I read them as well. One is titled Betsy and Tacy. My daughter found some for my granddaughter in a used book sale. However, they are available on Amazon, in paperback. The author is Maude Hart Lovelace.

I think I had a real afinity for them because the sister of one, Tacy I think, died, and I read that book shortly after my sister died.

I adored them as well. The series started my lifelong habit of reading books referenced by other books. Wasn't it the summer before Junior year everyone had to read Ivanhoe? And one of the boys who hadn't read it tricked Betsy into telling him the plot? Anyhow, I trotted off and read it myself.

Bought the series for a young cousin 5 years ago. They have been republished. I never had any feedback so I supsect my cousin wasn't enthused.

Thanks for the name of the author! And I found they are spelled Betsy, Tacy and Tib. Some are in print and the first fan review on Amazon is by none other than Bette Midler. She said she read them all twice as a child and then again to her daughter. I am going to have to search for these. The author sounds very interesting too--worth reading about herself. She was from Minnesota.

When my daughter was born, lo these 20 some years ago, I set out to rebuild my collection of these-only to discover they were OOP and VERY expensive as used books, because there were many many moms doing the same thing I was-and so had made them "highly collectible" and thus, highly pricey! I was doing it by letter and phone, too-without the benefit of alibris and half.com. I was thrilled to find them in reprint, albeit paperback, a few years later-she soon outgrew them, but I enjoyed the reread, as did my younger niece...and someday there might be a granddaughter or great niece or two.

I loved these books, they were such a glimpse into a vanished world. I read them as an adult and to my great dismay my DD wanted nothing to do with them. I finally donated the whole set to the school library. I was often a bit frustrated with Betsy, though, she was such a procrastinator!

Well, I couldn't stand it any more. Just got back from the library with the first threee books in the series so I expect to have a very pleasant evening. Hope they live up to my fond memories.

The librarian brightened right up when I asked her where they were. She had read them all as a child and loved them--and said another woman was in recently asking for them to re-read. So I guess we are not alone in the fan club.

I just read Betsy and Tacy while standing in the stacks of the children's room of the library. Thanks for reminding me of these books. I read all of them in my youth and had almost forgotten them. I browsed through a couple of the others and am surprised how at how little has really changed. Teenagers are really just the same as they have ever been. People are people, whether they have cars and ipods or horses and pianos.

I'm really going to have to peruse the shelves in the children's room more often!

The name "Tacy" is very interesting. Here is the derivation:

tace
The Latin for "Be silent!" According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "tace is Latin for a candle, a humorously veiled hint to any one to keep silent about something."

The name dates back to the Puritans in New England - a pretty grim bunch.

The first book, "Betsy-Tacy", says on p.9 that Tacy is a nickname for her full name, Anna Anastacia [author's spelling]. At the end of the book, Tib is introduced and her name is a nickname for Thelma. The books are evidently autobiographical and the girls are based on Betsy's real friends in Mankato MN.

The same Mankato as Laura Ingalls Wilder?

The Ingalls family lived in Walnut Grove, MN. Don't know if that is near Mankato. The only book set there is "By the Shores of Plum Creek". I visited DeSmet, South Dakota where a number of the other books are set--on the Great Plains--and bought a book that gives all that info about where they lived etc.

I just discovered this forum. I must belong here. I had TOTALLY forgotten about Betsy, Tacey and Tib! And I have volunteered in a school library for 10 years and get lots of reminders of old favorites, usually when we discard them cuz the kids don't read them.

Did any of you also read All Of A Kind Family? 5 Jewish girls in turn of century NY, they do end up with a baby brother. And The Five Little Peppers. I loved all of these and at an even earlier age I loved picture books with 3 Scandinavian boys. They were called Snip, Snap and Snurr, except I can't spell the last one so am unable to look them up! Can anyone help?

Welcome, granjan! Yes, you belong here, post often! Thanks for reminding me of Snip, Snap and Snur and I also remember Flicka, Ricka and Dicka! The author is Maj Lindman. I believe the books are still in print.

