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A review by evaseyler
Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace
5.0
This was one of my very favourite books when I was twelve. I'm not sure if that's just because that's when I got the book or because Betsy and her friends are also twelve in the book - I liked reading books about children who were my own age. I adored the theatrical thread running throughout the book, the section on Christmas that seemed to bottle up all I felt about Christmas so beautifully, and most of all Winona.
I have no idea what it is about Winona that I like so much, except that perhaps she reminds me of myself. I've been a manipulator, have been known to love messing with people's heads, and have a strange sense of humour. I'm a pretty good blend of Betsy and Winona, and I was sad on glancing through later books at the library back in the day that Winona seems to mostly fade out of the picture after this book.
I'm thinking this book influenced me a good deal too in my own writing. Betsy's tendency toward DRAMA and using things she's fangirling over in her stories sounds ridiculously familiar. Just the other day I found an entry in an old diary where I described a story within another story I was writing, involving a whole myriad of drama and crime. It wasn't a good or healthy thing to be obsessing over, by any means. I guess the part in this book about sticking to GOOD books rather than dime novels was over my head?
I have no idea what it is about Winona that I like so much, except that perhaps she reminds me of myself. I've been a manipulator, have been known to love messing with people's heads, and have a strange sense of humour. I'm a pretty good blend of Betsy and Winona, and I was sad on glancing through later books at the library back in the day that Winona seems to mostly fade out of the picture after this book.
I'm thinking this book influenced me a good deal too in my own writing. Betsy's tendency toward DRAMA and using things she's fangirling over in her stories sounds ridiculously familiar. Just the other day I found an entry in an old diary where I described a story within another story I was writing, involving a whole myriad of drama and crime. It wasn't a good or healthy thing to be obsessing over, by any means. I guess the part in this book about sticking to GOOD books rather than dime novels was over my head?