Betsy Byars: TUSAS 636 (Twayne's United States authors series) - Hardcover

Offers a brief profile of the popular children's author, discusses her major novels, and looks at her use of local color, diction, setting, and satire

Known for her humorous realistic fiction for children, Betsy Byars has written 41 novels over the past 25 years, including the popular Blossom and Bingo Brown series, the 1971 Newbery Award-winning The Summer of the Swans, and The Night Swimmers, which received the American Book Award in 1981. Her carefully drawn, memorable children and adolescents are often relentlessly humorous, even when they are confronting complex problems that would be troublesome for adults to resolve. In this first critical study of Betsy Byars, Malcolm Usrey brings us into the poignant yet everyday, conventional though diverse worlds of her characters, most of whom were born and raised in the South. Usrey highlights Byars's ability to create unique, multidimensional characters - boys and girls who grow and change, often while enduring ignorance and neglect at the hands of adults - and to put them into stories where humor is a consistent feature, however emotionally taxing the situation. Usrey looks at Byars in the context of her southern regionalism and use of local color, showing how her style is characterized by colloquialisms, unusual diction, and emphasis on setting. He also explores her skillful use of satire and irony, which appeals especially to the middle-school reader. Usrey's biographical treatment of Byars - based on a lively personal interview with her - precedes his discussion of the various novels and stories and reveals information provided nowhere else, making this volume an indispensable literary companion to students of Byars's considerable oeuvre as well as to her readers generally.