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    Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
    Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
    Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
    Ebook193 pages1 hour

    Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill

    By Maud Hart Lovelace and Lois Lenski

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    About this ebook

    Betsy, Tacy, and Tib can't wait to be ten. After all, getting two numbers in your age is the beginning of growing up—exciting things are bound to happen. And they do! The girls fall in love with the King of Spain, perform in the School Entertainment, and for the first time, go all the way over the Big Hill to Little Syria by themselves. There Betsy, Tacy, and Tib make new friends and learn a thing or two. They learn that new Americans are sometimes the best Americans. And they learn that they themselves wouldn't want to be anything else.

    Ever since their first publication in the 1940s, the Betsy-Tacy stories have been loved by each generation of young readers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 17, 2011
    ISBN9780061998294
    Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
    Author

    Maud Hart Lovelace

    Maud Hart Lovelace (1892-1980) based her Betsy-Tacy series on her own childhood. Her series still boasts legions of fans, many of whom are members of the Betsy-Tacy Society, a national organization based in Mankato, Minnesota.

    Read more from Maud Hart Lovelace

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    Reviews for Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill

    4/5

    167 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      In this, the third installment of the series, Betsy and her sister Julia have a huge quarrel, and the girls meet some new friends who help them realize how special America is. Another enjoyable addition to the Betsy-Tacy books.
    • 4/5
      The fun continues in this third installment of Maud Hart Lovelace's wonderful Betsy-Tacy series, which follows the adventures of three young girls - Betsy (Elizabeth) Ray, Tacy (Anastacia) Kelly, and Tib (Thelma) Muller - as they grow up in early twentieth-century Minnesota. In Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, the three friends celebrate their tenth birthdays, fall in love (all together) with the young King of Spain, and visit Little Syria - the colony of Lebanese immigrants just outside of Deep Valley.Lovelace's prose is deceptively simple, and the events she chronicles are rarely earth-shattering, but somehow the narrative she creates - of friends and family, of school-life and childhood play - is as compelling as it is heartwarming. I was particularly struck by the sub-plot involving Naifa and her family, who are so determined to be good Americans, and - given the autobiographical nature of the series - wondered if the author had a young Lebanese friend as a girl.All in all, I find that the more I read of Betsy, Tacy and Tib, the more I want to read! My only complaint thus far is that each story ends far too quickly!
    • 4/5
      Probably my favorite so far. These little girls certainly are growing up fast. They're more charming than cute now as they explore issues of patriotism, bigotry, vanity, and of course family and friendship. I love how all that comes through with grace and subtlety, and the best part of these stories is just the pleasure of reading about their adventures and joy.
    • 5/5
      I loved the description of the Syrians and the solution to the "princess problem."
    • 5/5
      9/2012 Oh, Bob Ray, how I love you. I always refer to my own father as "practically perfect" because he's not Bob Ray. I love this book almost as much as I love Bob Ray. Everyone's personality is here, foreshadowing so much (just like Tib!) though this time through I did wonder when Dave's mom got her hearing back.


      12/2009 This story finds Betsy, Tacy and Tib at ten years old. Their world is getting wider, and they are learning new things. This is the first time that the Lebanese settlement of Little Syria is mentioned in the series, and it's nicely done. Cultural differences are examined in a way that pre-teens will understand, and more importantly, care about. Relationships with elder siblings are handled with what appears to this only child to be truth and, well, beauty. Another lovely chapter in the Betsy-Tacy story.


