Summary
For all of her nine years, fragile Elizabeth Ann has heard her Aunt Frances refer in whispers to her "horrid Putney cousins." But when her aunt can no longer care for her, Elizabeth Ann must leave her sheltered life to live in the wilds of Vermont with those distant relatives.In the beginning, Elizabeth Ann is shocked by country living - pets are allowed to sleep in the house and children are expected to do chores! But with country living comes independence and responsibility, and in time, Elizabeth Ann finds herself making friends and enjoying her new family. When the year is up and Aunt Frances comes to get her niece, she finds a healthier, prouder girl with a new name - Betsy - and a new outlook on life. Understood Betsy has delighted generations of young readers since it was first published by Henry Holt and Company in 1917. Kimberly Bulcken Root's charmingly detailed illustrations capture the winning spirit of this classic.
Author Dorothy Canfield Fisher was born in Lawrence, Kansas on February 17, 1879. She received a Ph.D. in romance languages from Columbia University in 1904. She wrote novels, short stories, children's books, educational works, and memoirs. In 1912, she met Maria Montessori in Italy and was so impressed by the educator's theories that she wrote A Montessori Mother, The Montessori Manual, and Mothers and Children. She worked for many environmental, children's and education causes in the 1940s and 1950s. She died in Arlington, Vermont on November 9, 1958.
(Bowker Author Biography)
