Title: The Education of Bet
Author: Lauren Baratz-Logsted [website] [twitter]
Genre: Middle Grade, HIstorical Fiction
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Source: Provided by Publisher
Parental Warning: references to nudity, references to prostitution, drinking

“Back in our room, we passed the next few hours in companionable silence.  James removed his tailcoat and tie and loosened his collar, then lay on his stomach across one of the bees, reading a book.  I tried  to make out the title but couldn’t read it from my own position in one of the stiff chairs before one of the utilitarian desks.  If anyone had asked what I was reading that night, I could not have said.  My mind was too many things at once: exhausted by all that had happened since I’d left Grangefield Hall, just two days ago; nervous at the prospect of all the new things that were yet to come.  So rather than actually read what was in front of me, I simply stared at the words, my fingers turning pages for no reason as my mind raced and stalled, stalled and raced. “

Summary (from the publisher):
When Will and Bet were four, tragic circumstances brought them to the same house, to be raised as brother and sister.  Now sixteen, they enjoy the comforts that come from wealth.  But not all is well in their household.  Because she is a girl, Bet’s world is contained within the walls of their grand home and the constraints of her limited education.  Will’s world is much larger, as he is allowed — forced, in his case — to go to school.  Neither is happy.

So Bet comes up with a plan and persuades Will to give it a try:  They’ll switch places.  She’ll go to school as Will.  Will can live as he chooses.

But once Bet gets to school, she soon realizes living as a boy is going to be much more difficult than she imagined.  Boys act very differently when they think there are no girls in their midst.  In fact, they can be rather brutish.  But brutish Bet can deal with.  It’s more the attraction she feels for her roommate that gets Bet into real trouble.  This is not the education she expected.

Opinion:
Baratz-Logsted does a wonderful job painting a picture of the cloistered world in which Bet lives.  Typical of this time period, she is expected to be seen and not heard.  It is a crime (not literally) to be a woman who speaks openly, honestly, and with an air of education.  In fact, education is absolutely unheard of for a girl, which is the underlying reason that Bet convinces her friend Will to switch places with her.

Keeping an air of dignity and propriety Bet slips flawlessly into the life of her partner in crime.  Subtly devious Bet does her best to maintain her decorum and as much of a ladylike stance as possible given her new prep school surroundings. As one would expect, she did struggle a bit with the differences between being a girl and the presumptions of being a boy but I felt like she was a bit too quick to take to all of the mannerisms and traits her deception required.  I would have preferred to see her struggle a bit more with that adjustment.

Having said that, there was struggle galore in her assimilation into the boys will be boys culture of school.  Baratz-Logsted was pitch perfect in her portrayal of that aspect.  Being a girl posing as a boy certainly brought with it certain difficulties and she demonstrated that quite well using the relationships Bet was building (or not building) with her fellow classmates.

Despite the initial focus of the story being on Bet’s desire for an education it quickly took a back seat to other aspects of the plot (most notably romance) once she arrived at school.  There were still references to that underlying theme throughout but once in the school setting the story shifted its focus more into the interpersonal relationships she was building with the different boys on campus. I say this not because it was a detriment of the story but because it is from this element that Education of Bet showed it’s greatest strengths.

There were many twists and turns throughout the story that I saw coming but I feel confident that the intended target audience of readers much younger than I am will be surprised by the outcome of several key points in the story.  They are well devised and not at all overbearing as they unfold.  Baratz-Logsted has definitely mastered the art of finessing a story to keep it from being heavy handed in critical areas of suspence.

I must admit I much preferred Baratz-Logsted’s Crazy Beautiful, but even so The Education of Bet is a great book for girls who are interested in starting to dabble in romance and historical fiction.  The portrayal of the time period was deep enough to give good perspective but not so overwhelming that it took over the whole story with excessive descriptions and flowery prose.  Add to that a sweetly endearing love story and you have the perfect book for upper middle graders and beyond.