Betsy, 2009

I've been reading "B" Is for Betsy to Beth. It's our first foray into a chapter book (other than Ursula LeGuin's Tom Mouse, which is a picture book/chapter book hybrid and is perfectly delightful), and since it was one of my favorites as a kid, well....

She loves it.

I'm realizing just how old that book is! I remember thinking as a kid in the 1970s that it was old-fashioned — maybe written about the time my mom was in school — but it's older than that. Betsy started first grade in 1939, which puts her a year ahead of my dad in school.

And yet...we live in a town where it's perfectly plausible that a little girl would walk past a flower shop and a railroad station to get to school.