Good news Maud Hart Lovelace fans! Harper Collins publishers will be reissuing the Betsy-Tacy books, including Carney, Emily of Deep Valley, and Winona's Pony Cart beginning in December 1999. They will have NEW cover art and retain the Lenski and Neville illustrations inside.

HarperCollins made an excellent choice when they decided to reprint Maud Hart Lovelace's other Deep Valley books. Carney's House Party is, of the three being reprinted, the most essential to the events in the post-high-school Betsy-Tacy books, and it's hard to see why it was ever allowed to go out of print in the first place.

This book is wonderful for many reasons. First, it gives us more insight into Carney Sibley, always one of the most interesting characters in the series. It answers the question that the other books leave us wondering about: whatever happened with Carney and Larry? Carney's devotion to Larry was one of the mainstays in the Betsy-Tacy high school books, and readers will thoroughly enjoy seeing how the relationship plays out.

It is also fascinating to see Deep Valley through another character's eyes, and to see other characters' opinions of Betsy Ray (the Betsy-Tacy books were largely autobiographical, and Betsy, the main character in most of the books, is Lovelace's fictional alter ego). Since the book has been out of print for so long, many readers will be thrilled to see new episodes involving the Crowd. Sadly, Herbert and Tacy do not figure in, and there's not enough of Cab, but, happily, Joe Willard makes a brief cameo.

Lovelace's stories wear so well; Carney's experiences at Vassar, her uncertainty about how well she fits in in the East, and her emotional turmoil (well, as close as Carney will ever come to emotional turmoil) over Larry are all still engaging and relevant. The Crowd is wonderful as always, with lots of singing, dancing, and inside jokes (young Lochinvar!). Don't miss this bonus trip to Deep Valley!

I finally got ahold of a library copy of "Carney's House Party," and I am so excited to have read it! It was another great look at Deep Valley life, and for me it was great to *finally* see where the heck Sam came from. (If you go right from the high school books to "Betsy's Wedding," you don't get much explanation who this Sam guy is and what happened to Larry.)

This book made me feel like I was right there at the house party, with my good pals from high school Betsy and Carney and Bonnie. I hope the publisher sees fit to reissue this title, as well as "Emily of Deep Valley" and "Winona's Pony Cart," so that those of us that are B-T nuts can finish our collections.

Only thing is that I wished there had been more about Tacy, since she always was my favorite character. But a very small flaw, indeed. The Betsy-Tacy world is a magical place, and very soothing to read about.

"Heaven To Betsy", is the best book in the Betsy-Tacy series that I've read so far. It makes you wish that you could go to Deep Valley High yourself! I CAN'T WAIT to read the other Betsy-Tacy books as Betsy grows up.

The whole Betsy-Tacy series, especially
the high school and beyond ones, are books I
return to again and again with sentiment.
Though written in 1947 and set in the early
1900's, there is a timelessness to the frank
emotion and lush description of the teenage
adventures of our heroine, Betsy Ray. Betsy
is a good role model for today's young girls,
for though she is understandably interested
in boys and being well liked and known at
school, she is smart and has great ambitions
to be a great writer and a good sister.

Set in fictional Deep Valley, Minnesota but
based somewhat on the author's life and her
journals, the book is written with sweet
sentimentality and vivid memory of the
joys and heartaches of young adult life. It's
amazing how the feelings are very much the
same, though the 1900's were a different time
with different dress and customs. Readers
will love looking at Vera Neville's beautiful
drawings which should have been kept on the
paperback covers, and imagine a time when
lunch was called supper, boys came to "call",
all skirts came down to your ankles, and
friends sang around the piano knew how to waltz.

You will fall in love with the Ray family--
their fun traditions, the benign and joking
father, laughing and beautiful mother, sedate
Margaret the little sister, and of course
Julia, the lovely and soulful singer sister
who is always understanding and warm. Here
are parents still very much in love, sisters
who stopped fighting once they started high
school and actually support each other
. The Ray family that welcomes visitors any
any time of the day, so their home is always
brimming with fun.

