Tolkkinen: Book readers across the U.S. adore Mankato. Only they know it as Deep Valley.

MANKATO - All around the country, there are readers — women and girls, mostly — who adore Mankato.

Some of them have never been there.

Many of them don’t even know it’s called Mankato.

They know it as Deep Valley, what Maud Hart Lovelace called Mankato in her Betsy-Tacy novels, which follow two main characters and their friends through school, their 1910 graduation, and beyond. The books explore timeless themes of friendship, aspiration, romance, and so much more.

The series first came out during World War II but retained a following so fierce that readers persuaded publisher Harper Collins to bring the books back into print in the 1990s and again in 2000.

“These books were everything to me when I was young,” recounted actor Mara Wilson during last weekend’s long-awaited Betsy-Tacy Convention in Mankato. “There was no place more magical in the world than Minnesota.”

Lovelace grew up in Mankato in the early 1900s, and the loosely autobiographical novels are modeled after real people and places she knew there. She modeled the character of Betsy after herself, a friendly, introspective writer with a gap between her teeth. Tacy is modeled after Lovelace’s best friend, Frances Kenney, shy and red-haired, from a large Irish Catholic family.

The Betsy-Tacy Crowd (with a capital “C”) were her friends as a teenager, she explained. I understood. They were my pals, too, always there during my sometimes lonely childhood.

I met women from Idaho, California, Massachusetts, Georgia and Arizona. And every time I told people I was from Minnesota, they went, “Oh!” as if the Betsy-Tacy shine extended to me, too. There were other Minnesotans there, but we seemed to be a rarity.

Mothers traveled across country with their daughters. I met three generations who spoke in Southern drawls, dressed in period costumes. There was an aunt from Wisconsin and her niece, Elle Rupert from Philadelphia who had an enormous tattoo of Emily, the heroine of Lovelace’s “Emily of Deep Valley,” covering her left triceps.

Rupert was proud to be associated with Emily, calling her a “feminist, anti-racist activist.” Strong praise for a 1912 heroine in a 1950 novel.

It’s always a surprise when I meet people, especially if they’re from Minnesota, especially if they’re women who read, who have never heard of the Betsy-Tacy books.

Nothing explosive ever happens in the novels. The characters don’t solve mysteries or time travel or save lives. They are full of drama, nonetheless. How will Betsy get down from a tree she’s too scared to jump from even though her friends did it? Who will win the high school essay contest? How to let a boy know you are simply not the type to hold hands?

The Betsy-Tacy books overlapped with the release of the Little House series but were set in a later generation. The Little House books recount the hardships and allure of pioneer life. By the time Betsy and Tacy start school, the Dakota people had long since been driven out, and homes have electricity and even telephones. For them, it’s an easier, lighter-hearted time, full of dancing, singing and parties.

Yet the stories aren’t shallow. They’re intimate, even deep. The characters ponder religion, death, the treatment of Syrian immigrant neighbors. They value honor, dignity and self-improvement. New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen calls Betsy a “feminist icon” in her drive toward a writing career at a time when most girls aspired to become housewives.

I could rattle on and on about my love for these books, which occupy a drawer in my living room chest.

But mostly I see them as a balm for the people of our times. They speak to us from 115 years ago, their voices reaching into a time of political division and chronic loneliness to remind us what’s important.

Putting out hot chocolate on chilly winter nights.

Noticing each other’s moods. Extending sympathy or support.

Avoiding tribalism.

Ever aware of our own faults and trying to do better.

The Betsy-Tacy Crowd all got along, not just in print, but in real life. They remained friends for a lifetime, crisscrossing the country to visit each other, shuttling letters back and forth across the miles.