Betsy Was a Junior/Betsy and Joe

"Some characters become your friends for life. That's how it was for me with Betsy-Tacy."—Judy Blume

With a Foreword by Meg Cabot

Maud Hart Lovelace’s beloved Betsy-Tacy series continues with Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe. Betsy hopes that junior year will be the best school year ever, especially now that her charming, funny and dear friend Tib Muller is back in Deep Valley. But when the Crowd gets into trouble, and she finds herself growing apart from friends like Tony, Betsy’s best year could turn out to be her worst.

Senior year starts out perfectly in Betsy and Joe, as the two born writers who’ve been kept apart by various misunderstandings finally start to “go together” with all the fun of their senior year ahead of them. But Betsy’s friend Tony, who needs the safe comfort of the Crowd to keep him out of trouble, has come calling as well—and his intentions are definitely romantic.

Featuring a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Meg Cabot, cover art illustrated by Vera Neville from the original 1947 publication of Betsy Was a Junior, interior illustrations by Neville, along with archival material and photos of Maud Hart Lovelace, her friends and the town of Mankato, MN, the basis for Deep Valley.

Many of places and homes from the books can still be seen today, including Betsy’s and Tacy’s childhood homes, which are available to tour thanks to the Betsy-Tacy Society.

Read all the books in the classic Betsy-Tacy series, which follows aspiring writer Betsy Ray and her friends from the age of five through to Betsy’s post-high school travel in pre-WWI Europe and her wedding, spanning the first decade of the 1900s and beyond. These iconic stories, based in large part on Maud Hart Lovelace’s own childhood, teenage years and young adulthood in Mankato (Deep Valley), MN have been beloved by generations of readers and authors alike:

The Betsy-Tacy Books
Betsy-Tacy
Betsy, Tacy and Tib
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
Also available in the four-volume omnibus The Betsy-Tacy Treasury
Heaven to Betsy/Betsy in Spite of Herself (two-volume omnibus)
Betsy Was a Junior/Betsy and Joe (two-volume omnibus)
Betsy and the Great World/Betsy’s Wedding (two-volume omnibus)

The Deep Valley Books (books about other characters in Betsy’s Crowd and town):
Carney’s House Party/Winona’s Pony Cart (two-volume omnibus)
Emily of Deep Valley