      I don't know how to add the edition I have, which is the original, titled Over The Big Hill. It was later changed to Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill help people associate it with the series.
    • 5/5
      The third book in the series is just as fun. I don't really have too much to say about these books, because they're such quick and lovely reads. But I like their adventures and in some ways it makes me think of my grandmothers and what their lives growing up in Ohio might have been like.
    • 5/5
      Betsy, Tacy and Tib are old enough to go downtown on their own. The world awaits them! Betsy makes friends with a lonely rich lady whose husband owns the theater, and the trio also make friends with the girl whose father "knows everyone"--Winona. Together, the foursome enjoy a lighthearted view of life at the turn of the century--including the new wonder: the horseless carriage! One of an absolutely fabulous series of books!--Catherine

    Book preview

    Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill - Maud Hart Lovelace

    1

    Getting to Be Ten

    BETSY, TACY, AND TIB were nine years old, and they were very anxious to be ten. You have two numbers in your age when you are ten. It’s the beginning of growing up, Betsy would say.

    Then the three of them felt solemn and important and pleased. They could hardly wait for their birthdays.

    It was strange that Betsy and Tacy and Tib were in such a hurry to grow up, for they had so much fun being children. Betsy and Tacy lived on Hill Street which ran straight up into a green hill and stopped. The small yellow cottage where Betsy Ray lived was the last house on that side of the street, and the rambling white house opposite where Tacy Kelly lived was the last house on that side. They had the whole hill for a playground. And not just that one green slope. There were hills all around them. Hills like a half-opened fan rose in the east behind Betsy’s house. Beyond the town and across the river where the sun set there were more hills. The name of the town was Deep Valley.

    Tib didn’t live on Hill Street. To get to Tib’s house from the place where Betsy and Tacy lived, you went one block down and one block over. (The second block was through a vacant lot.) But Tib lived near enough to come to play with Betsy and Tacy. She came every day.

    They certainly have fun, those three, Betsy’s mother used to say to Betsy’s father.

    They did, too.

    Betsy’s big sister Julia played with Tacy’s sister Katie, but they didn’t have so much fun as Betsy and Tacy and Tib had. They were too grown-up. They were twelve.

    Betsy’s little sister Margaret, Tacy’s younger brother Paul, and Tib’s yellow-headed brothers, Freddie and Hobbie, had fun all right, but not so much fun as Betsy and Tacy and Tib had. They were too little.

    Going on ten seemed to be exactly the right age for having fun. But just the same Betsy and Tacy and Tib wanted to be ten years old.

    They were getting near it now. Betsy and Tacy were growing tall, so that their mothers were kept busy lengthening their dresses. Tib wasn’t as tiny as she used to be, but she was still tiny. She still looked like a picture-book fairy. The three girls had cut their hair when they were eight years old and didn’t know any better, but it had grown out. Tib’s curls once more made a yellow fluff around her little face. Tacy had her long red ringlets and Betsy had her braids again.

    When I’m ten, said Betsy, I’m going to cross my braids in back and tie them with ribbons.

    I’m going to tie my hair at my neck with a big blue bow, Tacy replied.

    "We can’t put it up in pugs quite yet, I suppose," Betsy said.

    But pretty soon we can, said Tacy. On top of our heads.

    Tib did not make plans like that. She never did.

    I only hope, she said, that when I get to be ten years old people will stop taking me for a baby.

    For people always thought that Tib was younger than she was. And she didn’t like it a bit.

    Tacy got to be ten first because her birthday came in January. They didn’t have many birthday parties at Tacy’s house. There were too many children in the family. Mrs. Kelly would have been giving birthday parties every month in the year, almost, if every child at the Kelly house had had a party every birthday. But when Tacy was ten, Betsy and Tib were invited to supper. There was a cake with candles on it.

    Tacy didn’t look any different or feel any different.

    But she knew why that was. Betsy and Tib weren’t ten yet.

    We’ll all have to get to be ten before it really counts, I suppose, Tacy said.

    Tib got to be ten next because her birthday came in March. Tib didn’t have a birthday party; she had the grippe instead. But she was given a bicycle, and her mother sent pieces of birthday cake over to Betsy and Tacy.

    And Tib didn’t look any different or feel any different. But she didn’t expect much change until Betsy got to be ten. And Betsy’s birthday didn’t come until April.

