The Betsy (and Eddie) Books, by Carolyn Haywood

The Betsy books, by Carolyn Haywood, were written between 1939 and 1986 for elementary school-aged girls. Haywood also wrote a series of books about a boy named Eddie and numerous "one-off" titles. The first book, "B" Is for Betsy, finds the title character about to start kindergarten. The books very much follow the school year/holiday calendar and each book is either one school year or one summer vacation.

The Betsy books communicate the ultimate American happy childhood of the mid-20th century. Nuclear family, dad working & mom at home, white people only (except for a few servants), traditional holiday celebrations, mild dramas with happy resolutions. The parents are benevolent and infinitely understanding; teachers perky and young; friends loyal. The household pets are the most entertaining and several chapters revolve around animal escapades. Betsy's friend Billy's dog is always getting something sticky dumped on him or rolling in something and the kids' efforts to clean him up always add to the mayhem. Read the chapter where the bottle of molasses gets knocked over and drips all over the dog. Another time it is pancake batter.


These books, are episodic and fast-paced and thoroughly enjoyable. Betsy has age-appropriate milestones (losing a tooth, acquiring a baby sister) and learnings (she is no longer top in her class), but they are episodes, not considered to be life crises. The books are happy and sunny and very funny. There is no real story arc.

I delight in the fact that these books (except for their utter blissfulness) are written for children, not for adults reading for children. When you are a kid, you don’t think of your life in a story arc. Breakthroughs rush toward you like waves on a beach. I think kids would really like this book. And, I reflect, adults only pretend to see their lives as having a story arc, or see the arc in hindsight and over-interpret it. The analyzed life is not the norm—it’s only the norm among book readers and writers, I think. The book readers and writers create and perpetuate a weird norm and then think everyone lives like we do!

In other books, Betsy has a watermelon party, takes a sleigh ride with Santa, enjoys various mild crises that her mild parents always turn into gentle learning experiences. Things work out for Betsy. Wrongs are righted, disappointments redeemed. The saving grace of these otherwise insipid books is the humor. The episodes are comic and the responses are variously stupid and clever (with mom and dad always ready—with the garden hose in some cases).

In addition to the element of humor, Haywood's characters are fun and likable. Although the books as a whole are pretty goody-two-shoes, the children themselves are not. They develop jealousies, make mistakes, misunderstand each other, and have the occasional hissy fit. In one book, an angry boy plays a prank on Betsy. She thinks Billy did it and starts to shun him. The crisis is resolved gently and all is forgiven. The lesson given was that you should judge by what you know about a person, not by a single incident...pretty mild. Still, the children came through as authentic--children you'd like to know.

I am concerned, though, that Betsy's world is so well drawn that kids might think it is how life is or should be. As amusement it is great, but as reality it is a bit ridiculous. Not all boo-boos (of the heart as well as body) are so easily healed or healed at all. Still, I am eager to be amused by more of the books in this series as soon as I can find them. And, the children's books that try to incorporate realism don't always work...I can easily view the Betsy books as as kind of fairy tale, fables, inculcators of community pro-social values. In that sense, they truly do their work.


A Betsy Bibliography
I used a patchwork quilt of sources to put together a sequence of the Betsy books--many of the books have been re-issued, so they have multiple publication dates. To the best of my effort, the Betsy books include the following:


"B" Is for Betsy--book 1, 1939
Betsy and Billy--book 2, 1941
Back to School with Betsy--book 3, 1943
Betsy and the Boys--book 4, 1945
Betsy's Little Star--book 5, 1950 (found 1959 also)
Betsy and the Circus--book 6, 1954
Betsy's Busy Summer--book 7, 1956
Betsy's Winterhouse--book 8, 1958
Snowbound with Betsy--book 9, 1962
Betsy and Mr. Kilpatrick--book 10, 1967
Merry Christmas from Betsy--book 11, 1970
Betsy's Play School--book 12, 1977


The Eddie Books
Carolyn Haywood's other famous series is the Eddie books. The pattern is the same, but Eddie is funnier--he's a bit eccentric, like if you combined Beaver Cleaver and Alex Keaton. My review of these Eddie books from a couple of years ago shows that my evaluations of the Betsy books hold true--likable characters, humor, and lots of animals carry the stories.

Eddie and Gardenia

Seven-year-old Eddie’s rascally goat Gardenia gets sent off to a ranch in Texas—she has chewed up one too many valuable items in the Wilson household. Eddie goes with Gardenia and is introduced to ranch life. This is a fun book, if a bit slow. Knowledge about Texas and ranches is placed didactically in the mouths of characters who otherwise say only, “sure,” “you bet,” and “howdy.” But the second half of the book is fine, when Eddie sets out on his own adventure, through which he finally earns his spurs as a real cowboy.

