Mainstreet Radio’s Rachel Reabe profiles Maud Hart Lovelace and her Betsy-Tacy books, which present nostalgic stories about growing up in turn-of-the-century Mankato. As part of report, Reabe talks with Louise King and Kathy Baxter, of the Twin Cities based Maud Hart Lovelace Society, about the resurgence in interest of ten book series.
King and Baxter say Lovelace is able to make the stories come alive because they're about real people and real events.
RACHEL REABE: The Betsy-Tacy books are sweet, nostalgic stories about growing up in turn of the century Mankato. Although they enjoyed modest popularity when first published in the 1950s, the 10 book series written by Maud hart Lovelace was on its way to extinction. Most of the titles were out of print. Those that remained on library shelves were largely gathering dust, pushed aside by contemporary children's literature or classics whose popularity was fueled by television series or movies.
But a group of fans joined together to fight for the survival of the Betsy-Tacy books. Louise King, president of the Twin Cities based Maud Hart Lovelace Society, says the themes in the 50-year-old books will never go out of style for young people.
LOUISE KING: This is about friendship and learning to find your own way to the things that you really want to do, making the right choices and suffering the consequences when you don't. They're just really good books. She writes beautifully.
RACHEL REABE: The books chronicle the author's life in a town she calls Deep Valley. Louise King says Maud Hart Lovelace is able to make the stories come alive because they're about real people and real events.
LOUISE KING: And my mother grew up there, and she was a bosom friend of Maud Hart Lovelace. I knew all these people. I knew almost all the characters in the Betsy-Tacy books. Mother talked about them. They were friends forever. And mother talked about-- Of course, I knew them by their real names.
RACHEL REABE: In 1992, a handful of fans planned a Maud Hart Lovelace gala at a Twin Cities bookstore. Organizer Kathy Baxter says she was flabbergasted when almost 500 people showed up.
KATHY BAXTER: It was just incredible. It's just been a heady, heady experience, the whole thing.
SPEAKER 1: It was very crowded.
[LAUGHTER]
Very crowded. People were, what's going on here. What is going on. And not knowing who is Maud Hart Lovelace, what's going on. It was just absolutely phenomenal.
KATHY BAXTER: So we were flying high and we just got hundreds of members literally at that point.
RACHEL REABE: Baxter, a children's librarian in Anoka, fell in love with the Betsy-Tacy books as a youngster in the '50s. She says she was delighted to find other Lovelace fans. Concerned their beloved books were slipping out of print, the newly formed group launched a letter writing campaign to encourage publisher HarperCollins to reissue the books. They gathered additional members in cyberspace with their own Betsy-Tacy web page and an electronic mail exchange group. Baxter turns to the computer at the Anoka County Library to check on the daily accumulation of messages about Betsy and Tacy.
KATHY BAXTER: OK, here we go. Sherry Green just in North Carolina. I think she asked for a book to give a 10-year-old friend, boy. And see, this is the travel editor of The Washington Post asking this question.
[CHUCKLES]
OK. That was the information I wanted. And here's Allie, who lives in Queens, New York, literary places.
RACHEL REABE: HarperCollins responded to their enthusiasm by reprinting the first eight books in the series. The final two books will come out this year. Editor Jeanie Soh says it wouldn't have happened without the support of the Maud Hart Lovelace Society.
JEANIE SOH: It's been very helpful to me to just as a publisher to know that there is a base of fans out there who are spreading the word about the books and creating, helping us to create the audience that's going to buy the books. I would say they are unusual in that they're very savvy and they're very targeted and they're very aware of marketing and publicity and what goes into to getting the books out there.
RACHEL REABE: So says the series has also been helped by renewed interest in nostalgic literature, books about times long past when families were close and loving.
JEANIE SOH: They are wonderful, classic stories and are just wonderful reads, the kind of reads that little girls love to cozy up with, and that they have the kind of characters that little girls just kind of become friends with and are kind of loathe to leave, I think which is why the series has been so enduring for us.
RACHEL REABE: The challenge now for the Maud Hart Lovelace Society is selling a whole new generation of readers on the Betsy-Tacy books to ensure their survival. The group's 400 members have purchased truckloads of new paperback books, offering them below cost to be donated to. schools and libraries. Although many of the libraries still have original copies of the Betsy-Tacy series, the hardback books are mostly drab and dog eared.
At the Baxter Elementary School in Central Minnesota, librarian TyAnne Guida Rezac says young readers much prefer paperback books. She tests her theory with a table of fourth grade girls holding up the library's original Betsy-Tacy book, which hasn't been checked out since 1979, and a brand new Betsy-Tacy paperback with a colorful cover.
TYANNE GUIDA REZAC: Girls, which one do you think you'd be more likely to check out?
SPEAKER 2: The paperback.
TYANNE GUIDA REZAC: Can you maybe explain why you're more attracted to this one versus this one?
SPEAKER 2: Well, it looks a lot more interesting with the pretty cover on it.
SPEAKER 3: It's newer, it has better color, and it's not ratty.
SPEAKER 4: It looks more interesting.
RACHEL REABE: The Maud Hart Lovelace Society is also distributing posters across the country featuring the Betsy-Tacy series. Kathy Baxter says if they can get kids to check out the books, they will fall in love with Betsy and her friends.
KATHY BAXTER: These books should not be lost. It would be just terrible to see them go, to see them just go into the limbo where books are that nobody reads anymore, nobody reads except nostalgic adults. And what is the use of that? That's fine, but the nostalgic adults are a dying breed. We need to create new fans.
RACHEL REABE: HarperCollins says the books are selling better than they'd hoped, and the long term prognosis for the series is positive. But the Maud Hart Lovelace Society is continuing their efforts to build a new generation of fans one reader at a time. I'm Rachel Reabe for Mainstreet Radio.
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