Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

I think that Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown may be my favorite book yet, in Maud Hart Lovelace's series of children's novels devoted to the adventures of three young girls growing up in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Minnesota. Now twelve years old, Betsy, Tacy and Tib find their horizons expanding, as they venture into town on their own, see a horseless carriage for the first time, attend a thrilling performance of Uncle Tom's Cabin at the Opera House, and (in Betsy's case) discover the joys of the new Carnegie Library.

The girls find a new playmate in Winona Root, the sometimes exasperating daughter of Deep Valley's newspaper editor, and a true friend in plump Mrs. Poppy, who gives them a lovely Christmas party. But the most show more thrilling experience of all comes when they are chosen to participate in a performance of Rip Van Winkle, and make a surprise discovery with implications for Betsy's family...

Like some other reviewers who first read this as an adult, I was able to guess all the developments well in advance. But somehow, the pleasure of "discovery" was in no way diminished - a testament to Lovelace's immense skill as a storyteller. I enjoyed all the adventures chronicled herein, particularly the Christmas "shopping" expedition, and was charmed to follow Betsy's growth as an author. I laughed over her attempted sentimental novel, The Repentance of Lady Clinton, and thrilled to her first success, with the publication of the poem, The Curtain Goes Up. As Lovelace observes at the close of this entertaining and heartwarming story, the curtain is going up on the girls' adolescence, and I, for one, am looking forward to watching it! show less

Another great Betsy and Tacy book! Betsy, Tacy and Tib are up to their usual hijinks. The chapter where they try to hypnotize their frenemy Winona into taking them to see a play via the power of their collective thoughts is hysterical. And Betsy’s dramatic reading of the story she wrote, “Flossie’s Accident,” which involves a girls head literally falling off of her body and she has to keep on tragically living while carrying her head around, is fantastic. The girls’ friendship with Mrs. Poppy is so sweet, as well as the Uncle Keith sideplot, and I found myself desperately trying not to cry by the end of the book.

9/2012 Six stars. Ninety-six stars. Down Town is my favorite of the first four books and ranks near my favorites in the series entire. I'm prissy about my copy, which is, in fact titled Down Town. None of this namby-pamby Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown stuff. Nope, just Down Town, because like Winona, I like to go in doors marked "Private, Keep Out."

There are so many good stories twining though this book- Mrs. Poppy's, of course. We meet Miss Sparrow here, the librarian who gets so many great lines ("Tom Sawyer- classic- going to be!") and we learn some things about Mrs. Ray's childhood. The Christmas shopping trip! The bobsled, where we first meet Betsy's trick ankle. What fun these people have, and how they love each other.

And did you show more ever notice how in this book Lovelace draws attention to Margaret's thick and lovely eyelashes?


12/2009 This is my favorite of the pre-high-school Betsy-Tacy books. Among the BT cognoscenti, whole weeks have been devoted to debating which books in the series are the best. This does sometimes devolve into name-calling and braid-tugging, but generally Down Town ranks near the top.

The girls are 12 and they don't quite fit anywhere- not with Julia and Katie who are being walked home from school by boys, and not with Margaret and Freddie who are rioting through the streets shouting. They want to be one or the other but they can't quite decide which. Their parents are becoming more interesting, with backstories of their own- but at the same time less central to the lives of the girls. Betsy is developing some of that tender empathy which will both help her and break her heart in future books. Tacy is settling into her role as champion and cheerleader and Tib... is just like Tib, forever and ever, amen.

The lost uncle plotline makes me weep as hard as the Ladies Home Journal story in teeny-tiny writing makes me laugh. show less

We're back with the usual group of friends: Betsy, Tacy, and Tib, and an addition, Winona Root. Winona's father gets complimentary passes to the opera house, so the friends get to go see real plays. Of course, this encourages Betsy's writing habit.

I liked how the author has grown the characters into 12 year olds, starting to see the adult world ahead, but still rooted in childhood fun. There are bobsled parties, shopping expeditions, and an encounter with a horseless carriage! I especially enjoyed Betsy's first trip to a real library, after one is opened in her town, and her reactions to having a world of literature available.

I read this as a child, and enjoyed it just as much, if not more, as an adult read.

This is a delightful collection of stories about three friends enjoying time together and learning how to get along with others. I liked the way Betsy made a new friend and learned how to love a lonely person. In another instance, the girls did their best to manipulate someone into doing what they wanted her to do. It worked, which I was a bit sad about, but they ended up being good friends with her anyway. There is a lot about theaters and acting in this book; much of the story centers around that theme. Books are also an important focal point. Betsy is an aspiring author, and her father pointed out the benefits of reading good literature rather than dime novels. I also loved seeing some of the cultural change that was happening at the show more time, with the first automobile coming to town and the first library being opened. This is a delightful story about friends in a different era, and I’m sure my daughter will enjoy it! show less

I saw this coming from a million miles away but I don't CARE it was actually so heartwarming
(also the song My Rosary got mentioned and I find it funny)

Well, I never figured I'd read all of the first four Betsy-Tacy books, but I did. I've got to do a better job of choosing "adult"-style books and not keep coming up with crap, which is, of course, why I kept reverting to yet another dose of Betsy-Tacy. Perhaps it's all for the best. I rather liked my delving into Betsy-Tacy, although I might now suffer from a terminal case of heart warmedness.

So, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib are now 12 and are grown up enough to do things like go downtown on their own. After some difficulties, they make friends with another girl, Winona Root, who has tickets to a theater production of Uncle Tom's Cabin. They're all smitten. And now, for all practical purposes, the threesome becomes a foursome.

The first show more horseless carriage comes to town. Betsy has big plans to be a writer, but her mother thinks she needs a better class of literature to read than the paper backs she gets from the housemaid. So, she sends Betsy to the newly opened library every other week. It seems that some things never change. The librarian is, of course, awesome, and opens up a whole new world to Betsy.

[Interestingly, the librarian in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was not so awesome (the first one I've ever known not to be so). However, the presence of the library in her neighborhood opened up a whole new world to Francie Nolan. God bless public libraries.

I find it bizarre that so-called "conservatives" are now calling for defunding public libraries. I gather rich people aren't able to read, or something. Or perhaps all that money just turns people into assholes...but I digress. Sorry].

Betsy makes friends of a lonely rich woman who lives in a hotel, and they plan a Christmas party to which all their friends will be invited. Later, she gets Betsy & Co. involved as extras with a traveling theater company, including Betsy's long lost Uncle Keith. And so forth. It's rather heart warming and also tells of life, albeit idealized, from a different time, e.g. 100+ years ago, shortly before my mother was a little girl.

I dunno, I never really expected to read any Betsy-Tacy, and now I've read four of them and liked them all. I find it weird that I keep reading how it is a children's classic, but I've yet to find anyone who has actually read any of the books growing up, and I have a lot of book-worm peers, and a couple of relatives who are librarians [ok, my librarian sister-in-law, whose mother was once president of the American Library Association, admits to having read them].

Also interesting to me is that the books describe kids' lives and activities at the turn of the 20th century. Other than some anachronisms, like horse-drawn carriages, the lives of the kids weren't much different from the lives of people like me in the 1950s. But, it's all different today. I'm not sure that's a good thing. show less