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    B is for Betsy
    B is for Betsy
    B is for Betsy
    Audiobook1 hour

    B is for Betsy

    Written by Carolyn Haywood

    Narrated by Stina Nielsen

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    School can be kind of scary for someone who is just starting, but Betsy is trying very hard to be brave. It turns out that school is not what she thought it would be-school can be fun! She makes lots of new friends, her teacher is really nice and the classroom is bright and sunny. She learns something new all the time and throughout the school year there are many surprising adventures waiting for her. Author Carolyn Haywood has penned more than 40 books, including this American classic, in which children have found familiar characters and predicaments.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJan 15, 2008
    ISBN9781440796470
    Author

    Carolyn Haywood

    CAROLYN HAYWOOD (1898-1990) was a native of Philadelphia. One of America's most popular authors of children's books, she published her first book, "B" Is for Betsy, in 1939, and wrote more than forty books in all. Many of her own childhood experiences can be found in her novels.

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    Reviews for B is for Betsy

    4/5

    68 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is a delightful book made even more so by the narration of Stina Nelson. It chronicles a little girl's year in first grade from the first day to going to spend the summer on her grandfather's farm. So many wonderful characters round out the stories who you feel as if you know by the end. The story hearkens back to simpler times but is nevertheless full of charm and warmth. Girls ages 5-9 would most enjoy this book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This is a perfectly simple and easy book for young children. Nothing special, but a solid school-and-everyday-life story.I just have one problem with it, and that's chapter four, where they learn about How The Indians Lived.Now, before I go further, I think I'll address some of the usual complaints here. No, I don't believe the author intended to be inaccurate or offensive. No, I don't believe you're a bad person if this is a beloved book from your childhood and you read it with your kids in the same way that your grandmother used to read it to you when you were sick. Yes, I am aware that this book was written in a different time.However, we're not reading this book to children 60 years ago, we're reading it to children today. And even though the author probably didn't intend to say anything rude, she actually did.Now, I'll give credit where it's due. Carolyn Haywood was careful to have the students in her book learn that the Native Americans were not one monolithic group that all live the same way. We're told that they learn that "some lived" in this sort of home and others lived in that sort of home and others still lived in a third sort of home.This is all well and good. However, this emphasis on the past is the sort of thing that gives children the impression that the Native Americans all generously went away in the past and there aren't any left... or that there ARE some left, still living the way they did 500 years ago. If it were just this one book, that wouldn't matter, but virtually every time children see Native Americans in the media that's the message they get, and that's a problem. (I've even heard people relate anecdotes where somebody else told them they thought that "Indians" were just made up entirely!)Also of note is the fact that the children are explicitly taught that the appropriate term for a Native American woman is "squaw" and their babies are "papooses". This, we're told, is the "Indian word".Well, "squaw" is now (and possibly even then, my limited research is unclear on this) considered an offensive term in English, and papoose may or may not be. Personally, I find it unnecessarily dehumanizing to use a special term to refer to people of another race instead of just using the normal English word we use for everybody else. So what are you going to do about it? Well, that probably depends on how you're using this book. If you're using it in the classroom, I suggest you just stop. Among other things, you cannot assume that your students are all the same as you. Either you're miseducating them or, worse, you have a Native American student in your class who may not appreciate this sort of stereotyping and language, no matter how unintentional. This is a nice little book, but it's not really one of the classics of children's literature that every child must read. You might make the argument for Little House on the Prairie, but this book isn't nearly so interesting or useful.If you still want to read it - perhaps it's your favorite book from your own childhood, I can see that - and you're reading it aloud, you might just skip that chapter. It's not crucial to the story. Or you could skim over the relevant passages. Alternatively (and this would work if your child is reading the book to themselves) you might just give a warning before the fourth chapter that what you're saying is VERY old-fashioned and NOW we know it's inaccurate and impolite. This isn't ideal, but it's better than letting it stand uncommented upon.All that aside, as I said before, it's really only an okay book. There are plenty of others at the same level of quality or better that have drifted out of print, and I'm not sure why this series is so beloved as to still be in print decades after it was first written. Unless this is, as said before, a dear and cherished book from your own childhood, you might want to pass it by. It's nothing special.
    • 5/5
      Betsy begins first grade. We follow her from the first day of school through the last, and on into Summer Vacation. Carolyn Haywood has a gifted ability to let us see the world through the eyes of a six year old. Life is sweet, just as we remember it from our own childhoods.