These included books in a series like The Chronicles of Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, and books that were geared specifically for girls: Nancy Drew, Anne of Green Gables, Sweet Valley High, Trixie Belden, The Girls of Canby Hall, and the Betsy-Tacy books. In my essay, “ Betsy, Tacy, Sejal, Tib,” I wrote about growing up South Asian American-which really meant growing up Gujarati in the 1980s-and I wrote about the books I loved as a child and those I came back to again.

Recommended by Rebecca Quackenbush, MODG Communications Supervisor and mother of four young girls.Do you remember the YA books you read when you were in middle school? In some ways, I never got over them. Read the Betsy-Tacy books aloud to your children and get ready to enter with them into the simple joys and struggles of childhood. They will also relate to the girls’ experience of the “annoying big sisters” Julia and Katie and how even though they are often frustrating, they always come to your rescue when you need help. Young children will see how Betsy and Tacy’s parents hold them to high standards and give them consequences (and real love) when they don’t live up to those standards. Betsy and Tacy both have siblings and often they are a part of the fun since the girls frequently have to take care of them. Young children will immediately relate to Betsy and Tacy’s excitement around wholesome everyday life events like birthday parties, imaginary worlds, picnic lunches, games with neighborhood friends, learning how to fly, and much more. This provides an opportunity for the child to imagine children who are like him in most ways despite differences in environment. Although some aspects of the setting will be unfamiliar to the modern child, the simple joys and disappointments of childhood will not.

Betsy and Tacy have all sorts of adventures and get into all sorts of trouble, all within their small-town, simple life. The books tell the stories of everyday life of best friends Betsy and Tacy in small-town Minnesota at the turn of the 20th century. The Betsy-Tacy books are wonderful classics for young children, and especially for young girls. Betsy-Tacy, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill,and Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown are from the MODG First Grade Supplemental Reading List

Betsy and tacy books