Betsy-Tacy and Tib starts three years after Betsy-Tacy. The girls are now 8 and their circle has expanded to welcome little blonde Tib. While I certainly looked most like Betsy, I envied Tacy’s beautiful red ringlets and associated with her role as bashful best friend, but Tib was an entirely new creature to me. Beautiful and aware of it without being vain, Tib is the most down-to-earth of the girls, often questioning Betsy’s wild flights of fancy. For the reader, she’s a welcome relief. Just when you feel things will go a bit too far, Tib’s there to remind you that it’s make-believe, because again, most of the fun is courtesy of the girls’ imaginations. Whether they are ruining their dresses and pretending to be beggars (a game that earned them some stern lectures about lying) or building houses in the basement out of firewood, these girls know how to have a good time. There’s practically no whining about being bored.
Of course, sometimes the age of the book shows just a bit. After building the basement firewood house, Tib’s father tells her brother Freddie that he may grow up to be an architect. When Tib asks if she too can be an architect, her father tells her she can’t, that she “will be a little housewife.” Betsy and Tacy are miffed, but more because they picture Tib as a dancer rather than outrage that she can’t be an architect. Later in the book the girls discuss what they want to do when they grow up. Tacy wants to get married and have babies. Tib wants to be a dancer or an architect and Betsy wants to be a writer. It should be noted that although Tib’s father is discouraging about a career, and Tacy doesn’t want a career, that Betsy’s desire to be an author (which was certainly ahead of its day at the turn of the century) is never discouraged by her family or friends.
A few other things that parents and teachers should be aware of: at one point the girls are left alone and use the stove to mix up and cook an Everything Pudding (yes, as gross as you imagine); towards the end they decide to get up a Christian Kindness Club so they can go to Heaven. They all have different religions (although all Christian) and there are some thoughts on sin (Tacy volunteers that you are born bad – Catholic much?) and penance that you may want to discuss. The girls basically decide to put a pebble in a bag pinned to their dress every time they’re bad, but rather than motivate them to behave, the game just makes them more mischievous because it’s fun to put pebbles in their bags!
Again the reading level on this falls somewhere between 3-5th grade, although for read aloud you could go younger.
Sex, Nudity, Dating – None.
Profanity – Matilda says “Gott in Himmel” which translates to God in Heaven, but unless your children speak German, you don’t need to worry. Tacy says “Gol darn.”
Death, Violence and Gore – None.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – None.
Frightening or Intense Things – Tacy catches diphtheria. It is a fairly serious case and her family is quarantined. This gets Betsy on a morbid sort of tear where she announces that if any of the girls died, they’d need something to remember her by, which then leads to making lockets and filling them with locks of each other’s hair. It ends comically with tragic results coming only for their hair.
