But, it also led to a world of imagination, both between the pages and elsewhere, where kids ruled the world, and could do whatever they damned well pleased. Did it make for a less thrilling childhood experience? Probably. What was wrong with being a goody-goody? As a child who hated getting in trouble, I did whatever was necessary to keep the adults happy, and never once saw the inside of the principal's office. Stand up for Betsy, and risk possible exclusion from future horsey rides, or suck it up, and remain silent? I suppose I mumbled something along the lines of 'Well, I like them, anyway.' If it hadn't been for the 'horse thing,' I might have let her have it. But, then again, she was also the only girl I knew who actually had a horse - a real, live honest-to-goodness horse, so I had to tread carefully there. Betsy is too goody-goody.' Leda was a new girl who, in my opinion, needed to show more deference to a gal like me who'd spent her entire public school career (thus far) at Crestview Elementary. saw me checking out one of the 'Betsy' books in the school library, and sniffed, 'I don't like them. In fact, I nearly had my very first literary argument over these books. I know I read some of the books in this series when I was in the eight to ten-year-old age range. Maud once stated that the three couldn’t have been closer if they’d been sisters.

Maud, Bick, and Midge became lifelong friends. Tib’s character was based on another playmate, Marjorie (Midge) Gerlach, who lived nearby in a large house designed by her architect father. 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. Shortly before Maud’s fifth birthday a “large merry Irish family' moved into the house directly across the street. When Maud was a few months old, the Hart family moved two blocks up the street to 333 Center. The street, Center Street, dead-ended at one of the town’s many hills.

Maud’s birthplace was a small house on a hilly residential street several blocks above Mankato’s center business district. “That dear family' was the model for the fictional Ray family. Her sister, Kathleen, was three years older, and her other sister, Helen, was six years younger. She was the middle of three children born to Thomas and Stella (Palmer) Hart. Maud Hart Lovelace was born on April 25, 1892, in Mankato, Minnesota.

Betsy and tacy books in order