There is a part, in Betsy in Spite of Herself, when everyone in Betsy Ray's Deep Valley High School class is required to read Ivanhoe over the summer. Betsy is one of the few who has, but when she sits down to write a synopsis of the novel, she is so overcome by her desire to do it full justice that she chokes and doesn't manage to complete the assignment. I feel her. This is exactly the feeling I have sitting down to put my thoughts on Maud Hart-Lovelace's series into words.

This feeling about the books - which start when Betsy's 5 and follow her through her early 20s and the beginning of World War I - is not unique to me. Perhaps because you grow up with them, age along with the characters and the writing, the affection you feel for the world of the books is very intense. It's also an intensely appealing universe; the autobiographical stories are set in a a world of happy families, safe streets, and a tight circle of friends known as The Crowd.

A lot of writers have talked about how meaningful Betsy-Tacy was to them growing up. In fact, the new editions, which properly classify the books as "modern classics" and are beautiful and dignified and almost make one forget the treacly atrocities of the past decade's children's edition, feature prologues by Anna Quindlen, Meg Cabot, and Laura Lippmann. All the women talk about the fact that, although she is growing up in the early 20th Century, Betsy always assumes - as does her supportive family - that she will have a career. Sure, she likes boys and fashion, but there's never any question that she'll have an independent life as a writer and world-traveler, just as her sister will become a professional singer and they'll all go to college.

And Betsy is a great heroine: relatable, complex, smart but prone to errors of judgment and famously bad at math. The Crowd, as one friend told me, shaped her idea of teenage life - and she was forever disappointed that she wasn't able to find such a cohesive, supportive group of friends. Because the way friendship is portrayed - between girls, and between the sexes - is really nice. There's rarely jealousy or pettiness or back-stabbing, despite the fact that the characters feel real (as, if you read The Betsy-Tacy Companion you'll find they all are.) The author was clearly someone who loved people and loved life, and this comes through. This is also probably why the books are particularly wholesome to read at a young age - although make no mistake, they hold up, and there's no better comfort read. Betsy and Joe is my particular poison, although I also have a fondness for the spin-offs Carney's House Party and Emily of Deep Valley. Comforting, yes - and by the way, the food and clothes descriptions are great - but also inspiring. I've joined the Betsy-Tacy Society, and I want to go to Mankato someday and see the author's real house. But in a way, these early loves are always personal, and even as it's wonderful to share them with fellow nerds, you know that your relationship with Betsy is special. Read - or re-read - for yourself, but I've tried to, well, "hit the high spots."

The Heroine: Pam Pomeroy, feisty brunette journalism major with an interest in current events. Pam is highly efficient and wears "dark-rimmed, oversized glasses." (Yay!)
The Industry: Pam comes onboard the campaign as a sort of girl-Friday, working on speeches, press, image and every other facet of the race. She also becomes the resident expert on environmental concerns

The Hero: Red-haired, leontine young state senator Lex St. John, who has an idealistic interest in environmental issues and wants to break the political mold. "For too long there's been this image of the southerner in public office - long hair, string tie, the old colonel, suh, concept - that's existed mostly in the minds of northern urban liberals." Whereas Lex St. John is a reformer!

The St. Johns' measure will mark this state as a commonwealth concerned with clean air, pure water, and preservation of our priceless marshlands. This year we can take that first step back toward living in the kind of environment the Creek Indians knew when their heartland stretched along our river valley, when their sacred 'holy-ground', the source of their spiritual and material refreshment, lay richly in the salt marshes and estuaries, the shorelines of our coastal areas. We can go back, we must go back, if we are to go forward together.

The Cast: Pam lives with glamorous, blonde Caroline, a possible romantic rival who ends up with another state senator. In addition, there's Phil Zienta, the campaign's patronizing P.R. guy, whose respect Pam has to earn; some millionaire who funds everything; and Pam's down-to-earth widowed mother.

The Villain: The Sills Syndicate, a mobbed-up developer who wants to build on the waterfront and put a landfill on the coastline.
The Plot: Pam's initially a typist in a steno pool, when a chance encounter with Lex St. John impresses the senator, who's been looking for someone "with a flair for words, a sense of the dramatic, a dash of decision, initiative, integrity - and all this, combined with a knowledge of the Washington scene." They form a team and Pam develops feelings for her boss. "She'd take her chances, doing everything she could to get Lex elected, and try not to inject the personal angle at a time when he needed every thought, every energy, every purpose, to get elected." This includes putting together a homespun grassroots campaign, with a homey campaign headquarters called "the Store" decorated with antique rocking chairs, to emphasize Lex's down-to-earth candidacy. Quickly the principled Lex makes enemies in high places, which eventually leads to his kidnapping in an attempt to keep him away from a crucial vote on an environmental bill. With Pam leading the charge, his team manages to find and rescue Lex, bring down corruption and make sure virtue prevails. In an attempt to throw her off the scent, heavies knock Pam down with a car; she's banged up but undaunted, and all ends with Lex confessing his love, proposing, and, one assumes, a flourishing political partnership.

Distinguishing Details: Caroline on smoking: "I'd had this little cough and my doctor ordered me to quit. He asked how many I smoked a week, and I said maybe two packs. That funny man suggested I cut down to six cigarettes."
-Pam wears numerous knit frocks, most notably a "shrimp-colored polyester knit" with matching pumps and cardigan.