I am directing an exciting new multi-year project at Rutgers aimed at researching, analyzing, and preserving author Maud Hart Lovelace’s classic children’s / young adult historical fiction, the Betsy-Tacy book series. Represented at the http://digitalbetsytacy.com project site, key moments from these books are paired with and compared to modern practices and phenomena, as we consider how the books speak to and relate to life in a digital society. The project also probes, in a larger sense, the experience and value of revisiting literature and media from one’s childhood. The Digital Betsy-Tacy Project was publicly launched at the Betsy-Tacy Convention in Mankato, MN in October, 2025. 

The Betsy-Tacy books provide a fascinating glimpse into life in the late 1890s and early 1900s in a small midwestern town. Written and published in the middle of the prior century, they are based on the author’s experiences with her parents, sisters, and a crowd of friends, all of whom are represented in the books, with names and some personal characteristics altered. Remarkably, the books reveal that much about life, love, and friendship remains the same today as a century ago.

Lovelace writes with progressively more sophisticated language, tone, and narrative as the children age throughout the series. The first book, Betsy-Tacy, has the simplest structure, and is for grade school children. As Betsy and her friends grow older, their relationships deepen, along with the situations and challenges they face. The later books take the characters through high school and into adulthood and even Betsy’s Wedding (the last in the series), and are written for a young adult / adult audience.

Many themes are threaded through the series and through Betsy’s life, including: the centrality of friendship and family to a person’s wellbeing; the value of independent thought and action, especially for women; the soul-enriching pleasures of writing, music, and travel; and the importance of planning, discipline, adaptability, loyalty, spirituality, and staying true to oneself in a life well and fully lived.

As a lifelong devotee of these “tomes,” as they are affectionately referred to by Lovelace’s legions of admirers, overseeing this project is a labor of love. We’ll surface interesting insights, moving moments, wit, wisdom, and lessons of all kinds. Ideally, the Digital Betsy-Tacy Project will make a substantive contribution to the examination of Maud Hart Lovelace’s brilliant, beautiful Betsy-Tacy world, and the reach and significance of the tomes will be enhanced and preserved in ways that speak directly to new generations of readers, including my students at Rutgers.