Betsy Was a Junior: A Betsy-Tacy High School Story

Betsy-Tacy #7

by Maud Hart Lovelace, Vera Neville (Illustrator)

The Best School Year Ever

That's the kind of junior year Betsy Ray has planned for herself. And when her childhood friend Tib Muller moves back to Deep Valley, Betsy's sure her perfect year is off to a grand start. With charming, funny Tib around, Crowd doings are more fun than ever—especially after Betsy starts Okto Delta, the first-ever sorority at Deep Valley High.

But soon Betsy's luck takes a bad turn. The Crowd is getting into trouble at school, and Betsy isn't given a chance to compete in the annual Essay Contest. Could Betsy's best school year turn out to be her worst?

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Childrens, Historical, Middle Grade

248 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1947

About the author

Maud Hart Lovelace was born on April 25, 1892, in Mankato, Minnesota. She was the middle of three children born to Thomas and Stella (Palmer) Hart. Her sister, Kathleen, was three years older, and her other sister, Helen, was six years younger. “That dear family" was the model for the fictional Ray family.

Maud’s birthplace was a small house on a hilly residential street several blocks above Mankato’s center business district. The street, Center Street, dead-ended at one of the town’s many hills. When Maud was a few months old, the Hart family moved two blocks up the street to 333 Center.

Shortly before Maud’s fifth birthday a “large merry Irish family" moved into the house directly across the street. Among its many children was a girl Maud’s age, Frances, nicknamed Bick, who was to be Maud’s best friend and the model for Tacy Kelly.

Tib’s character was based on another playmate, Marjorie (Midge) Gerlach, who lived nearby in a large house designed by her architect father. Maud, Bick, and Midge became lifelong friends. Maud once stated that the three couldn’t have been closer if they’d been sisters.

Reviews

[kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

JOE YOU DELIGHTFUL TAR-SPREADING SNOB! WHERE DO YOU GET OFF SENDING POSTCARDS LIKE THAT?

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this third book of Betsy’s high school years, Betsy perches on the cusp of adulthood. She feels the march of time, realizes her high school career is half over, and makes many worthy new school year resolutions while she dreams and plans in her little rowboat that summer at Murmuring Lake. But, for most of the school year, she simply plays at being grown-up. She and her friends giggle and sigh over how “grown-up” they look in the latest fashions as they sit and chat together in the café – “just like the grown ups do.” She gets swept away with sister Julia’s enchanted tales of the university sororities and decides that her high school chums need to enter into those sacred bonds of sisterhood so they create their own. It’s all giddy good fun… at first. But it starts to prickle at Betsy’s conscience when her good-natured classmate Hazel begins to avoid her because Hazel is not part of the sorority. When the boys get up their own fraternity, it stings a bit more when Tony Markham declines to join because he feels such exclusiveness leaves too many good people out. Will Betsy’s Okto Deltas survive their junior year? Will Betsy make any headway with her resolve to become better friends with Joe Willard? And will Betsy’s grades rise to those lofty goals she set on Murmuring Lake?


By the end of her junior year, Betsy starts to realize what it truly means to be grown-up as she sees one of her classmates catapulted into adulthood before he’s had a chance to graduate high school. She also sees the way navigating high school without a solid home life has matured Tony and Joe beyond the rest of the high school crowd and she realizes how much her own parents have always looked out for her and decides she needs to start taking more responsibility for herself and not lean on them quite so heavily. That said, Betsy is never anything but grateful to her wonderful, loving parents and I am constantly impressed by them, as well. Most notably here I was impressed by their thoughtful consideration of Julia’s love for opera and her desire to study abroad. Julia continues to shine brightly in these books, despite being away at the university, and I love that she is still so firmly a part of the family (and these books) even though she is no longer under their roof. I also loved getting to know more about Betsy’s little sister Margaret in this book.