My, I certainly read a lot of books when I young. I still read a lot of books, but I am continually surprised by these reminders and I realized the number of books (albeit short) that I read as a child.

Oh thank you. I'd love to get these for the youngest grandson and niece. Too late for the older ones!

granjan...remember in The All of a Kind Family...the children cleaning the house, and looking for the coins the mother placed around for them to find while they were dusting? THose and the Five Little Peppers, were books that I read as well. Did you all read Heidi?

Heidi was one of my favorites. I read it over and over. It was one of the books that I read at least once a year in my childhood. Like Little Women and all my Nancy Drews. I especially liked Heidi because my copy had illustrations that showed her as a brunette, which I am. Most children's books showed blondes.

I also developed a taste for bread and cheese sandwiches, which Heidi ate in those Alpine meadows--tho I never tried goat's milk, which she also liked. Going to skip that one.

What a wonderful story of transformation that book is. Grandfather, Peter, Heidi herself. No wonder it has lasted so many years.

Goats milk and goat milk products are wonderful! They may have been considered homely at one time, but now they are quite gourmet. If you look at the prices, you might faint, so be forewarned. Goat milk is a bit more acidic than cow's milk, does not contain lactose and is bereft of growth hormones. Who would give growth hormones to a goat? ;)

I never read any of the Betsy Tacey and Tibs books...never even heard of them until I heard about them here.
I loved Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames, Trixie Belden, Heidi, Little Women and so many others. But I was for a time obsessed with 3 by Enid Blyton, The Castle of Adventure, The Mountain of Adventure and The Island of Adventure. Every week I had one or the other out of the library.
I did read The Secret Garden for the first time a few years ago when I was just a girl of 55 or so.
Do any of you still read a lot of Children /YA literatue?

I do read children's and Y/A books...to the point where my co-workers ask me for advice on their children's summer reading!
I read and re-read both Pinnochio and The Wizard of Oz.
One of the women at work was "wondering" about one of her daughter's choices this summer A Summer to Die. It's a book that my daughter and I read over and over again. Very sensitive, not maudlin or sappy, about a young girl dying from leukemia, told by her sister (I seem to remember). The descriptions and characters were terrific. Might look for that at the library this afternoon as well!

veronicae, so I am not alone!
I don't read a lot of YA literature but I do get in the mood for it...it has a certain flavor.
Over the past couple of years I have read The Secret Garden, Crusader by Bloor and Walk Two Moons by Creech. There are others but it is over 100 degrees right now in an area where hardly anyone has air conditioning and I am too hot to think!

I just read a YA Newbery Prize winner, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, that was assigned summer reading for my grandson who has just turned 12 and will be entering 7th grade. It is set in MS during the Depression, and the main character is a 9-year-old black girl from a family who owns its own property that was once part of a big plantation whose owner is determined to get it back.

I checked it out for Michael from the library and wasn't sure from his early comments that he had the background knowledge to really understand it. After we both had finished it, I asked him if he knew about the Depression and the accompanying poverty, as well as racism. He said, "Nana! I learned about all that in the second grade." That's me put in my place.

Two YA books my DD and I loved were Julie Andrews Edwards' The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles and Mandy. I'd had no idea she'd published anything, and both books were amazingly good.

Elizabeth Enright wrote a charming series about the 4 Melendy siblings around the time of WW II:

The Saturdays
The Four-Story Mistake
Now We Are Five
Spider-Web For Two

cece I'll second the Elizabeth Enright books. I don't think they had reached England when I was a child and I only became familiar with her books when my daughter brought Thimble Summer home from Junior School.
Certainly she was writing at a time when it was possible for a group of children to spend time having 'adventures' without adults getting in the way . . .and, presumably, without perverts hiding behind every bush, which seems to be the fear of every right-thinking parent these days.
In the UK most children and young people are so 'guarded' by their parents, driven by car, accompanied to play-grounds etc I seriously wonder how they ever learn to cope on their own.

I read a great deal of YA fiction. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson is one of the most moving pieces of fiction I have ever read. If you appreciate a book like A Summer to Die you might enjoy Terabithia.

