Favorite B-T adventure

[[deleted user]]

What was your favorite adventure in the series? Mine is when they are young and go over the hill to Little Syria.

[CLM]

I notice people seem to strongly prefer either the first four books or the older books. My nieces love the chapter where the girls cut off their hair and love to sing the Everything Pudding song but when I was in college my favorite part was the Ivanhoe chapter because it happened to me frequently - that I would prep someone for a test or lend them my notes and they could get a better grade than I! I think maybe I loved Carney's House Party especially when I was in college because I had a friend at Vassar (although her experience was quite different from Carney's since she was there in the early years of coeducation - and also reported that the West Point cadets who came to dances were drunk and obscene - not much like Tom Slade!).

[Stephanie]

I love when the girls go to see Uncle Tom's Cabin with Winona. MHL really captures the excitement of going to the theater for the first time.

Betsy's trip to the Beidwinkles' is also nice...especially when she meets up with Joe at Willard's Emporium.

BETSY AND THE GREAT WORLD is a wonderful adventure from its first page to its last...I was always impressed by MHL's inclusion of the Mr. O'Farrell character. Talk about being made to grow up fast!!

[CmPete]

I'm a big fan of the hair cut in BTT. It is SOOOO wonderful that the girls don't get grounded for life! (tho' they don't escape punishment) I also like the 'tone, 'tone chapter - it is so fun when the good intentions deteriorate into squashed tomato chaos!

And the herbariums... I just love 'nourishing cheese'...

[Kelly]

My favorite younger adventure is the Milkman chapter in BT, probably followed by the Rip Van Winkle chapter in Downtown. I love the whole backstage aspect.

In the high school books I love the trip to Milwaukee -- I love all of the Christmases in the high school books!

[Allison]

Seconding Betsy and the Great World in its entirety! Also, I love Betsy's first trip to the library.

[Wendy]

Betsy's trip to Sonneberg... and the herbariums... and Everything Pudding.

[CLM]

You can sing Everything Pudding - use a tune resembling The Noble Duke of York...

[Stephanie]

LOL. I often sing my own version of "Everything Pudding" when cooking. My husband often comments that it's not a compliment to my own cooking to do so. But I love the joyous spirit of the poem, anyway!

[Wendy]

I made up my own tune for "Everything Pudding" when I was a kid, without trying--it just came out. At least, I think I made it up. It might be some other song, but I associate the tune so strongly now with Everything Pudding that I can't tell. Thinking about it REALLY HARD, what it most resembles is a sort of upbeat "Puff, the Magic Dragon".

Husbands who can make contextually accurate Betsy-Tacy jokes rock.

[Stephanie]

LOL...I suffer from headaches and my husband very kindly reads to me from the Betsy-Tacy books so I can take my mind off the pain. He is alternately affectionate and distainful toward the noble works, but has a weird fascination with Baby Bee, claiming she is really an alien from outer space who practices mind control on Betsy, Tacy, and Tib. It keeps him entertained, I guess. He also claims the Magic Horse from "The Milkman Story" of BT was a class A extortionist who used to roam the streets of Deep Valley, stealing candy and box lunches from children.

[Katie]

I love when Betsy, Joe, Tib, and Dennie crash the Junior Dance. "This night will never come again....."

In the younger books, I love when the girls beat up the boys who are bullying Naifi, but my favorite scene is the Milkman's horse (now know as the Extortionist.)

[Ellen]

I especially love "Betsy and the Great World" and her adventures during the whole book.

[Michele]

I LOVE when they visit Mrs. Poppy's for christmas in "Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown". I was about 8 or 9 when I read it and I remember tearing up. It was the first time I can remember getting very emotional over a book. That book and "Betsy in Spite of Herself" are my favorites.

[Jan]

Michele,
Are you on the Maud-L discussion list? You might enjoy it. Lots of Betsy-Tacy lovers are on it.
Jan Sasser from a little south of you in Indiana.

[Sallie]

I just re-read this book and still tear up at this part of the book. Also when Uncle Keith is revealed.

Sallie
in Elko NV

[Michele]

Jan,

No, I'm not on that list. I'm going to join it immediately! Thanks for the heads up.

And Sallie, I love that part, too! When they re-create the scene from Uncle Tom's Cabin is the best!

[Jeannie]

The older books are my favorites. I love going to Europe with Betsy. I took BATGW along when I went to Germany in 1991. Back in the years when I thought I was the only one!

[Lisa]

So far, I've read just the first 5 books.

My favorite adventure so far is the disastrous haircuts. I could see it coming but it was so funny.

I think I'm going to be in the camp of liking the first 4 books the best, but I suspect I'll enjoy the last 2 better than the high school books. When I've finished reading, I assume I'll think of all the books (including the three peripheral books) as one long story.

[Anne]

I like Betsy and Tacy's Christmas shopping trips, where they look at everything but only buy a Christmas ornament each. And I love Sunday night lunch. That's a tradition I want to start someday among my own friends.

I was also really excited to go to Milwaukee with Betsy, and gratified to find that it lived up to her expectations. :)

[Carolynne]

Hmm, hard to choose. I like the Christmas shopping trips too (in the B-T books _and_ in real life--how simple and yet how enchanting to "hold Christmas in their hands"), I like the making paper dolls out of pictures (I used to do that too), and I'm drawn to Emily's "mustering her wits," but my favorite activity is probably _Carney's House Party_.

I especially like the unexpectedness and growing passion of her budding relationship with Sam. I think the way MHL handled this romance reaches the reader much more deeply than contemporary, more explicit, romances do.

[Susan]

Chandra, you're so right about death and illness. Maud covers those topics so beautifully. I'm writing to urge you and your daughter to give Everything Pudding a try! My daughter and I made it years ago and now (she's seventeen) we still talk about the experience. Quite disgusting! : )

[Lisa]

Chandra wrote: "Ha ha! Okay, we will make the everything pudding!"

Oh, fun!

The pudding and especially the haircuts were my favorite parts of that book.

[CmPete]

Chandra-don't forget the bay leaf!!

[Michele]

Love it, Chandra!

[Lisa]

Chandra, Thanks so much for sharing!!! Great photo! Yucky everything pudding.