Eddie and his cousin Georgie are enthusiastic and enjoy roaming the range as much as the cattle, goats, and sheep. The adults are caring but allow the boys lots of freedom. They hit two major crises—the truck gets stranded in a rainstorm, and Gardenia must be rescued from a thorn bush.

It’s the relationship between Eddie and Gardenia that animates and fulfills this book. They are both likable and lively and devoted to each other. This is the first Haywood book I’ve read. There are many more Eddie books. I hope to be able to locate them and add them to this list.

Eddie’s Happenings

I think the title of this book is a nod to the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when “happenings” began happening. A school year is the background of this book, and it centers around a calendar of obscure events that Eddie’s friend finds. They celebrate all sorts of strange stuff. The book ends in February, with a triumphant winning of the Washington’s Birthday pageant.

This book is light and fun.  A troubled character, Tookey, is introduced. He has a hard time with when to pretend and when not to. The issue is handled very matter-of-factly, which is refreshing in these days of sensitivity training and self-esteem exercises. Accepting friendship is the main solution. I enjoyed this. The book ends abruptly, as did the Gardenia book. I wonder if I read them in order if the time line would be continuous.

Style

I enjoyed discovering the various covers for the Betsy books. They are a real history of American design. I picked the best image available and didn't try to be consistent. You can see the chubby child images of the forties and fifties giving way to the well-adjusted sixties and seventies child giving way to photography. Interesting.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare

At its most basic, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare, follows the pattern of a fairy tale. The main character is forced to wander from her home, enters a world where all the rules are different and strange (to her), undergoes trials and tests, grows up a lot, then resolves it all in a happily-ever-after marital conclusion.

The fairy tale ending was a bit disappointing, given the imaginative setting and wonderful characterizations of this book, but seems appropriate for a book published in 1958. In fact, for 1958, the hero of this book is wonderfully imagined--her inner life is rich and she faces the epic conflicts of all great heroes--sacrifice vs. safety, self vs. community, self vs. family, right vs. wrong, freedom vs. duty, and so many more. This book reads as current--I had many ideas as to when it was written. It's a fine book--interesting and, in the best sense, sweet.

Blackbird Pond follows Kit Tyler as she flees her home in Barbados--colorful, urban, lush--and arrives in cold and stony colonial Connecticut, home of her only living relative, an aunt. The discovery of the New England landscape, its charms and perils, is one key feature of the book. A second key feature is Kit's introduction to the culture of Puritanism in the 1680s--diametrically opposite to almost all she has been taught. The third key feature is Kit's submersion in self-subsistance (work, in other words). These three strands are interesting all in themselves. Seeing the landscape, culture, and work through Kit's new eyes illuminated it for me, made the Puritan period way more three-dimensional than I had viewed it before.

And then there's witchcraft. Kit is first suspected of being a witch as her ship from Barbados comes into port. A child drops her doll into the water and Kit jumps in and swims out to get it. Scandalous. People in New England, apparently, do not swim. Kit, if she fears not the water, might be a witch. Witches float. Kit is a peculiar bird in the Connecticut aviary. For example, she has no work clothes, she can't cook or sew, and she doesn't understand silent obedience. Against her uncle's direct order, Kit develops a relationship with an old woman considered to be a witch in the community, which casts yet more suspicion upon her. The old woman is a Quaker (another peculiar bird).

Anyway, Kit's characteristics put her at odds with the community; her actions put her and others in danger. The fairy tale ending is a bit of a cop out because Kit's marriage will remove her from the Puritan community and give her back most of the freedoms she had been denied. So, did she change and grow? Yes. And this is a children's book, so a portrayal of a lifetime as a questionable outsider is not feasible. I just worry that the fairy tale ending short circuits Kit as a true hero in the hero journey sense. The book is weakened by this, I think, made ordinary when it could have been great.

I don't think I've ever read a book set in this time period before, depicting village life in a Puritan community. It is interesting to see the seedlings of independence being sown, grown, and nurtured. The Puritans feared they would lose their autonomy when Charles II restored the British monarchy and actively prepared to resist. I never understood that before...that tradition of self-determination. And I never understood that Puritans and Quakers pretty much hated each other, resulting in severe persecution of Quakers. Kit's friend in the story had been branded.

This book is a Newbery Medal winner for good reason. You'll feel, like I did, like you've traveled through time and space to an alien land where the shape of the nation to come is just beginning to emerge.