Heaven to Betsy is about Betsy's freshman
year in high school, when she discovers boys
and has her first crush on mysterious and
worldly Tony Markham, becomes active in
school societies in performance and competing
in the Essay Contest. It is a wonderful
portrait of mainstream America in the 1900's
as well as a book young women can relate to
as they struggle with their own pains and
enjoy the thrills of growing up.

The Betsy-Tacy book series is fantasic, to say the least. When I was little, my mother read them aloud to my brothers and I. That's not to say they're only for children. Anyone will love these timeless classics. They feature Betsy Warrington Ray, a young aspiring writer, who's character is actually based closely upon author Maud Hart Lovelace's Life. In the first book, 'Betsy-Tacy', Betsy has her 5th birthday party and invites her new neighbor, 5-year-old Tacy Kelly. Soon to make their twosome a threesome, Tib Muller moves to the neighborhood from Milwaukee. They become great friends and the books take the girls through high school and beyond. The books in the Betsy-Tacy series are:

Betsy-Tacy, Betsy, Tacy and Tib, Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, Heaven to Betsy, Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy was a Junior, Betsy and Joe, Betsy and the Great World, and Betsy's Wedding.

I recommend these books highly; everybody should read them.

What a great story! I keep it on my window seat to flip through often--it's one of my very favorite stories!Betsy and Joe finally meet in New York after Betsy's year-long trip to Europe! They are finally together and determined never to be seperated again. Afetr many years of loving each other, they will be married. Joe convinces Betsy to marry him in a week. The scene in the restaurant in New York where Joe tells Betsy how much he loves her, how they belong together, and how she must always love him is so touching! Through this part(and the moment when they saw each other when Betsy came off the ship) I was oblivious to everything as I read. Of course, that was the case through the rest of the book as well. Joe's job hunt is hilarious. The day before they are married, he and Betsy go from one newspaper place to the other, Joe determined to find a job so Betsy's father will consent to the match. Well, of course, he succeeds. They are married. Joe and Betsy have a wonderful relationship. It is truly the best I ever read about. They both treat each other with such consideration. Joe is so gracious as Betsy learns to cook(which is a big undertaking for her.) He is so considerate of Betsy, reading to her at night, helping her with the dishes when her cooking endeavors fail, and many other things. Betsy tries so hard to be a good wife to Joe, considering that the most important thing in her life. She even refuses a job in newspaper writing, feeling that she has another job already as keeper of the house and companion to Joe. I liked the way that Betsy handled Aunt Ruth's coming. She did not mask her feelings and was honest, but still,unselfishly, let her come. It ended up working out too! Well, I just loved the story. Their relationship taught me a lot about marriage. I loved the way they treated each other. I don't see the like much these days. It was great! I cried and cried when Joe left for war. But, my fellow readers, I have learned that the books about Betsy were largely based on the author's life. In a biography about her I learned that her husband (who was much like Joe) returned from war--so take heart--Joe returned too and he and Betsy, no doubt, continued their "golden world."

The whole Betsy Tacy series is a triumph---some of the best reading there is. Like few others series (the Little House books are the other that comes to mind) we truly can read and watch Betsy grow from a little 5 year old to a married woman, and grow along with her. As a little girl, I read the early books in this series, and didn't know there were more. You can imagine my delight when I discovered the high school years and beyond were also part of the continuing story! In this book (as you can guess) Betsy gets married, but so does Tib! I like it that Betsy's wedding is not the end of the book--we also get to see her get started on married life during the diffecult WWI period. I remember the minute I finished this book. I had a feeling of happiness but also sadness that never again would I read something new for the first time about Betsy, Tacy, Tib, Joe, Julia, Margaret and all the rest! But the last lines were done so well--they looked to the past and into the future and made me feel that although this was all that was written about them, they continued to exist somewhere out there in the land that wonderful characters in wonderful books live on in! If you have never read this series, I envy you! Get all the books, read them, and you will remember and make them part of your life forever.

Betsy is back in the USA after a long time in Europe-and Joe is there to greet her. After being in love for years, the couple agree to get married, within the week no less! After Betsy convinces her family to agree to this, we watch as Betsy and Joe are married, and embark on a new life together.

Set near the turn of the century, around WW1, this is a view of every young woman's dream of marriage-a fun, intelligent, strong husband who adores you. Betsy and Joe are friends first, lovers second, something which is always important. At one point, Joe states that he can talk to Betsy, and that he fantasizes about their home life. A lot of guys could take a page from Joe's book!