It’s impossible for me not to love these Betsy books. They feel like comfortable best friends, even though it’s my first time reading them. They are true “kindred spirit” books for me. . It is interesting because, in many ways, Betsy and I were very different in our teen years (I was probably more like Tacy, really) but I do share her love of writing and her close-knit family life. Yet, I am completely drawn into her experiences and find them so relatable. I was fascinated with Betsy and Julia’s fascination with sororities. (Personally, I always felt much the same as Tony and Mr. Ray did about them.) I was less fascinated by Betsy’s beau this go-around and felt she was just treading water while the boy she really likes went with a girl she really didn’t like. Betsy’s casual romances haven’t resonated with me since she had her first love in her freshman year and since I know who she ultimately ends up marrying. Readers, if you are new to these books and have the editions with the notes included DO NOT READ THE NOTES in any edition until you have finished the SERIES! Spoilers abound and you’ll know who will be the leading man of “Betsy’s Wedding”. It hasn’t diminished my enjoyment in the series by knowing, but it does take away a little of the anticipation and mystery.

[Sarah Seele · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know what it is about these books. They’re full of the whirl of high school life: dances, essays, ambitions half-buried under fun and friends, the Ray family being one great big loving mutual admiration society, tongue-in-cheek minutes written by Betsy the sorority secretary-treasurer. Attempts to charm the opposite sex, confidences with Tacy. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib staying up miserably all night to finish the assignment they had all year to start on.

Yes, they’re charming. They’re funny (and well-written). They’re quaint. (Imagine parents not knowing what a sorority is!) Since it could not be otherwise in a slice-of-life story, the fundamental seriousness of life and Growing Up makes an appearance here and there, but never in a very heavy way. They don’t even pretend to aspire to the finesse of F. Scott Fitzgerald or the psychological depth of a Russian novel.

And yet they always touch me. And I always find Betsy has a place nearer my heart than really any other heroine I can think of.

”We’re growing up,” Betsy said aloud. She wasn’t even sure she liked it. But it happened, and then it was irrevocable. There was nothing you could do about it except to try to see that you grew up into the kind of human being you wanted to be.

“I’d like to be a fine one,” Betsy thought quickly and urgently.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Betsy, Betsy, Betsy. Can you never learn?

Betsy Ray ends her freshman (Heaven to Betsy) and sophomore years (Betsy in Spite of Herself) at Deep Valley High School vowing that she will become a more serious student and a better person. Indeed, she begins this seventh book in Maud Hart Lovelace’s series featuring best friends Betsy Ray, Tacy Kelly and Tib Muller vowing that this time, she really means it! With her older sister Julia gone off to the university, Betsy wants to spend more time with her family — especially little sister Margaret, concentrate on her writing and study hard.

But, alas! Betsy has been boy-crazy since Heaven to Betsy, and her resolutions always go by the wayside. It’s the year 1908, and perhaps it’s ever been thus. Maybe girls in every generation give in to shallowness and pursue a good time over planning for their futures. But Tacy and I managed to get through high school with fewer boyfriends but better grades and more accomplishments. It’s not a spoiler to say that Betsy ends this book vowing to do better next year, as she’s done the previous two books, but I’m tired of broken promises. I may read the next in the series, Betsy and Joe. Or maybe not.

[Melody · Rating 5 out of 5]

8/2015 stet

9/2012 As hard as this one is to read (because it rings so true) there are parts that I love as much as anything else in the series. This is the book which caused me to fall in love with Cab. And then the momentous scratching of the dance! And the postcard. There's a lot of growth in this book, and I love it though it's never going to be easy.

12/2009 This particular book makes me want to reach through the years and shake Betsy so hard her teeth chatter. She's lost nearly all the ground she gained in the first two years of high school, she's flitting from interest to interest, she's just not focused- and yet, and yet... I love her so. Also, in this volume we are introduced to that exciting specimen, the Perfectly Awful Girl- to wit:

"'Tony is suspended again,' Alice said.
'What happened?'
'I hate to say it, but I believe he came to school when he'd been drinking. He goes into the saloons sometimes with that fast gang he runs with.'
'He's going around with a perfectly awful girl.'"