I would think this type of book would be extremely difficult to write, and I heartily salute authors who can express complex ideas and emotions in ways that can be easily understood.

The dean of my college said that students are entering college these days unable - literally - to cross the street alone. I think we have become a shade overprotective. Although I think children and young adults will always find a way to experiment with things their parents wish they wouldn't!

Veronicae, that is the scene in All of a Kind Family I remember most! I wished my mother would make housework fun.

Loved all the Heidi books and all of Louisa May Alcott. But it was the Little House books I would keep re-reading. As an adult I have read all the things about her and her daughter. I think they make a good case that the daughter really ghost wrote the books.

I've volunteered at the library of a k-5 school for 10 years so I read lots of kids books on my breaks. I bring the interesting novels home. And I'm running out of new Books on Tape from the library so I've listened to lots of teen novels on tape! (I hate books on CD because I can't move them from car to fanny pack while doing housework.)

I have 3 gran kids and 2 young nieces and I read lots of books with and to them. I also give all children of my employees books at Xmas so have more to read then. I love kiddie lit.

My friend's daughter loved A Summer to Die. Curious to see what it was about, K read it as well: the day before we worked together in the Pediatric ICU (can you see where this is going?). First of all, she thought it was a great book, second, every time she tried to talk to me about it she got all teary! Probably didn't help any that we were having a bad day "in the neighborhood". Anyway, she was recommending it to everyone. I may turn her into a reader after all.

well i can see that this is definitely my kind of thread. i'm guessing that i'm younger than most of you, i'm almost 15. but i love the betsy-tacy series to death...i just reread all the high school ones, as i'll be entering high school this fall. last summer, my mom and i actually took a trip to mankato to visit all the betsy-tacy sites. we saw tacy's house and betsy's hill street house, the bench, schools, library, churches, and all of the Crowd's homes. it was a wonderful trip.
nearly every other book mentioned here i have read and reread. especially the "little house" books. if i had that series, the betsy-tacy series, and the anne of green gables series, as the only books i owned, i'd be very happy.
sorry that this is such a long post...but these are my absolute favorite books and i've never grown out of them!

allisonh-welcome!
Have you read the Emily series by Lucy Maud Montgomery? They are a little more mature in tone than the Anne books-my daughter and I both enjoyed them.
If you can find any books written in the 1920s or 1930s about girls in high school or college, I bet you would love them-Daddy Long-Legs, by Jean Webster, or the series about Grace Harlowe-all the titles are "Grace Harlowe's Freshman Year..." or such. There is another series about Jane Allen-same title trick. It is interesting to see how things have changed...and how they have stayed the same. My daughter howled at some of the things in the books.

allisonh, hi! Have you ever tried Penrod by Booth Tarkinton. It's written from the boys point of view during that same era. I liked it at your age.

Lucy Maud Montgomery. I read the "Anne" books as an adult(don't know how I missed them growing up) and loved them. I wanted to read the Emily books but somehow never did and had forgotten about them 'til they were mentioned here.
It sent me on a search to Fantastic Fiction where I found a treasure trove of books she has authored. Good reading ahead. As if I don't have piles of books already to read but what's a dozen more?

Hi,

I've never posted here before, I usually lurk on the home decorating site. I have been feeling bored with my book choices lately and I just noticed this forum and thought I would check it out.

I LOVED Betsy, Tacy and Tib. I just bought Betsy-Tacy at Barnes and Noble a couple of weeks ago - they have the whole series. I really loved the Betsy and Joe books. My 8 year old daughter doesn't seem to be enjoying it as much as I did.
Also, All of A Kind Family (found it on Amazon last Christmas) after looking for it in the library and A Summer To Die (I found it at the library last year and reread it). I cry (sob!) every time - my husband thought I was crazy. It's a great book.

Since I am not happy with the books I've been getting out of the library, I might just read Betsy-Tacy instead!

Sue

I just reread A Summer to Die, and cried at the end, those quiet tears that just roll down one's cheeks.

Then I did some research on Lowry. The story is semi-autobigraphical...her sister died when they were young. I know, having had a younger sister die when I was nine, that I used to wonder how she got it so right.