As much as I love the early Betsy-Tacy books, my heart truly belongs to the high school. Heaven to Betsy marks the girls’ freshman year at Deep Valley High and what a year it is! Betsy immediately takes up with a new crowd (Tacy is not neglected, never fear) and this crowd includes boys. Betsy’s advice on the topic – “you just curl your hair and use a lot of perfume and act plagued when they tease you.” But we all know the secret, Betsy’s not getting any boys with sweet scented curls and flirtations; she’s pulling them in with the siren lure of her father’s onion sandwiches. (Evidently Maud Hart Lovelace is borrowing from real life here, which certainly helps her case because anyone who can sell raw onion sandwiches as a boy-magnet must be backed by the power of conviction!)
As with many teenagers, even modern ones, Betsy struggles desperately to balance her social life and her schoolwork (spoiler alert: social life wins with disastrous consequences). But I can’t say as I blame her, because who wouldn’t want to go to those parties! There are the Sunday Night Lunches at Ray’s house complete with Mr. Ray’s famous onion sandwiches, the Halloween party where the girls snap apples to find out who they’ll marry and feast on ice cream (once they’ve recovered it from the thieving boys), the Christmas party complete with mistletoe. I longed to be part of that crowd (in no small part because I also was in love with Betsy’s tall, dark, stranger – he was definitely my favorite!)
And yet, somehow, between all of the mooning and flirting, teasing and dreaming, Betsy and her sister Julia have enough time to do serious introspection about religion, eventually deciding to convert from Baptists to Episcopalians. The religious theme is threaded lightly throughout the book. Not just the story of how Betsy and Julia came to feel they should switch religions, Betsy’s gang hanging out at Christian Endeavor (a Presbyterian youth group lead by crowd member Bonnie), Grandmother Ray’s raising money for a Protestant Church back in the day. (Grandmother Ray’s selling point leaves a lot to be desired, she lectures settlers that they don’t want their children to grow up like Indians). So what’s the big deal about all this religious stuff? Well, back in the day, the New York Public library didn’t even own this book; it was considered so controversial! For some families the question of children changing religions will be an upsetting one, others will be pleased that the Rays choose to support their daughters and counsel them to make the decision that feels best for them, not make the choice based on what others will think.
In addition to the slightly more mature theme of boys! Boys! Boys! The vocabulary is a bit more difficult: beatific, penitently, despondent, repugnant . Also, with there are more terms specific to the era for readers to wrestle with. Then there’s Anna’s overuse and misuse of puny. This is probably best for grades 6 and up.
Great for: Giving boy-crazy young girls their fill of romance without ever slipping over to anything sexual or indecent. It also does a convincing job of making innocent fun actually sound fun.
Sex, Nudity, Dating – We’re told Julia has a new “boy on the string.” Even the internet doesn’t seem to want to give me a clear definition of that, but years of reading Betsy books had led me to understand that her dear sister Julia always has one boy or another trailing after her, not all of whom Julia has any particularly deep interest in. Anna unpacks her underwear. Winona picks which society she’ll be in by which has the cutest boys. There is much discussion of which boys are attractive. Their friend Bonnie is quite curvy but this is carefully referred as a more “mature” figure. There is a reference to Mrs. Ray singing Gilbert and Sullivan to the girls while they were nursing. When dressing for a party, Betsy puts on her prettiest underwear and pins ruffles to her chest (this was a common practice in those days to make the bust appear larger – no Miracle Bras available yet!) During sleepovers the girls change out of their clothes under their billowing night gowns to preserve modesty. There is a sketch of Betsy in a corset cover and pantaloons. Betsy gets caught under the mistletoe and kissed by Cab, Herbert and Tony. Two of those kisses are clearly listed as on the cheek, the third is not defined. Tony kisses her on the cheek again later also under mistletoe. A boy confesses he was in love with Betsy in fifth grade. There is occasional handholding.
Profanity – “O di immortales” which is Latin for good heavens. “Darned,” “Hully Gee,” which seems to be a shortened form of “Holy Jesus,” “Heck,” “for Pete’s sake,”
Death, Violence and Gore –Herbert says that Tony’ll get his nose punched if he’s not careful. Anna sometimes tells stories about horse hairs that turn into snakes and dragon flies that sew up people’s eyes (we’re told this in a single line of the book – no elaboration given).
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – As the kids are discussing all things Roman, it is noted that Romans drank wine. There’s a rumor that one of the boys smokes cigarettes. At a party he does smoke and one of the other boys admits that some of them do it when there are no girls present.
Frightening or Intense Things – None.
