsy and the Great World, and Betsy’s Wedding. I have also read Carney’s House Party and Emily of Deep Valley which are books 2 and 3 of the Deep Valley book series (Winona’s Pony-Cart being the first), and are both set in the life and times of Betsy, Tacy and Tib. The last Maud Hart Lovelace book I’ve read was Early Candlelight and I will have a review of that shortly.

Here’s a quick synopsis of the rest of the Betsy-Tacy books as well as the other books set in Deep Valley.

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Betsy In Spite of Herself is probably my least favorite book of the series. We follow Betsy through her sophomore year, and through the ups and downs of a life when she has chosen to be stubborn about somethings (boys) and foolish about others (writing/study). One of the bright moments in the book is the Christmastime visit to Tib in Milwaukee. However, during her visit to Tib, she decides that she must “change” and so writes a list of things to change:

1. Start signing your name Betsye.
2. Don’t laugh so much.
3. Seldom smile.
4. Keep your voice low.
5. Wear green.
6. Wear emeralds… when you can get them. (Jade would do.)
7. Use only Jockey Club perfume… be lavish with it.
8. Use foreign phrases… be lavish with them, too.
9. See that your waists don’t pull out at the waist-band.
10. Keep your clothes in press, your shoes polished, and your fingernails manicured.
11. Take at least one bath a day; two would be better. Lavish with bath salts also.

She decides to “catch” a boy who is somewhat of a snob, and to do so, must utilize the list of things to change in order to be attractive to him. Thankfully, by the end of the book, she realizes that if the boy doesn’t want her for who she is, he’s not worth it. She loses the essay contest to Joe (again), and finds that treating her writing lightly isn’t going to help her grow as a writer.

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In Betsy Was a Junior we follow Betsy and The Crowd through their Junior year. At the end of the previous book, Julia has graduated from High School, and in Betsy Was a Junior Julia heads off to college. We also find Joe Willard in a relationship with Phyllis Brandish, the twin sister of the snobbish boy Betsy had been going with in Betsy In Spite of Herself. We see Betsy’s consternation over this development, because she’s realizing that she cares more for Joe than she thought she did. When Julia comes back for a weekend visit from college, she introduces the idea of sororities to Betsy, who starts one with the eight girls from The Crowd. This sorority is a good lesson in how exclusivity, even if it’s inadvertent, is unwise. Betsy loses her place in the essay contest because the teachers are concerned about the behavior of Betsy, and this decision is one more cause for the girls to disband their sorority. The readers are also drawn into the debate Julia goes through in regards to her schooling and musical training.Throughout the book, Joe and Betsy start to figure out that they have more interest in each other, and the book ends with Joe writing Betsy a postcard, which she places in Uncle Keith’s trunk (her desk) because it’s more than just a note from a boy.

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In Betsy and Joe, we find Betsy and Tacy in their senior year of High School, and Joe Willard takes a more prominent place in Betsy’s life, though not without struggles. In this book, Betsy has two young men who are vying for her attention; Tony (who has been a good friend for years and is a firm member of The Crowd) and Joe, who she is more interested in. Tony has struggled with things that Betsy and her parents don’t approve of, and Betsy feels that if she cuts him off he would revert back to the “dark struggles” as she calls them. She doesn’t quite know how to deal with the two young men, and ends up breaking up with Tony, and making up with Joe. In her senior year, Betsy FINALLY wins the essay contest, and Joe is more concerned about her winning than he is about himself winning (having told her that he got all mixed up with the essay because he couldn’t think about the essay subject but instead thought all about Betsy). The end of the book finds  Tacy having had a young man speak for her hand, and Julia having had a tour in Europe and Betsy and Joe on the Big Hill looking forward, as Joe says, “After Commencement Day, the World, with Betsy!”

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Betsy and the Great World follows Betsy on her European tour, and takes you from Madeira to Germany to Austria to Venice and finally to England, where she is when World War I breaks out. The historical aspect of this book greatly appealed to me, and the supplemental characters were very well drawn. The personal relationships in this book definitely take a back seat, but you find that Joe and Betsy broke up after Joe went off to Harvard. They had been “almost, but not quite, engaged” and after Joe went off to Harvard, Betsy had a cascade of events occur which ended up in a mis-communication with Joe, who thought she was serious with another guy, and with her skipping almost a year of school because of appendicitis. This cascade of events culminates with Mr. Ray sending Betsy off to tour Europe, to help her gain a writer’s appreciation of the locales she will visit, and to come back to the University refreshed and refocused. At some point in the middle of her trip, Betsy swallows her pride and writes a letter to Joe, and towards the end of the book, as she is trying to get back to the US from England immediately following the declaration of war, she finds that he has forgiven her and wants to get back together with her.

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Betsy’s Wedding opens with Betsy at the end of the return voyage to America, and not quite sure of what Joe will think of her during their time apart. Upon meeting her at the pier, however, he plans to “…get the Customs business out of the way quick, then we’ll go to Tiffany’s and get you and ring. And then when can we get married?” After a flurry of objections, plans, and events, Joe and Betsy are married and start their life together. I have to rank this book as my favorite of the series, because it is just saturated with “real Joe” in a way that the other books weren’t. As it happens, Maud didn’t meet her husband Delos (who Joe is modeled after), until well after the previous nine books; but the tenth book is written very true to what actually happened, so where Joe is fictional in the previous books, albeit she had written his story as Delos had lived it, in this book it is actually as it happened. Through the ups and downs of beginning married life Betsy is surrounded by friends– Tacy has her only child, they both try to match-make for Tib (Tacy having been married already at the beginning of Betsy and the Great World) and there are various job and career changes which face Joe and Betsy. Joe enters the Armed Forces to fight in WWI, and he and Betsy buy their first home. At the end of the book, we are finally gratified when Tib marries an upstanding guy and has both Tacy and Betsy as bridesmaids–neither one of them having had large enough weddings to include multiple bridesmaids. The book closes with “…the Big Hill looking down as the Crowd danced at Tib’s wedding in the chocolate colored house.”

Now for the books that coordinate with the Besty Tacy Books:

I have yet to get Winona’s Pony-Cart from our library.

Carney’s House Party follows the adventures of Carney Sibley as she returns from Vassar to Deep Valley for the summer of her Junior year. She invites one of her friends from Vassar to her house for the summer, and ends up with a house-full of guests as Betsy Ray (who has moved to Minneapolis) and Bonnie Andrews (who has returned to Minnesota from Paris). Here you find out what happened between Carney and Larry Humphreys, who Sam Hutchinson is, and a bit of Carney’s experiences at Vassar. Overall, I really enjoyed the book, and liked the insight into the characters that are secondary in the Betsy-Tacy books. (I was especially pleased to find out what exactly happened between Larry and Carney, that was my biggest “What!” moment in the other books, finding that Carney had become engaged to someone else.)

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Emily of Deep Valley is probably my second favorite book of the entire Deep Valley/Besty-Tacy books. Emily Webster is an orphan who is living and helping her grandfather, a Civil War veteran, and who is different from all the other girls in her class at Deep Valley High because while they all go off to college, she stays home. She at first believes that she will be missing out on so many things, but gradually realizes that she can learn just as much, if no more, while not going to college, if she puts her mind to it. She delves into community awareness (helping the Syrians of Deep Valley learn what they need to get their Immigration papers), and learns that in matters of the heart, you may be surprised to find out who is your soul-mate.