This book is in no way dated, bringing Betsy to the close of her girlhood and teenage years. If you liked "Anne of Green Gables" or other books by Montgomery, check out Lovelace, for both your little girls and not-so-little girls.

If you're a fan of Betsy Ray and Tacy Kelly, then you will definitely enjoy this tale of the two girls as they go on their first solo adventures in Deep Valley, Minnesota. This book is a lighthearted chronicle steeped in the innocence of youth in the early 1900's. I read it as a child and enjoyed it again at age 30. Filled with humor and warmth, it's easy to relate to these young heroines and their everyday adventures.

I'm a ten year old girl and I thought this book was Great. It's an older book but the characters are fun. an A+++ book. It's great because the way that they have so much fun and adventures makes me want to be their friend!

I recently came across a new edition of this book. I owned it as a child back in the sixties. The first thing that came back to me was that every year, after Thanksgiving, I would read the chapter in this book about Betsy, Tacy & Tib's Christmas, starting with the shopping trip up through Christmas day. To me, this seemed to describe a perfect holiday, before it became so commercialized. It always got me in the Christmas spirit. So, when this book came into our library, I took it home & re-read it, especially the Christmas part. And you know what, it still works! If you want to feel the true spirit of a magical Christmas, read this book!

Betsy Tacy and Tib,three little girls growing up in Deep Valley,Minnesota.They have their laughs and they have their crys.Since this was based on Maud Hart Lovelace's life,you feel as if you are at the turn of the century,watching them have all the fun that children can possibly have.I have read every single book in the Betsy,Tacy,and Tib series and even all of Lovelace's other novels.I recommend this book to someone who likes books taking place in the "olden days"....but it doesn't seem very old fashioned!

Beginning with "Betsy and Tacy," I read this series years ago. Now, I have read and re-read every book in it many more times then I could possibly count. Each book is more unique and different then the one before and yet, each has the one thing in common that matters the most: the ever-lasting friendship of Betsy, Tacy, and Tib. After I first finished reading the series, I wished that the wonderful and talented author, Maud Hart Lovelace, had wrote more, (as if 11 books weren't enough). But, as the story of life, and of the wholesomely-spirited Betsy and her friends goes, every sweet simple thing must come to an end.

Betsy, Tacy, and Tib is a wonderful book in a great series. Maud Hart Lovelace did a spectacular job writing these stories. My mother read the books and loved them, my sister and I read the books and loved them, and now my little girls are reading them and loving them. These books never seem to grow old even though they are set during the turn of the 20th century. As a child, I not only read them, I wore the books out! I read and re-read the books, I couldn't put them down. I talked about them so much to my friends, they started checking them out from the Library and we would play Betsy-Tacy during recess. Now set in a period of a hundred years ago, they are still captivating kids today. My husband read the first four books in the series to our kids (Ages 7, 5, 3, and 1 at the time) and they love them all. My oldest begged me to let her keep my copies in her room so she could read them herself.

There are many great books in the series, this one in fact is not the first in the series. Check out the other books in the series, Betsy-Tacy, Betsy-Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, Betsy-Tacy Go Downtown, Heaven to Betsy, Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy was a Junior, Betsy and Joe, Betsy and the Great World, and Betsy's Wedding. The books take Betsy through grade school and high school, to Europe right before the 1st world war, then back to America for her wedding and the joys and troubles of married life. Some other books not in the Betsy-Tacy series but also by Maud Hart Lovelace and worth checking out are The Trees Kneel at Christmas, Winona's Pony Cart, Carney's House Party, and (my personal Maud Hart Lovelace favorite) Emily of Deep Valley.

A year full of fun and adventure. That is what Best Ray and her friends make make of their highschool junior year. Excited to finally be a junior, Besty has lots of plans for the great year ahead of her. Yet most of her plans fail, but but Besty always makes the best out od a bad situation.
Besty was a Junior, by Muad Hart Lovelace, has its good and bad poitns. Some of the bad points were that charcters were always happy mopst of the time, and that was very unrealistic. The good points were thoguh, that it was a very fun book to read, and there never was a dull moment.
As a result I would rate this bok a 9 out of 10, mostly because it was very exciting, and captivating. I would definatly recomend this book.

