It's the trip of a lifetime. Betsy Ray, 21 years old, is heading off for a solo tour of Europe. From the moment she casts off, her journey is filled with adventure - whether she's waltzing at the captain's ball, bartering for beads in Madeira, or sipping coffee at a bohemian cafe in Munich. Despite her travels and many adventures, Betsy's heart won't let her forget Joe Willard, her high school sweetheart.

My favorite of the Betsy-Taco series, although I haven't yet read Betsy and Joe's Wedding. I love to travel and felt like Maud captures that sense of thrill you get when everything is new to you and you are enjoying yourself tremendously. Of all the books, I think I am likely to reread this one more than once. Also, you can see Betsy maturing, if rather slowly - but that's like real life, isn't it? ( )

Betsy is finally doing what she and her friends had talked about for years, going on a tour of Europe. From the cruise boat to the Azores, and to other exotic places such as Algiers, Venice, and Oberammergau, Betsy discovers the Great World she wants to write about, makes new friends, and learns about love.

What really makes this book stand out are the details, the descriptions of the streets and countrysides of her tour. The author based these books on her own life, which explains how we are easily drawn into Betsy's adventures. ( )

I tend to read this book when I am homesick, because it starts with Betsy setting off for a year in Europe, and she is terribly homesick. But as the chapters go by, she gets over it - and so do I. She always makes me appreciate living in Europe again.

But it isn't always the most successful cure, because as soon as I finish this book, I of course have to read Betsy's Wedding, which describes her wonderful homecoming, and then the adventure of married life. ( )

Opening three years after the events of Betsy and Joe, the previous installment of Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy~Tacy series, Betsy and the Great World sees its lovable heroine - now twenty-one years old, and about to be a junior in college - head off for a trip to Europe. Crossing the Atlantic on the Columbic ocean-liner, living in a student pension in Munich, exploring Venice with a handsome young man, and facing the onset of World War I with her friends in London, Betsy has many exciting adventures, and makes a diverse range of friends, from a German baroness to an Italian architect. She even meets that elusive type: the American millionaire!

I enjoyed this grownup Betsy~Tacy adventure immensely, although - as my friend Wendy warned me - I did find some of the changes a little jarring. Had the Rays moved away from Deep Valley, I wondered, when Betsy references their home in Minneapolis? Betsy and Joe seemed to have such a wonderful understanding, at the close of the previous book, and although Lovelace explained how they drifted apart, it was still a little disappointing to see their estrangement! I also couldn't help but wish that there were some intermediate titles, covering Betsy's college years, although if they were so unhappy, perhaps it's for the best that the author glossed over them.

Despite these concerns, I soon settled into this delightful tale of travel, which has always been one of my own passions. Lovelace writes beautifully, capturing a pre-war Europe that was soon to disappear, and inserting many fascinating social observations into her narrative. The idea of discrete social classes, held by both Tilda and Helena, is very foreign to Betsy, and I was rather impressed that Lovelace didn't allow her intrepid American to "resolve" everything, and make everyone friends. I also relished Betsy' passionate defense of the cause of woman suffrage, and her rejection of Mr. O'Farrell's false dichotomy of the feminine and the feminist.

All in all, Betsy and the Great World was a great book - entertaining, thought-provoking, and emotionally satisfying. Especially, as another friend notes, that wonderful closing chapter! I can't wait to read Betsy's Wedding! ( )