Hello and welcome to See Girl Read, a site that I hope will become the definitive resource for girls, their parents, and the young at heart. I was an avid reader as a child, and the books that I read defined my development and world view. Books took me to far away places and places close to home. They showed me what life could be like, and what life was like for others. They were my constant companions on the playground and through the awkward middle school years. Sometimes they …
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Before Gail Carson Levine wrote The Princess Tales or the Disney Fairies series (actually, before she wrote anything published) she wrote Ella Enchanted. The retelling of the classic Cinderella story was published in 1997, and received a Newbery Honor the following year. I happened to be in the fifth grade that year (I’m dating myself here), and I remember vividly the book report I completed. The assignment was to create my own book cover out of a cereal box. I had just gotten Ella Enchanted at my school’s Scholastic Book …
When I think of books that are old, lifelong friends, I think of the Betsy-Tacy series. Written by Maud Hart Lovelace as a semi-autobiographical remembrance of life in the early 1900s, the books are a glimpse of simpler, happy times, when girls didn’t mind wearing corsets and every Sunday night was a sandwich party.
The ten-book series follows Betsy from five years old through marriage, and begins with Betsy-Tacy, wherein our heroine meets her lifelong friend and kindred spirit, Tacy Kelly.
Five-year-old Betsy Ray lives in Deep Valley, Minnesota with Papa, Mama, …