When I first read these books twenty years ago I had a hard time finding them and I did not read them in order. I started with "Betsy and Joe" and then read whatever ones I could find. I thought I was the only one in the world that enjoyed these books!!Thank you Harper for reissuing these books. I bought the entire set online and have been reading them in order! These past few weeks I have been in another world--Betsy's world, and it has been wonderful. The new books with the pictures and history of Maude's family and friends have made the characters in these stories come alive.

These books reminded of the "Little House" books and I hope someone makes a TV series out of these stories. They are timeless.

I would give the entire series more than five stars. My obsession with the Betsy-Tacy books began as a young girl reading my mother's hardcover copies. These had been given to her as gifts by her aunt. My great-aunt then began giving me each book in the series, in hard-cover. Unfortunately, all of these were destroyed in a fire that destroyed our family home. My mother was successful in obtaining all the Betsy-Tacy books in hardcover again. I grew up mere miles from the town on which Deep Valley is based, Mankato, MN. I am grown and married and have children of my own, all boys. But I look forward to sharing the timeless treasure of these books with my niece and friends' daughters. I still reread them regularly. These books transcend the period in which they were written. Give yourself a gift and read this series; then share it with a friend and with all the young women/girls you know. There are also two peripheral Lovelace books not directly part of the Betsy-Tacy series, but placed in Deep Valley: Carney's House Party and Emily of Deep Valley. I believe they may be out-of-print; publisher, please bring them back as you revitalized the Betsy-Tacy books.

The Betsy-Tacy series may be the most influential set of books I ever read. I reread them over and over, because they never lose their beauty. I have discovered that I compare my life now to Betsy's because I made her life my dream at a young age. I would quickly recommend all the books, beginning with Betsy-Tacy, to any child, although I have never met a male who has read them. I feel as if I grew up in Deep Valley too.

For my 8th birthday my Mom and Dad gave me the Betsy-Tacy Treasury which contained this book and Betsy-Tacy and Tib, Betsy and Tacy Go Over Big Hill, and Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown. I have just finished the whole thing and now I am 11. I have read it many others times and I find it amazing that I still appciate it at age 11. Whenever we go to the libary I look for smaller printed books but even though this has fairly large print I think it is a wonderful book. I found it when I was in organizing my family's books and started to read it and couldn't put it down. I loved this book and if you do you should read the rest of the Betsy-Tacy book series.

I don't quite understand why this series is only classified as engaging for females! Females have been reading and enjoying literature about boys for eons; why not expect that males would appreciate excellent literature about girls. My 6 year old son's eyes have lit up around Betsy and Tacy's deep and imaginative friendship. We have both enjoyed the first book immensely. My son is delighted to know that there are more books to enjoy in the series and so am I. He may not be interested in playing with dolls, but he has enough sense to see that the way Betsy and Tacy play with them is quite endearing.

This book represents an incredible effort that can only be described as a labor of love and a gift to all Betsy-Tacy fans. Sharla Scannell Whalen has done an impressive amount of research, interviewing people connected to the characters MHL wrote about, reading correspondence, examining old newspapers and county records, and recreating even the floor plans of old houses.

Probably no biography could ever answer all of the questions of devoted B-T fans like myself. Short of a personal interview with Maud Hart Lovelace, nothing could probably satisfy our curiousity. Whalen's book, in many ways, is less a biography than a corroboration of the Betsy-Tacy books. In itself, that makes it precious to fans of the series. I liked knowing something about the characters' counterparts. Presumably due to the vagaries of historical research, we learn more about some (e.g. Carney/Marney) than others (e.g. Marguerite/Emily). A few of the episodes most important for understanding Betsy's character and growth (and thus, according to Whalen's well-substantiated argument, Maud's), are not verified - for example, the interlude in Betsy's Wedding when Joe's aunt comes to live with them, prompting Betsy to interrogate her own possessiveness and to expand her ideas of family.

