If you haven’t yet discovered Maud Hart Lovelace and her Betsy-Tacy series, this is the perfect month to start!

A Library is a Hospital is again sponsoring the annual “Betsy-Tacy Reading Challenge” for the month of October. All you have to do is commit to reading at least one of the Betsy-Tacy books …. either to yourself or with your kids!

A few years ago when the powers that be at HarperCollins started reintroducing the books we delved into the adventures of Betsy and Tacy as a family read-aloud unit, reading Betsy-Tacy, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Hill .

Back then, I re-read all ten books in the series. I love how the books get progressively harder in their reading difficulty. As Lovelace developed her characters however, they tend more toward being girl-only books. Result: the boys stopped wanting to hear the further adventures of Betsy and Tacy in their small Minnesota town but Kit really loved reading all about Mankato and the families and friends.

I want to turn other girls on to the delights of these “older Betsy” books (Betsy in high school and beyond). In planning for this year’s St. Brigid’s club, I knew I wanted to include one of Lovelace’s books. In January, we’ll start reading Betsy and the Great World. Since I need to pre-read it anyway, that’s the one I’m committing to for the month of October. But I’ll also add Betsy’s Wedding to the reading table as that is such a delightful book and finishes off the series so nicely!

Wanna join the challenge? Head on over to Sarah M’s blog and sign up … she’ll be having giveaways (including the newly published first four-stories-in-one volume this week) and lots of nattering back and forth about Betsy and Tacy and their families and their friends and their hometown of Mankato, Minnesota!