Betsy, Tacy, and Tib have many adventures in the early Betsy-Tacy books. They love to climb the Big Hill, and sometimes they pretend to live there. In the first book, Betsy-Tacy, Betsy and Tacy bring their paper dolls “to life,” open a sand store, and turn an old piano box into a play house. In Betsy-Tacy and Tib, they expand industriously on this notion and build a small shelter out of wood in Tib’s basement. It is clear that the girls crave independence; to be as grown up as the actual grownups in their lives will allow.

In this vein, one of their most memorable escapades involves the invention, creation, and consumption of Everything Pudding — a mixture of literally every type of food that they can get their hands on in the kitchen one day. Flush with the excitement of being home alone for an afternoon and being allowed to use the stove and kitchen, the three girls decide that they want to create something extraordinary to eat. They want to make something that no one has ever thought to make before.

Betsy successfully argues (for Tacy and Tib nearly always defer to her stories and schemes) that the more foods that can be included in this dish, the better. So under Tib’s expert direction, they begin stirring together everything that they can find (bacon grease, sugar, milk, flour, raisins, coffee, tea, cornstrach, gelatine, soda, spices, an egg expertly broken by Tib) in a frying pan. Betsy dubs the concoction Everything Pudding, and they bravely serve it up and eat half a plate each. They toss the rest, and of course, feel quite ill later that night.

Cooking is a fun activity for children of any age! At the age of eight (the girls’ age in this book), children can begin following simple recipes, making salads, heating things up, and helping to plan the family meal. It’s a tactile, low-tech way to involve modern children in something fun, productive, and communal. It is also a great alternative to the increasingly common practice of children spending more and more time in front of a screen.

Betsy, Tacy, and Tib’s experiment would not have gone awry with proper supervision, of course, but they also would not have learned the lesson of Everything Pudding: that not all foods can be combined (Tib should have known this anyway!), that consulting recipes and directions makes sense, and that more of something is not always better. While most modern eight-year-olds are not given unsupervised access to a kitchen and permitted to cook in it, these lessons still hold. And they are most charmingly conveyed in this episode, which captures so much about the girls’ desires to be independent, original, and grown up.

—

For more on cooking with children, see: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/guide-cookery-skills-age

Betsy and Tacy meet Tib at the very end of Betsy-Tacy, but it is in Betsy-Tacy and Tib that the friendships flower, and the unit of two expands to include a third. Tib proves to be the perfect addition to the Betsy-Tacy duo. She ensures that Betsy and Tacy’s relationship will not become too insular, and she brings a welcome new energy to their lives. Exotically different but with a down-to-earth practicality, Tib enchants Betsy and Tacy, and brings a steady, grounding presence to their lives. In short (pun intended, for Tib is tiny!), Tib opens up their world.

Tib is German-American, the granddaughter of immigrants, and has had a very different upbringing than either Betsy or Tacy. Tib’s family instills in her a deep appreciation for heritage and a strong work ethic. Tib’s mother insists that she learn to cook, clean, and sew, even as a young child, while Tib’s father insinuates that she will someday be a “housewife” (p. 49, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993). Meanwhile, Betsy and Tacy have fewer domestic chores, and it is clear, even at this young age, that Betsy aspires to be a professional writer.

There are known benefits and challenges when a group of two friends becomes a group of three. Alliances are now possible, but so are new pathways for learning and understanding. Children in the modern age are exposed to so many things (bad and good) on TV, the internet, and social media, that is more important than ever that they form healthy, grounding, face-to-face friendships in which they can learn about other cultures, values, and lifestyles personally, directly. Now, just as one hundred years ago, managing the challenges of sustaining a group of three friends can help children develop critical skills of diplomacy and conflict resolution.

The friendship of Betsy, Tacy, and Tib serves as an excellent example of this. As we will see throughout the series, the girls respect and enjoy one another’s differences. They form deep, resilient bonds on the basis of those differences, not despite them. In fact, to correct the last sentence of the first paragraph in this post, the three of them open up one another’s worlds. Avoiding unnecessary alliances, supporting one another’s choices and preferences, they expand their collective horizons, and function beautifully and lovingly as a team greater than the sum of its parts.

—

On Tib’s German heritage, see: Claudia Mills. “Diversity in Deep Valley: Encountering the “Other” in the Betsy-Tacy Series.” Children’s Literature, vol. 32, 2004, p. 84-111. Project MUSE. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/chl.2004.0018.

During a one-month period when they are not allowed to play on the Big Hill (a punishment for having begged for food at the Ekstrom house atop the hill!), Betsy, Tacy, and Tib decide that they will learn how to fly. They begin by leaping off of relatively low-lying structures — a horse hitching block, a porch railing — while waving their arms in the air. “It feels just like jumping,” Tib comments, with trademark practicality. But the game gets scary and a lot more real when they size up the big maple in Betsy’s backyard and prepare to leap off its lofty lowest branch.

Tib and Tacy go first, with some trepidation, but when it is Betsy’s turn and she sees how far the branch is from the ground, she hesitates. Rather than jump, she begins to tell a story about three little girls who turned into birds. She spins one of her most charming tales, naming the birds Tibbin, Tacin, and Betsin, sending them flying through Deep Valley trees, hills, and clouds. When the birds’ mothers and siblings begin to weep with worry, the birds decide to change back into girls, which Betsy demonstrates by climbing down from the tree.

In a gorgeous book called The Woman Who Turned Children Into Birds, written by David Almond, illustrated by Laura Carlin, published in 2022, a magical woman transforms the children in town into all types of birds. The children experience the joys and freedom of flight. As in Betsy’s story, the parents are initially, and understandably, terrified. But as they begin to question their fears, they transcend them, and join their children in flight. For flight, it turns out, requires freedom from limitations that are often self imposed. And the sky above the town becomes a festival of color and song.

Later, Tib notes that in the course of telling the story, Betsy had forgotten to fly from the tree! Tacy, however, knows that it was no oversight. Betsy had been afraid to jump off of the branch and had invented the story as a distraction device, while Tacy and Tib had gamely taken the leap. As Tib makes a joke about Betsy having forgotten to take her turn to fly, Betsy looks over at Tacy, warily. But Tacy refuses to meet Betsy’s glance. She “was looking the other way hard” (p. 27, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993).

—

Source: Almond, D. 2022. The Woman Who Turned Children Into Birds. Penguin. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/716077/the-woman-who-turned-children-into-birds-by-david-almond-illustrated-by-laura-carlin/