But there is ultimately redemption:

"'I believe that's it,' she thought. 'And the bright side of it is that you never slip down to quite the point you started climbing from. You always gain a little...'"

Words to live by, indeed.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with the previous six books, this seventh Betsy-Tacy book was exceedingly well written.

Maud Hart Lovelace = a genius.

I can’t otherwise explain why I care so much about the characters and the story when I don’t give a hang about fashion or hairstyles or many of the other frequently mentioned things in the book/these books. I will admit the very, very, very frequently mentioned pompadour hairstyle ended up irritating me slightly.

Betsy and her crowd are growing up in a way that feels completely authentic. As I’ve said with earlier books in this series: there is not one false note.

I was warned by a couple of Goodreads friends that this was the hardest book in the series to read in terms of emotional distress, but I’m used to Betsy at this developmental stage now, so endearing but with many flaws and challenges too. For me the hardest to read by far was Heaven to Betsy because there was such a change in Betsy & Tacy & Company from Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown. I do feel particularly fond of the first four books, but once I got past most of the fifth book, I have also thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the series so far.

I am not a fan of sororities and found the main plot line about them interesting. I reveled in the quote at the top of (this edition's) page 205. (no spoilers if I don’t say anything about content)

I love the emotional warmth shown between friends and family members, and I appreciate Betsy’s good intentions, and found amusing such things as procrastinating about homework. Adolescence (at least a common experience of it) is captured so well. I had different experiences, but it all seemed somewhat familiar, for me at least secondhand if not firsthand. The food always sounds wonderful, including the foods I’ve never enjoyed, even as an omnivore. I also really enjoyed Betsy’s little sister Margaret in this book; it’s the first time she felt at all fleshed out as a character and I appreciated that.

I’m really not as fond of the illustrations by the illustrator who does these books as the illustrator who did the first four books, although that illustrator’s style would not fit the later books.

One thing, if you’ve read this far: For those Betsy-Tacy aficionados: Somebody please explain Joe & Phyllis to me. Why?! Thanks!

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel exhausted from all the parties in the book, and while reading, thought to myself, I'm really going to have to take a break before I start the next one. It feels kind of like a sugar overdose. But my fingers are already itching to reach for Betsy and Joe.

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of high school hijinks. I suspect instead of being like Betsy, I’m more like Betsy’s 10-year-old sister Margaret, who is all like, “I would like to throw my first party ever, and invite only my dog and my cat.”

But Betsy shows signs of really growing up by the end, and I’m interested in seeing where her story goes next. I think the final two books will be a nice payoff.

[Hailey Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

ASKLGKWRNBOIN I will never not be in love with Joe Willard.

REREAD SEPTEMBER 2022: The herbarium all nighter is forever my favorite! But man, the coming of age at the end of this one hits SO hard 😭😭😭

[Beth Bonini · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has been many years since I've read the older books in the Betsy-Tacy series - and by 'older,' I mean the books which focus on the characters' high school and adult years. This book, in particular, gave me such a jolt of recognition - and I realised that it had helped me form some of my ideas about things. I was never a 'crowd' person like Betsy is - nor did I ever like parties - so Betsy's intense joy in socialising was something that fascinated me, but I always identified more with her older sister. Julia was definitely not a crowd person and always had her sights set on a horizon past high school; she had ambitions, while Betsy had fun and the ability to live in the moment and really love her life. This book is quite difficult to read in some ways, and I think that most readers will feel frustrated with Betsy - but there is no emotional breakthrough (or 'epiphany') as satisfying as the one at the end of the book.

