Betsy Was a Junior, Group Read, Part 1 - by Maud Hart Lovelace

Chapter 1 - As I take the baton for the Betsy-Tacy listserv's discussion of Betsy Was a Junior, I ask you to imagine it is the end of August rather than early June and that we are all about to return to high school. Part of me is horrified at the very idea, but part of me is convinced I could do it so much better now! What do you think? For those like me who wished high school were more like Deep Valley or Harkness High, would you make a few lists a la Betsy Ray and do a Groundhog Day-like second attempt if that were possible? Or did it live up to your expectations in the first place and you don’t need a do-over?

I think it is fair to say that of all Maud’s books this inspires the strongest emotions due to Betsy’s involvement with sororities and how it affects those around her. One of the reasons we have high standards for Betsy is that we have seen her take stock of herself at the beginning of every school year, make goals, try to live up to them, make mistakes, learn and move forward. As with Beany Malone, sometimes it just seems as if she isn’t getting the message and keeps making the same mistakes. Well, I know I make mistakes so why should I hold Betsy to a higher standard? Plus, I understand one needs human angst to make a good story.

As BWAJ begins, Betsy is spending the summer at Murmuring Lake. She has enjoyed the first two years of high school but longs to be a siren like her older sister Julia. She also has regrets about not having done her best work on the school essay contest. Her freshman year she was too busy socializing to prepare for it, and her sophomore year the contest coincided with her breakup with Phil Brandish. But this year will be different. “I’m going to make my junior year just perfect,” Betsy writes in her journal. “As for boys,” she concludes, “I think I’ll go with Joe Willard!” Oh, Betsy, don’t you know you shouldn’t jinx yourself this way? Only big sister Julia can make these definitive statements and follow through on them - although she is heading off to the U for her freshman year and outside the friendly confines of Deep Valley perhaps even Julia will lose some of her charisma and potency.

For me, BWAJ is one of my favorites, partly because it was the last BT book I read. My childhood library, housed in a lovely yellow building in Newton, MA owned copies of every book except Winona’s Pony Cart and BWAJ, even Emily of Deep Valley and Carney's House Party (I knew more about Vassar than my high school friend who went there). I found Winona in a small library in Chappaqua, NY where my grandmother lived (I also found Cousins by Evan Commager in that library, which I loved and recommend to anyone who can find it). But in the days before online card catalogues, there wasn’t much way to investigate interlibrary loan. One day, several years after I had read the rest of the books, my mother and I went back to the branch of the Boston Public Library where I had got my first library card. Unerringly, I found my way to the L books and there was a beautiful hardcover with dust jacket copy of BWAJ just waiting for me. The children’s librarian, whose name was Judy Lieberman, was delighted for me to find a book that meant so much to me, and in later years teased me that I checked it out so much she should just give it to me. I started reading it in the car driving home, and my mother and sister read it the minute I was done (some things never change - when my sister finished the new Sarah Dessen this weekend, she handed it to me without a word).

So perhaps my long wait for this book is one of the reasons I am so fond of it. Moreover, while we will come to aspects of the book that may cause concern, it is also full of the things we love about Deep Valley: the parties, the dating, the characters we love, the clothes we admire, the teachers we dislike, the assignments we meant to get to, the fudge, but best of all the way the Rays rally around each other in times of crisis.

Leaving aside sororities for the moment, if you could wake up tomorrow as part of the Crowd in the fall of 1908, wouldn’t it be hard to turn your back on that opportunity?  

[From time to time avid Betsy-Tacy fans conduct a group read of the beloved books by Maud Hart Lovelace - let me know if you would like to join us online.]  

The BWAJ images are copyrighted to HarperCollins.

Mardi Gras

"Julia and Betsy . . . observed Lent rigorously for a time. Julia gave up dancing, a sacrifice Betsy could not very well make as the Crowd had not yet started going to dances. She equaled it, however; she gave up candy; she gave up fudge." Heaven to Betsy

There are nine mentions of fudge in Heaven to Betsy, so you know how important it was to Maud Hart Lovelace, but even before I brought the Betsy-Tacy books home for the whole family to read, my mother always gave up candy for Lent, and it was a tradition that we made fudge on Mardi Gras. To me that was just as important (not to mention religious) a ritual of the Easter season as anything! We always used the recipe from the Mystery Chef, a popular radio cooking host from the 40s to whom my grandmother used to listen - long before the Cooking Channel was envisioned.

Homemade Fudge

Ingredients:

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Grease an 8 by 8-inch pie plate with butter. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the sugar, chocolate, and milk. Over medium heat, stir until sugar is dissolved and chocolate is melted. Increase heat and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 6 minutes, add butter, simmer for another 6 minutes. Begin testing a tiny spoonful in a custard or tea cup of cold water as mixture continues to cook. It may take several times before it forms a soft ball. Remove from heat, cool until it's just barely hot, add vanilla and beat until well-blended and the shiny texture becomes matte. Pour into the prepared pan. Let sit in cool dry area until firm.

Don't put the fudge outside to cool or those Deep Valley boys might swipe it!

Books and Fudge

A woman in the Christian Science Monitor describes a charming little library in an unnamed town that is on the second floor above a fudge shop! I know what she means about loving her old-fashioned library: while I appreciate the convenience of being able to request books online, then go in to pick them a large armful every week or so, I mentioned to my mother recently that as a result I never browse in the library any more. I don't need to, since my books are held for me behind the circulation desk.

But I have been thinking a lot lately about the library at my elementary school which had a pretty amazing collection of books, including Beany Malone, Noel Streatfeild, Karin Ankarsvaard, Carol Ryrie Brink, Joan Howard, the Mummy Market (which I was reading the day Man walked on the Moon - I was irritated that the teacher kept trying to distract me to watch television), and all the Childhood of Famous American biographies. However, it was the yellow clapboard Boys and Girls Library in Newton Corner where I participated in every summer reading program, and one summer even persuaded the librarians to let me describe every book I'd read to them orally since I was bored filling out the required forms. I don't know whether they thought I was a pain or loved me because I was their best patron (my siblings think the former). Regardless, they would point out the new Margaret K. McElderry books as they came in (I remember in particular eagerly awaiting the new Ruth Arthur) and new books by Barbara Willard. I am not sure I still have my original library card but I recall the number was 18931.