Friday, January 29, 2010

Betsy in Spite of Herself



Finished Betsy in Spite of Herself, the sixth book in Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy series. Betsy and Tacy are now sophomores at Deep Valley High School. Betsy is invited by their old friend Tib to spend Christmas with her and her family in Milwaukee. Betsy has not seen Tib since she moved away several books ago. At first the girls are shy with each other, but after the first night their shyness disolves.

While Betsy is visiting Tib she decides to reinvent herself. She changes the spelling of her name and takes on airs and mannerisms that surprise her friends when she returns home. While acting the part of the newly invented Betsye, she attracts the attention of Phil, a boy outside of The Crowd. They begin to date. While The Crowd is polite to Phil, they don't care for him very much. Eventually many of Betsy's friends stop dropping by for Sunday Night Lunch. Phil does not want to do things with The Crowd and he resents Betsye spending time working on her entry for the essay competition. This is where Betsy finally realizes that maybe Phil is not the boy for her. Nothing should interfere with her writing. Eventually the two part ways and Betsy goes back to being her garrulous, high spirited self.

I find it interesting the number of books written by female writers that are about girls who grow up to be writers: Lousia May Alcott, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lucy Maude Montgomery and Maude Hart Lovelace. They all have three names too. Hmmm.....

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