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It's the story of a family. They weren't perfect. As for losing homes, frequently moving as well as dealing with other hardships and illness, that's how much of this country was settled. People took large risks for the opportunity to have more and for their children to have more. Sometimes it worked out and sometimes it didn't.
I think that's a big part of the popularity of the series - it does show the hardships many faced during that time. It showed a family surviving.
People all over the world are still moving for better opportunity. People still lose their homes and have devastating illnesses. It's interesting how much in the books is still relatable even though lifestyles are so drastically different.
I wouldn't go so far as to say this disturbed me, though it has stuck in my memory (which is getting harder and harder to do). I remember reading that Laura's dog Jack walked under the wagon when the family was moving from one place to another. I worried about Jack when I was little.
If it makes you feel any better, at the beginning of "By the Shores of Silver Lake", the Ingalls family is preparing to leave Plum Creek and head west again. Jack has grown old and is not excited about the journey, and Laura realizes he cannot walk under the wagon. Pa ends up making a space for Jack so he can ride along in the wagon.
If it makes you feel any better, at the beginning of "By the Shores of Silver Lake", the Ingalls family is preparing to leave Plum Creek and head west again. Jack has grown old and is not excited about the journey, and Laura realizes he cannot walk under the wagon. Pa ends up making a space for Jack so he can ride along in the wagon.
The 7-year old me is so relieved! Thank you for the update!
I have never read the books, but after perusing this thread, I realize this is yet another book that seems to have escaped me growing up and even through adulthood. I have been trying to catch up on a lot of them and this will go on my list.
Of course I have heard of it but I never read anything by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Should I read Little House in the Big Woods first (who knows if I will read more than one) or is there one of them that most people would recommend?
(In the past year or so I read Anne of Green Gables, Winnie the Pooh, Where the Red Fern Grows, among others)
I hadn't read the books ever, but my first grade teacher read them out loud to us, and I remembered enjoying them. And now I live in the region in which the Ingalls and Wilder families lived, and there are so many historic sites related to the books in this area that they actually are a major financial boon to this region! I mean, why else would anyone go to Burr Oak, IA? So, this year, as a retiree, I bought a boxed set of the Little House books and read all of the first five books.
I LOVED them! I was impressed about how much specifics there are regarding the household and work activities of the period in which Laura lived. In fact I began to wonder how modern children can relate to these historic specifics that are so distant from modern life.
I also read (well, skimmed) Pioneer Girl, which tells the real story of Laura and Rose ( https://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Girl-...s=pioneer+girl) Whew, that is one well researched (and very heavy to hold) book! So interesting.
I also read the other Pioneer Girl book,( https://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Girl-...s=pioneer+girl ) which is a novel that tells the story of recent Vietnamese girl's immigrant family's experience, and how she relates to Laura and Rose's life experiences. I found it fascinating, and really strongly recommend this book to everyone.
I also happened to read Death on the Prairie ( https://www.amazon.com/Death-Prairie...on+the+prairie ) I have read all of this author's books and really enjoy them. This one is a gentle murder mystery which follows the protagonist on a tour of all the Little House historic sites in this region. Recommended, though I like some of the other books by this author better.
So - the title of this thread really disturbed me! There is nothing at all in the Little House books to be disturbed about. (Except worrying about Jack, of course.)
I have never read the books, but after perusing this thread, I realize this is yet another book that seems to have escaped me growing up and even through adulthood. I have been trying to catch up on a lot of them and this will go on my list.
Of course I have heard of it but I never read anything by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Should I read Little House in the Big Woods first (who knows if I will read more than one) or is there one of them that most people would recommend?
(In the past year or so I read Anne of Green Gables, Winnie the Pooh, Where the Red Fern Grows, among others)
Of course you should read them staring with Little House in the Big Woods. The books weren't meant to be a series, so the first book is written a little differently. It chronicles a lot of the ways people lived then, showing how they butchered hogs, made cheese, and got maple syrup. It's almost a how-to book and is very fascinating.
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I think that I started this discussion to get another view of how people see the books. I've read and reread them countless times, and yet I keep finding inconsistencies in them and inconsistencies between the books and the real life Laura Ingalls led. Sometimes I wonder if she wasn't writing about a world she wishes she could have lived in.
For instance, there's the part in Little Town on the Prairie where her Ma tells Pa that she won't have Laura working in a hotel among strangers. Yet, if you look at her real life, Laura did work in a hotel when she was eleven or twelve when the family was in Burr Oak.
Also, for all that Laura pushed the family togetherness thing, apparently her own daughter felt she was unloved and that her mother even told her that life is hard and she just needed to get used to it. This is something I've read in two places so far and I'm still trying to verify it.
There is also the fact that Laura believed people shouldn't depend on the government and should only rely on themselves, stating at one time she didn't believe in handouts. Yet Mary, despite all the things written about how the family scrimped and saved to send her to college, actually had her college paid for by the state of South Dakota.
These are things so at odds at what are in the books, I just had to bring them up.
Of course you should read them staring with Little House in the Big Woods. The books weren't meant to be a series, so the first book is written a little differently. It chronicles a lot of the ways people lived then, showing how they butchered hogs, made cheese, and got maple syrup. It's almost a how-to book and is very fascinating.
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I think that I started this discussion to get another view of how people see the books. I've read and reread them countless times, and yet I keep finding inconsistencies in them and inconsistencies between the books and the real life Laura Ingalls led. Sometimes I wonder if she wasn't writing about a world she wishes she could have lived in.
For instance, there's the part in Little Town on the Prairie where her Ma tells Pa that she won't have Laura working in a hotel among strangers. Yet, if you look at her real life, Laura did work in a hotel when she was eleven or twelve when the family was in Burr Oak.
Also, for all that Laura pushed the family togetherness thing, apparently her own daughter felt she was unloved and that her mother even told her that life is hard and she just needed to get used to it. This is something I've read in two places so far and I'm still trying to verify it.
There is also the fact that Laura believed people shouldn't depend on the government and should only rely on themselves, stating at one time she didn't believe in handouts. Yet Mary, despite all the things written about how the family scrimped and saved to send her to college, actually had her college paid for by the state of South Dakota.
These are things so at odds at what are in the books, I just had to bring them up.
They are classified as fiction - children's literature; they are novels (autobiographical, as in "based on..") not autobiographies or memoirs.
Last edited by maciesmom; 09-08-2017 at 02:29 PM..
It's the story of a family. They weren't perfect. As for losing homes, frequently moving as well as dealing with other hardships and illness, that's how much of this country was settled. People took large risks for the opportunity to have more and for their children to have more. Sometimes it worked out and sometimes it didn't.
I think that's a big part of the popularity of the series - it does show the hardships many faced during that time. It showed a family surviving.
There was also a horrible depression going on during those years. Everyone struggled.
Expecting works of literature to conform to modern social sensibilities makes no sense. Part of the fun of reading books from bygone eras is discovering how much things have changed.
The books' treatment of American Indians is a good example. Are the attitudes of the characters toward Indians disgusting by today's standards? Yup. But they were pretty prevalent attitudes of the time.
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