I've always been anxious about the line between being an inclusive crowd, and being cliquish, and in this story-line the author explores that line. When Julia comes back from university for her first family visit, she is full of enthusiasm for the idea of sororities - and she infects Betsy with her enthusiasm. Before long, Betsy (in typical imaginative style) has decided to form a sorority with her best friends at Deep Valley High. Tib has moved back to Deep Valley after a few years in Milwaukee, and they are particularly tight - often having 'soirees' with two other boys. As the year progresses, though, there is a high cost to this sororal exclusivity. Betsy lets various people in her life down, and she unwittingly alienates others. She acts very silly, and she squanders a lot of time on socialising that she had resolved to devote to her family, academics and self-improvement. The imperturbable, super-confident Julia also gets a check. Both girls experience some 'hard knocks', as her father describes them, and the wonderful thing about these books is both the parents (and the author) realise that sometimes the hard knocks are the ones that really allow you to grow. Something truly sobering happens to one of the members of the Crowd at the end of this book, and Betsy and Joe finally have a breakthrough moment.

Someone compared these books to the Harry Potter books, and I do see what she meant. Not only does each book follow the arc of a school year, but as the years go by the reader becomes a partner to both the friendships (so important to the plots) and the characters' growth process. If you only read one book, you deny yourself the pleasure - and really the whole point - of the reading experience.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

The seventh book in Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy~Tacy series - in which the youthful trials and tribulations of three Minnesota girls growing up in the early years of the twentieth century are detailed - Betsy Was a Junior (as the name would suggest) follows Betsy, Tacy and Tib through their third year of high school. There are changes aplenty, from Tib's return to Deep Valley and Julia's departure for University, to Betsy's creation of the Okto Delta sorority. Despite her list of plans, and her determination to make this her best school year ever, Betsy bungles it, neglecting her academic work, alienating much of the school, and even missing out on her third chance at the famed Philomathian/Zetamathian Essay Contest.

But although the story reads, in part, like a string of disasters (however entertaining), through all the ups and downs, some things remain constant. The strong ties of love and warm sense of home that characterize the Ray family, whether together or apart; the loyalty and camaraderie of Betsy's circle of friends, and their irrepressible sense of fun; and the essential goodheartedness of Betsy herself, who, though she does not always see the right way forward, is always on the lookout for it; are all here.

It is that, I think - that sense of the underlying goodness of people, even when their actions are less-than-kind, and not-so-admirable - that gives Betsy Was a Junior such emotional power. As someone with an interest in human rights, and an awareness of the ubiquity of their violation, I'm not sure I always believe in that goodness. As someone moreover, with few happy high school memories - yes, dissatisfaction with the high school experience seems to have become such a commomplace, that its expression feels almost redundant, but as with everything, there are degrees. I am, after all, a high school dropout - there is little in Betsy's school experience with which I can identify.

And yet... Lovelace makes me believe in the goodness of humanity. She makes me feel with Betsy, makes me see how easy it is, without ever intending it, to fall into the wrong way. Given who I am, that is an astonishing achievement.

[Katie Ziegler (Life Between Words) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just love these books so much. One of the things I find so astonishing is that this book takes place at the turn of the century and written not too much later - Betsy's parents not only encourage their girls to go to college but they expect them to. Granted in this book, Betsy's dad seems to tell Julia that he wants her to give up her singing and get married - but it seems to be coming from a place of concern rather than just hoping she gets an MRS. degree. Becoming an Opera singer is HARD, it was hard then and it's hard today, and he doesn't want to see her struggle and come up empty. But ultimately, he sends her to Europe to pursue her passion. I love that change of heart and that support from her mother and father.

I also love that we got a few more glimpses of Joe - I can't wait to see him more in the next book (it is called Betsy and Joe, after all). And I love the realness of Betsy's struggles. Every year she sets out goals for herself, and every year she seems to take two steps forward and one step back, just like we all do in life. She's lovable AND fallible, kind AND thoughtless, boy crazy and serious, and I love that about her. I do really hope that she FINALLY wins the essay contest next year. You can do it, Betsy!

[anise · Rating 5 out of 5]

why are my eyes leaking 😃 this is my third time reading betsy was a junior and it still holds up. I can’t describe in words how much I love this series and all the many colorful characters. (especially cab.) (mostly cab.)

