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I see a few here have never read the books. I, too, have never read even one of these books, but I watched the TV show from start to finish when I was a child in the 80s. This was one of my favorite shows. Did anyone watch the show too (starring Michael Landon as Charles, Karen Grassle as Caroline, etc.)?
I wonder how similar or different the show was from the books. Someone in here said that Mary never married, but she did in the TV show. She married a lawyer (Adam Kendall was his character name) who could see at one point but became blind as well due to scurvy, if I recall. They later ran a blind school together.
Actually, I just Googled it & got a little mixed up. Her husband was blind since a child, I guess (which I never remember that ever being revealed in the show) & his eyesight was restored as an adult. Here's the page that shows it if you're interested:
Do the books have the wealthy Oleson family with the two kids Nellie & Willie?
Was there a character named Elmer Miles in the books?
Just throwing a couple of random things out there that I'm wondering.
I can't say how the books were, but I loved the show! Many of you may be interested to see what's on this site & there's a Books section & a tiny discussion forum too (don't know how active it is):
It must be a good show, I suppose, since it ran so long and has so many fans. That being said, I always absolutely hated it. Children tend to be purists, and I was no different, so I was extremely offended and turned off when I tried to watch my first episode (already a rerun) and found that almost the only thing it had in common with my beloved Laura books was the names of the characters. I tried again as an adult, and found that the Little House pilot is an actual Ingalls story, but after that, it became Michael Landon's show and reflected the values and messages he wanted to express. I wish he had just made a show about original characters...
Now that I'm a (mostly) mature adult, I can enjoy an episode or two of the show now and then, but it always has a bit of the tang of my childhood disappointment.
The books also had Nellie and Willie Oleson. Nellie Oleson was based on a couple of different real girls Laura knew in her life. She's one of the few characters where Laura didn't use the person's real name.
It must be a good show, I suppose, since it ran so long and has so many fans. That being said, I always absolutely hated it. Children tend to be purists, and I was no different, so I was extremely offended and turned off when I tried to watch my first episode (already a rerun) and found that almost the only thing it had in common with my beloved Laura books was the names of the characters. I tried again as an adult, and found that the Little House pilot is an actual Ingalls story, but after that, it became Michael Landon's show and reflected the values and messages he wanted to express. I wish he had just made a show about original characters...
Now that I'm a (mostly) mature adult, I can enjoy an episode or two of the show now and then, but it always has a bit of the tang of my childhood disappointment.
The books also had Nellie and Willie Oleson. Nellie Oleson was based on a couple of different real girls Laura knew in her life. She's one of the few characters where Laura didn't use the person's real name.
I was just recalling being amazed that there was a time when cats commanded a dear price. During my childhood, cats got pregnant all the time because no one spayed and neutered, so if your cat got out during heat, you'd have to struggle to find homes you could give the kittens to. It was a relief for neighbors to be able to give kittens away to homes they thought might take care of them.
I was amazed at the reality that someone would pay a very large amount for a kitten.
Cats breed faster than bunnies..... a female can go into heat and become pregnant with her next litter of 4-6 kittens while still nursing her current litter of 4-6 kittens.... and gestation is only about 65-67 days.... so as soon as the current litter is weaned, the next litter arrives.....
I was just recalling being amazed that there was a time when cats commanded a dear price. During my childhood, cats got pregnant all the time because no one spayed and neutered, so if your cat got out during heat, you'd have to struggle to find homes you could give the kittens to. It was a relief for neighbors to be able to give kittens away to homes they thought might take care of them.
I was amazed at the reality that someone would pay a very large amount for a kitten.
Since the cats were not pets they had a high mortality rate. They were supposed to kill mice and rats in the barns and fields, since they spent their lives outdoors they were often taken by hawks, coyotes and other animal hunters. There was always a high demand (especially in a sparsely populated area) and could therefore command a high price.
Some people just have to look for ways to be offended.
It's been way too many years since I read the books/watched the show. I don't recall being offended. Or disturbed. Or any of the emotions being displayed by too many people these days.
I read them all as a child, read them all again as an adult, read them all to my kids, my kids read them all themselves.
I can’t think of one thing in any of the books that offended me, or that would offend me today if I read them again.
Neither I nor my children ever read them, and now, Moderator cut: no political rants on the book forum, please I would not recommend them! We don't need more children growing up this IGNORANT!
