![]() ![]() ![]() Maud Hart Lovelace drew liberally from her own life. Few children’s book authors have commanded this kind of devoted attention. ![]() The centenary of the author’s birth saw a Betsy-Tacy convention as well as the launching of a Betsy-Tacy Society and a Maud Hart Lovelace Society. As the girls become teenagers and then young women, the books are written with an increasingly sophisticated audience in mind. In the first four volumes, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib are five to twelve years old and the writing is pitched accordingly. Maud Hart Lovelace approached her audience differently, and assumed her readers would mature at about the same pace as her characters. ![]() Most authors of series assume their readers are frozen in developmental time and hope they don’t grow up between the first and last volumes. Many girls discover this series in their early childhood and continue to reread the volumes not only as adolescents but as grown women. The Betsy-Tacy books are a phenomenon apart, as they inspire, in some, a lifelong devotion. There are many children’s series that command fearsome allegiance, but the fans are often fickle and the adulation often transient. Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill by Maud Hart Lovelace ![]()
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