2024 edit: anise was a junior! anise was sobbing! because CAB and the crowd will never be the same and everyone’s splitting off into separate directions…please stay young and foolish in deep valley forever

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This is one in the series I go a little back-and-forth on. Obviously I still like it, but I'm not quite sure I love it. Not even with this re-read. The Okto Delta thing still bothers me a little, even though I do realise this is something Betsy and her group needed to go through to see why or how it wasn't a very good thing to do.

I was never Tony's biggest fan. I know everyone else seems to love him dearly, but I never warmed to him the way I did to Cab and Dennie and the Humphreys in earlier books. The foreshadowing in this book, therefore, doesn't work too well for me.

But of course there are things I adore. Tib being back, the herbariums they finish in one night, Betsy realising they are all growing up because Cab's father passes away, etc. On the whole, though, this is not a favourite.

Betsy and Joe on the other hand...I've been looking forward to re-reading that one.

*Read: 11 December 2011, 11 February 2015

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

October 2023:

But all of them were growing up, Betsy thought intensely. They would never be quite so silly again. The foolish crazy things they had done this year they would do less and less frequently until they didn’t do them at all.

“We’re growing up,” Betsy said aloud. She wasn’t even sure she liked it. But it happened, and then it was irrevocable. There was nothing you could do about it except to try to see that you grew up into the kind of human being you wanted to be.

I love these books. ❤️

January 2021:
Another book chock-full of wonderfully warm, funny, touching moments with Betsy Ray and her delightful family and friends. I just love this series. If you haven't read it, I really think you should, no matter how old you are. It's been a long time since I read anything that made me feel so good or made me love the characters like they're dear friends.

[Marcy Wynhoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book where we have to watch Betsy as she buys into being popular, starts an exclusive sorority, ignores her best intentions, and finds out the hard way that "you ought not go through life, even a small section of life like high school with your friendships fenced in by snobbish artificial Barriers." And she and Joe have their first dance.YIPEE!!!
My favorite part though & flowers; then stay up all night trying to press and label each one, all for a botany project that they ignored all year long until it was due. Zalynn and I did exactly the same thing.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A discussion of what true friendship and realistic goals. With love, humor, and onion sandwiches in-between.

[Moriyah Cordova · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC

[Panda Incognito · Rating 4 out of 5]

This installment in the series has a stronger plot than some of the other books, and teaches Betsy lots of life lessons without making them too moralizing to the reader. I enjoyed the humor and realistic interactions throughout, and Betsy is less boy-crazy and significantly less appearance-obsessed in this book.

[Liz F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

EVERYONE should read this series at LEAST once. 😝💞

[Angie]

I picked this up at a library sale because my library didn't have this one of the series when I was kid. I forgot how much I liked these books. Still fun even though I'm not 7.

[Elizabeth Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked how this book changed tactics a bit from boys to other interests. Betsy still likes boys, but she does more than obsess about them. My littles who I've been reading this to are still in love with these books!

[Gayle Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe my favorite Betsy-Tacy so far.

Much talk about growing up.

"We're actually juniors," she said, "stopping in for coffee after shopping, not freshmen or sophomores pretending to be juniors stopping in for coffee after shopping."

"Betsy had the same uncanny feeling of being grown-up she had when she and Tacy and Tib drank their coffee at Heinz's. It couldn't be, she thought unbelievingly, that they were sitting in the Opera House at night, downstairs, with boys who had paid for their tickets! But they were."

Betsy writes out her resolutions at the beginning of her junior year: Stay at home more and take Julia's place around the house, learn the piano, be class officer in school, head up a committee for the junior-senior banquet, win the essay contest, and finally get Joe Willard to go out with her.
Well, as resolutions usually go, most of the plans go "aft agley."

Major mess-ups to the plan-Joe likes Phyllis this year. Betsy and her friends neglect an important biology assignment and stay up the entire night before it's due to try to turn something in. Betsy neglects to look after her little sister, resulting in singed eyelashes. Betsy embarrasses herself in front of the class by writing an unpleasant note about a teacher and getting caught. Betsy burns her hair with a curling iron right before a dance. Last, but not least, creating a sorority and then a fraternity, made up of her closest friends. This last foray into snobbishness costs Betsy a chairmanship on the junior-senior banquet committee, being the junior pick for the essay contest, and almost several friendships, including her old crush Tony, who abandons the crowd and starts to run with a wild bunch.

