Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace

I have some mega, mega love for this book. I vividly remember reading about Betsy's writing when I was a kid, and it definitely motivated me to write my own stories as well. I wish that I had saved any of them--I know that I threw them away because I was embarrassed about them later. But Betsy wasn't embarrassed, she loved sharing her stories and even sent them into a magazine. I remember "Flossie's Accident"--as I was reading the story I was smiling, remembering when I read it the first time--and I now loved how they squeezed it onto one piece of paper to send it in to the magazine. I loved Betsy's excitement about going to the library and the magic of those trips to the library, and her parents' insistence that she read good books like the classics. And I remember being very impressed by their trip to the Opera House to see Uncle Tom's Cabin and Rip Van Winkle. I think, however, that the Christmas shopping trip is one of my very favorite stories in the whole Betsy-Tacy series. It just sounds so magical and wonderful, and I remember wanting to do the same thing. After reading the first three books, this one felt just slightly meant for an older age group. This book is just about perfect, I think.