I loved this book, but unfortunately I think its appeal will be largely limited to Betsy-Tacy fans and people interested in children's books. I don't know that it would have been feasible for Whalen to do this, given her interest in documenting the similarities between Betsy's and Maud's lives, but I would have liked to see her set the overlapping stories of their lives in a broader social history context. How much richer the book would have been if we could have understood Betsy's and Maud's girlhoods against a larger picture of early 20th century adolescence. How unique was it, for example, that all of Betsy's friends attended high school, and many of them college, in an era when less than 20% of the school-aged population graduated from high school? This suggests important and interesting things about Betsy's/Maud's family and class background, the economy of Deep Valley/Mankato, and the social mores of her Crowd. This book is so readable that, if it had presented the B-T books not only as a window into Maud Hart Lovelace's life but into the lives of young women of a certain racial, social, and class background in the early 20th century, it could be a huge contribution to the field of women's history. In short, the book is long on description and documentation; I would have only liked to see more analysis.

But there is limited use in bemoaning what a book does not do. What this book does is pretty tremendous. It's truly a pleasure to read, and invaluable to anyone who ever wanted to know what happened to Betsy, Tacy, Carney, Tib, Cab, and Tony after the end of the series.

But more than a lot of people want to know about Betsy-Tacy; unless you are a reader of Betsy-Tacy. With a mixture of scholarship, organization and humor, the author has written a book that would make Maud proud. Although this is not a bio. that one would be likely to pick-up unless the subject is known and loved by them, it is a very good read. Besides all sorts of fascinating minutae, there is a great deal of information about turn- of- the-century life, as well as information about how to turn real-life into a work of fiction so real that literally hundreds of people familiar with Betsy, Tacy, Tib and their companions will never completely get over not having grown up in early twentieth century Deep Valley,MN. The material is well organized, each book in the series has a chapter all its own with lots of photographs of the prototypes of the characters. We also get to find out what happened to them. This is an enjoyable reference work for admirers of Maud as wel! l as those interested in turning fact into fiction.

I was greatly pleased when I saw how thick this book was, and even more pleased when I discovered the great attention to detail throughout the book. Whalen must have put thousands of hours of research into the book, and the result is a magnificent depiction not only of Maud Hart Lovelace and her Crowd, but of life from the turn of the century through the 1920s.

Whalen devotes a separate chapter of the book to each Deep Valley book, including Carney's House Party and Emily of Deep Valley. Particular attention is devoted to the last six books of the Betsy series, from Heaven to Betsy through Betsy's Wedding. Whalen painstakingly compares and contrasts Lovelace's own life with Betsy's for each of the books. She includes maps of Mankato, MN (Deep Valley) during Betsy's time, floor plans and addresses of homes with accompanying pictures, pictures of the Crowd, and pictures of many locations from the books. There is also information on Mr. and Mrs. Hart's lives before they married, as well as information on what happened to the story characters in later life. Much of the information is taken from interviews of Betsy-Tacy family members and others who knew Mankato at that time. The author also makes good use of newspaper articles from the time in her efforts to describe life in Mankato and Minneapolis as clearly as possible. I especially appreciated the attention paid to excerpts of interviews of Lovelace and letters that she wrote. This was made of particular good use in the chapter on Betsy and the Great World, in which Lovelace's letters home served as her travel journal (just as Betsy's did).

I highly recommend this book, and greatly admire the author for so successfully accomplishing a project of such great magnitude. This book is a must-have for any fan of Betsy. It is absolutely fascinating to learn so much about the facts behind these stories, as well as the social customs of the time. The details and pictures make the stories come to life even more so than before. Read this book... you'll be glad you did!

This book is fluffy light reading but has good morals to it

Did you know I'd never read this book as a child? Yes, this was the only Betsy book my library didn't carry. So, since I seem to be rediscovering books from my childhood, I requested this one and dug right into it.

I'd been waiting ever since the introduction of Joe for Betsy and Joe to finally hook up. And they do! (Of course, we knew Maud Hart Lovelace wouldn't keep us hanging like that.) The Deep Valley world is perfect but still very real; all the characters come alive and you love them like your own family and friends.

I'm on a quest for the Betsy-Tacy High School books, but really, who designed these paperback covers?

These stories make me wish I had lived in those periods. Although I have a strong feeling my life would be different. I love the Betsy series and I can't wait to share them with my own children.