Betsy does some soul-searching at the end of the school year.

"All those resolutions she had made on Babcock's Bay! How they had been smashed to smithereens! She wondered whether life consisted of making resolutions and breaking them, of climbing up and slipping down. 'I believe that's it,' she thought. 'And the bright side of it is that you never slip down to quite the point you started climbing from. You always gain a little. This year I've gained music lessons, and all the things Miss Fowler taught me about writing, and a postal card from Joe.' That seemed funny to her and she laughed, but she grew serious again. She thought about those lists she had made in her programs for self-improvement. She hadn't followed them out by any means, but they had revealed her ideals."

"It came to her that there was more to growing up than drinking coffee at Heinz's"

"'We're growing up,' Betsy said aloud. She wasn't even sure she liked it. But it happened, and then it was irrevocable. There was nothing you could do about it except to try to see that you grew up into the kind of human being you wanted to be. 'I'd like to be a fine one,' Betsy thought quickly and urgently."

That's a good resolution.

[Kellyn Roth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so hilarious, maybe more so than the other Betsy-Tacy stories. Okay, maybe it's not funny for Betsy ... but to me it is! She seems to forget a lot of the hard-learned lessons from the last couple years. She gets into all kinds of trouble. Most of the time it doesn't end too disastrously (even if she does have to stay up all night pressing flowers), but sometimes it leads her to almost lose friends, such as with the Okto Deltas. She seems only focused on fun this year ... and of course she must learn a lesson from this!

Also, it's just so good to see Tib again! The trio just isn't a trio without her. And just because there are only two of them then ...

~Kellyn Roth, Reveries Reviews

[Crizzle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Again Moo and I found ourselves rooting against Betsy the whole time. There’s something we inherently love about an underdog, and Betsy is not that. Particularly abhorrent to us was the whole sorority business and excluding others. We cheered when it blew up in her face. We are getting tired of her learning almost the same lesson at the end of each of her high school years and promptly forgetting it. Highlights include Betsy burning her hair, Joe’s postcard, and the return of Tib. There were just a select few scenes which bring just Betsy, Tacy, and Tib together again, but I inwardly hang onto them as the rest is ridiculous teen stuff. Moo and I are annoyed at how spoiled Betsy and Julia are, and we’ve decided to move along to a different read-aloud.

[Susann · Rating 5 out of 5]

"She stood for some time with the card in her hand before she went upstairs."
I love that I don't consider this to be my favorite of the high school Betsy-Tacy books, but I still consider it worthy of a 5-star rating. Maud's superb writing always gives me new ideas to sort over. With this re-read, I mostly focused on the theme of transitions and growing up. And, for my first time, I paid attention to the song that Mamie Dodd plays when Betsy and Joe finally dance together: "The girl I'll call my sweetheart, Must look like you...." Awwww, Maud.

[Katie B-K · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are officially on the Betsy books that I KNOW I read, but I have ABSOLUTELY no recollection of anything that happens in them. Junior year finds Betsy acting ridiculously and Kiernan and I had just a spectacular time cheering for Betsy when she did something right and commiserating when she gets screwed unfairly and groaning and yelling at the book when she makes bad choices, which happens with reasonable frequency. I have come up with my own alternate melodies for the popular tunes of the turn of the 20th century and would be shocked to hear the real ones, I imagine, but there's a lot of singing.

. . . And OH the POSTCARD from JOE. Swoon.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book more than I thought I did. Also I cried.

[emma grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread 2/20/2019

April 28th, 2006. On an old reading list from 2006.

I have read this one many times since 2006, and maybe before that, but this was the first list I found it on....

[christine ✩]

i want to know why i find these books so much fun