Audrey's Reviews > Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
My rating:
Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (Betsy-Tacy, #4)
by Maud Hart Lovelace, Lois Lenski
by Maud Hart Lovelace, Lois Lenski
Audrey's review
bookshelves:
read-as-a-child,
1900s,
turn-of-the-century,
favorites,
comfort-reads
Oct 20, 11
Recommended for:
anyone!
Read from October 18 to 19, 2011, read count: 2+
** spoiler alert **
Another perfectly delightful volume in the Betsy-Tacy series. This book might be my favorite of the first four, though I really don't know how I could ever choose.
I have SO many favorite scenes in this book: Betsy writing in the maple tree, when Betsy gets her desk, Betsy going to the library, window shopping, bobsledding, "Flossie's Accident" (at first I thought it was weird but now I find it hilarious), Mrs. Poppy's party, Christmas morning, the reunion with Uncle Keith...etc. there is basically not a part of the book that I don't love. The wintery parts in this story are especially cozy. :)
This book serves as a perfectly toned bridge in the series. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib are starting to grow up: Betsy can go downtown on her own, Tib gets an important role in a play, and even shy Tacy admits that she finds Herbert Humphrey cute. While Betsy has always wanted to be a writer, in this book she first starts to take steps to make that goal happen. Despite the fact that the girls are now twelve, they are not too old to annoy Julia and her beau, invent elaborate stories, or try to hypnotize the impish Winona.
I get such a kick out of Betsy. She's flawed but wonderful. I love how she is such "a talker." I have a great fondness for most of the main characters in these books, though--right down to Miss Sparrow! Maud has such a matter-of-fact, yet tender, insight into human nature, and I always feel refreshed after spending time with the town and people she wrote about.
I have SO many favorite scenes in this book: Betsy writing in the maple tree, when Betsy gets her desk, Betsy going to the library, window shopping, bobsledding, "Flossie's Accident" (at first I thought it was weird but now I find it hilarious), Mrs. Poppy's party, Christmas morning, the reunion with Uncle Keith...etc. there is basically not a part of the book that I don't love. The wintery parts in this story are especially cozy. :)
This book serves as a perfectly toned bridge in the series. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib are starting to grow up: Betsy can go downtown on her own, Tib gets an important role in a play, and even shy Tacy admits that she finds Herbert Humphrey cute. While Betsy has always wanted to be a writer, in this book she first starts to take steps to make that goal happen. Despite the fact that the girls are now twelve, they are not too old to annoy Julia and her beau, invent elaborate stories, or try to hypnotize the impish Winona.
I get such a kick out of Betsy. She's flawed but wonderful. I love how she is such "a talker." I have a great fondness for most of the main characters in these books, though--right down to Miss Sparrow! Maud has such a matter-of-fact, yet tender, insight into human nature, and I always feel refreshed after spending time with the town and people she wrote about.
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Quotes Audrey Liked
“This going around with boys makes me sick," said Tacy.
"I like Herbert Humphreys," said Tib.
It was just like Tib to like a boy and say so.
"Oh, if you have to have a boy around, it might as well be Herbert," said Betsy, who liked him too.
"He wears cute clothes," said Tacy, blushing.
Herbert Humphreys, who had come to Deep Valley from St. Paul, wore knickerbockers. The other boys in their grade wore plain short pants.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
"I like Herbert Humphreys," said Tib.
It was just like Tib to like a boy and say so.
"Oh, if you have to have a boy around, it might as well be Herbert," said Betsy, who liked him too.
"He wears cute clothes," said Tacy, blushing.
Herbert Humphreys, who had come to Deep Valley from St. Paul, wore knickerbockers. The other boys in their grade wore plain short pants.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“Julia was as happy as Betsy was, almost. One nice thing about Julia was that she rejoiced in other people's luck.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“She tried to act as though it were nothing to go to the library alone. But her happiness betrayed her. Her smile could not be restrained, and it spread from her tightly pressed mouth, to her round cheeks, almost to the hair ribbons tied in perky bows over her ears.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“Betsy returned to her chair, took off her coat and hat, opened her book and forgot the world again.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“Betsy liked to talk. Her father always said she got it from her mother, and her mother always said she got it from her father. But whomever she got it from she was certainly a talker.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“Come in early, so there'll be time to pop corn,' Mrs. Ray said. If she mentioned popping corn, they always came in early. So she usually mentioned it.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“The wastes of snow on the hill were ghostly in the moonlight. The stars were piercingly bright.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“It looks like something out of Whittier's "Snowbound,"' Julia said. Julia could always think of things like that to say.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“Betsy liked to read her stories aloud and she read them like an actress. She made her voice low and thrillingly deep. She made it shake with emotion. She laughed mockingly and sobbed wildly when the occasion required.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“Betsy did not answer. She was a talker, her family always said, but sometimes when she most wanted to talk she couldn't say a word.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“Well, Betsy," he said, "your mother tells me that you are going to use Uncle Keith's trunk for a desk. That's fine. You need a desk. I've often noticed how much you like to write. The way you eat up those advertising tablets from the store! I never saw anything like it. I can't understand it though. I never write anything but checks myself. "
"Bob!" said Mrs. Ray. "You wrote the most wonderful letters to me before we were married. I still have them, a big bundle of them. Every time I clean house I read them over and cry."
"Cry, eh?" said Mr. Ray, grinning. "In spite of what your mother says, Betsy, if you have any talent for writing, it comes from family. Her brother Keith was mighty talented, and maybe you are too. Maybe you're going to be a writer."
Betsy was silent, agreeably abashed.
"But if you're going to be a writer," he went on, "you've got to read. Good books. Great books. The classics.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
"Bob!" said Mrs. Ray. "You wrote the most wonderful letters to me before we were married. I still have them, a big bundle of them. Every time I clean house I read them over and cry."
"Cry, eh?" said Mr. Ray, grinning. "In spite of what your mother says, Betsy, if you have any talent for writing, it comes from family. Her brother Keith was mighty talented, and maybe you are too. Maybe you're going to be a writer."
Betsy was silent, agreeably abashed.
"But if you're going to be a writer," he went on, "you've got to read. Good books. Great books. The classics.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“Betsy was so full of joy that she had to be alone. She went upstairs to her bedroom and sat down on Uncle Keith's trunk. Behind Tacy's house the sun had set. A wind had sprung up and the trees, their color dimmed, moved under a brooding sky. All the stories she had told Tacy and Tib seemed to be dancing in those trees, along with all the stories she planned to write some day and all the stories she would read at the library. Good stories. Great stories. The classics. Not Rena's novels.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“Thoughts are such fleet magic things. Betsy's thoughts swept a wide arc while Uncle Keith read her poem aloud. She thought of Julia learning to sing with Mrs. Poppy. She thought of Tib learning to dance. She thought of herself and Tacy and Tib going into their 'teens. She even thought of Tom and Herbert and of how, by and by, they would be carrying her books and Tacy's and Tib's up the hill from high school.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“She thought of the library, so shining white and new; the rows and rows of unread books; the bliss of unhurried sojourns there and of going out to a restaurant, alone, to eat.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