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name stripped from children’s book award over ‘Little House’ depictions of Native Americans
Neither I nor my children ever read them, and now, Moderator cut: no political rants on the book forum, please I would not recommend them! We don't need more children growing up this IGNORANT!
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name stripped from children’s book award over ‘Little House’ depictions of Native Americans
It's a dangerous precedent to ban or censor books because their authors include now old-fashioned or "wrong" attitudes.
I think you're missing the bigger picture. As a child of the 80's, I found many of the things Wilder said about Indians strange and untrue, but even then I was able to understand that she was a person of her time and culture, and that everything she wrote did not have to be completely true to me for her books to be worthwhile.
Parents reading these books with their children can use those sections as teaching moments about prior racism, racism today, etc. The Wilder books are immensely valuable tools to look at American history, as she not only lived through and wrote about the massive western expansion that built our country as we know it today, but also lived long enough to see both World Wars and fly on commerical airlines.
There's a great deal of anti-semitism and racism in Shakespeare's works, for instance. (Merchant of Venice, Othello, anybody?) Shall we prevent English majors and high school students from reading his plays to prevent ignorance? Attitudes today are based on the cumulative effect of all of the generations that lived before, it's important we study and understand our ancestors' viewpoints.
nothing disturbs me about the little house books. they are an excellent tool to learn about our westward expansion, how pioneer families lived, and history of the times. I would read them again and would share with young people to learn our American History the good and the bad.
History is history. These attempts to blot out what is currently unfashionable for some are ridiculous.
My grandfather and his brother were captured by some Indians and temporary enslaved by them until the men of the village came to get them. During that time my grandfather learned a lot about Indians, their ways, and their lives and he had a "healthy respect" for Indians in his dealings and relationships as life went on. Should we just blot out what happened? no.
same here. learn from it. understand it. and remember who and what made us what we are. all groups.
I read the books when I was young (I also watched the TV series, but more on that later). So my memories may be fuzzy on what was in Laura's books. (I also read the books about Rose, and the books about Caroline.)
The only black person I recall them having encountered was the doctor in Kansas who treated them for malaria. I think Laura might've remarked on how surprised she was, but given the time and place, her surprise would have been understandable.
There was the minstrel show in DeSmet years later, but I mostly remember the family realizing that one of the performers was Charles, and they were focused on whether or not he'd shaved off his beard to do it. It may have gone over my head at the time that it was meant to be a caricature of blacks. (I think they used the term 'darky' in the book, which by my time, had long fallen out of disuse.)
I seem to recall that Indians only came up in the second book, and briefly in the last book. I remember in the books, Charles seemed to be respectful of them, Caroline hated/feared them.
I don't recall Laura necessarily being dismissive of either race--her encounters with them seemed short and brief.
It doesn't seem to me that she wrote any part of her books for the sake of social commentary--just a record of 'my life as I lived it', and then fictionalized it a bit to appeal to a more mass audience.
The TV series......that came out when I was little, and I loved it. I watch it now, and I do a *lot* of eye-rolling. The series was actually mostly good up until the point Mary went blind. Up until the 'went blind' point, the TV show either did take things from the books, or at least focused on things that actually could have happened*. After that point, it was mostly bad, and had little in common with any of the books. The 'love story' between Laura and Almanzo was just horrible--I get to a certain point that they might not've felt comfortable showing a twenty-five year old man chasing after a fifteen-year-old girl on TV (even though that's what happened in reality), but what was shown wound up being so horrendous that I wasn't really rooting for them to get together (even though it was inevitable.) I also didn't like how they made Almanzo such a doofus (I can't figure out why Laura would have wanted the TV version.) They never gave Almanzo his "Big Damn Hero" moment either (going after the wheat in "The Long Winter".
*--despite there's no basis in reality, I did like the episode where the James brothers came to town. That was one of the few times there was a hard reminder that these characters were living in the post Civil-War era, has evidenced by the hard feelings whipped up when it was being discussed in school. And the drama itself was fairly gripping.
I want to know when all this mess is going to stop this is just plain ridiculous . A bunch of whiney snot nose snowflakes cant handle real words and real life lord help these people when they get a lil older and cannot handle life or someone will be arrested for staring at them . Grow a set and grow a spine and stop being mama lil snow flake.
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