“There are three authors whose body of work I have reread more than once over my adult life: Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Maud Hart Lovelace.”
—Anna Quindlen,
New York Times bestselling author
“Slipping into a Betsy book is like slipping into a favorite pair of well-worn slippers: It’s always a pleasure to live in Betsy’s world for a little while, to experience her simple joys but also her (thankfully short-lived) sorrows.”
—Meg Cabot,
New York Times bestselling author
“I reread these books every year, marveling at how a world so quaint—shirtwaists! Pompadours! Merry Widow hats!—can feature a heroine who is undeniably modern.”
—Laura Lippman,
New York Times bestselling author
“I read every one of these Betsy-Tacy-Tib books twice. I loved them as a child, as a young adult, and now, reading them with my daughter, as a mother. What a wonderful world it was!”
—Bette Midler, actor and singer
“Some characters become your friends for life. That’s how it was for me with Betsy-Tacy.”
—Judy Blume, beloved bestselling author
“The Betsy-Tacy books were among my favorites when I was growing up.”
—Nora Ephron,
Academy Award-nominated writer-director
“I am fairly certain that my independent, high-spirited grandmother must have had a childhood similar to Betsy Ray’s…. As I read…I felt that I was having an unexpected and welcome peek into Granny’s childhood—a gift to me from Maud Hart Lovelace.”
—Ann M. Martin, creator and author
of the Baby-sitters Club series
“Family loyalty and the devotion of friends to one another…for me are the defining characteristics of the Betsy-Tacy stories.”
—Esther Hautzig, award-winning author, former
director of Children’s Book Promotion for
Thomas Y. Crowell Co., and publicist for
Betsy’s Wedding in 1955
“I truly consider Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown to be the finest novel in the English language! I will never love any other books as much as I love the Betsy-Tacy books.”
—Claudia Mills, children’s book author, winner of the
National Book Award and Golden Kite Award
“When I was growing up in the Bronx, I had lots of friends. But the girls I most enjoyed spending time with were Betsy, Tacy, and Tib…in the series by Maud Hart Lovelace…three girls full of good ideas, adventures and fun.”
—Johanna Hurwitz, award-winning author of more
than sixty popular books for young readers
“Maud Hart Lovelace and her Betsy-Tacy series influenced me very much when I was a girl; I identified with Betsy, who wanted to be a writer, as well as the friends’ girl power.”
—Lorna Landvik,
New York Times bestselling author
“Heavens to Betsy! It was pure bliss to slip away and into the world of these turn-of-the-century Minnesota girls, their families, their friends, their loves. It had been many, many years since I’d spent time with the enchanting Betsy Ray, but after reacquainting myself with these classics, I now realize that one of the reasons I believed I could someday become a writer was because of Betsy’s own infallible confidence that she would be a writer. Don’t worry if you don’t have a young person to buy these delicious books for—be selfish and give ’em to yourself.”
—Mary Kay Andrews,
New York Times bestselling author
“I grew up thirty miles north of Mankato, and trips to town were filled with mystery and magic because I was walking the same streets that Betsy and Tacy once walked. The Betsy-Tacy books…more than any other books, fed my dream of becoming a writer one day.”
—Jill Kalz, Minnesota Book Awards
Readers’ Choice Award winner
“At school visits, when kids ask what books I read as a child, I have only one answer: Betsy Tacy—the entire series…. Truthfully, I think those were the only books I read as a child. But they were enough to make me know that characters in books had true and honest feelings and that made all the difference.”
—Maryann Weidt, author of the Minnesota
Book Award-winning picture book
Daddy Played Music for the Cows
“As a Minnesota girl, I read the Betsy-Tacy books about a thousand times as a kid. I used to go to sleep at night with one of the books under my pillow whispering to myself about the girls, hoping I’d dream I was playing with them.”
—Anne Ursu, award-winning author