    Tacy and Tib didn’t say very much about being ten. They were too polite. They talked about presents and birthday cakes, but they didn’t mention having two numbers in their age. They didn’t talk about beginning to grow up until the afternoon before Betsy’s birthday.

    That afternoon after school they all went up on the Big Hill hunting for violets. It was one of those April days on which it seemed that summer had already come, although the ground was still muddy and brown. The sun was shining so warmly that Betsy, Tacy, and Tib pulled off their stocking caps and unbuttoned their coats. Birds in the bare trees were singing with all their might, and Betsy, Tacy, and Tib sang too as they climbed the Big Hill.

    They sang to the tune of Mine eyes have seen the glory, but they made up the words themselves:

    "Oh, Betsy’s ten tomorrow,

    And then all of us are ten,

    We will all grow up tomorrow,

    We will all be ladies then …"

    They marched in a row and sang.

    The Ekstroms, whose white house stood at the top of the hill, were out making a garden. It made them laugh to see Betsy, Tacy, and Tib marching along and singing. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib liked to make the Ekstroms laugh. They marched straighter and sang louder than ever.

    Marching and singing, they turned to the right and went through the twin row of beeches which they called their Secret Lane, and past the foundations of that house which had never been finished which they called the Mystery House. Still marching and singing, they went down through a fold of the hills and up again. But now they had sung until they were hoarse, and they burst out laughing and fell down on top of each other.

    When they were rested Tib stood up.

    We’d better get those violets, she said.

    But Tacy cried out, Look! We’ve come farther than we ever came before.

    Sure enough, they stood on a part of the hill which was new to them. Climbing a little higher, they left the trees behind and came out on a high rocky ridge. Below, spread out in the sunlight, was a strange wide beautiful valley. In the center were one big brick house and a row of tiny houses.

    That looks like Little Syria, said Tib.

    It can’t be! cried Betsy and Tacy together, for Little Syria was a place they went to with their fathers and mothers when out buggy riding on a summer evening. It was not a place one saw when one went walking.

    Yet this was certainly Little Syria.

    That big brick house is the Meecham Mansion, Tib said.

    It certainly was.

    Mr. Meecham had built it many years before, according to the story which Betsy and Tacy and Tib had often heard their fathers tell. He had come from the East and had bought all the land in this valley, calling it Meecham’s Addition. He had tried to sell lots there, but none of his American neighbors had wished to live so far from the center of town. At last he had sold his lots to a colony of Syrians, strange dark people who spoke broken English and came to Hill Street sometimes peddling garden stuff and laces and embroidered cloths.

    Angry and disappointed, Mr. Meecham lived on in his mansion among the humble houses of the Syrians. So did his wife until she died. And so did his middle-aged daughter. He was a tall old man with a flowing white beard and a proud scornful bearing. His team of white horses was the finest in the county; and it was driven by a coachman. Mr. Meecham and his daughter came to town in style, when they came, which was not often.

    Little Syria belonged to Deep Valley but it seemed as foreign as though it were across the ocean.

    And now here it lay, at the very feet of Betsy, Tacy, and Tib.

    The three of them stared down at it, and Betsy was thinking hard.

    Well, I’m surprised! said Tacy. I never knew we could walk to Little Syria.

    I’m not surprised, said Betsy.

    You’re not? asked Tacy.

    No, said Betsy. Remember I’ll be ten tomorrow. It’s the sort of thing we’ll be doing often from now on.

    Going to other towns? asked Tacy.

    Yes. Little Syria. Minneapolis. Chicago. New York.

    I’d love to go to New York and see the Flatiron Building, said Tacy.

    Tib looked puzzled.

    But Little Syria, she said, is just over our own hill. We didn’t know that it was. But it is.

    Well, we certainly didn’t find it out until today, said Betsy.

    We certainly never walked to it before, said Tacy.

    "That’s

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