Book Report: Little House

Growing up, I read the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and was absolutely enchanted. It all started in the third grade when we read Little House in the Big Woods. Our vocabulary words included things like "trundle bed" and "head cheese."  Because I was a little reading addict, I couldn't stop after the first book in the series. I read the next one and the next one, amounting to all all seven of them (I am excluding Farmer Boy of course because it is, after all, about a boy and when I picked it up at age 9(?) found it to be extremely boring). I gobbled them up zealously. Laura was as easy a canvas onto which I could project myself  as Bella Swan is to the younger Millennials of today. Except, Laura has a lot more...personality. She is independent and refreshingly naughty compared to her perfect, fair-haired sister Mary; she is adventurous, smart, witty, and frugal; and, best of all, she does not care if she takes her sun bonnet off and turns as brown as an Indian! Oh, and she also grows into a beautiful young lady and marries the most handsome bachelor in her small prairie town. Just like me.

After finishing the Harry Potter series this summer--and oh my was it refreshingly new and delightful, especially the 5th through 7th books of which I had completely forgotten the plot--I thought that I should use the rest of the empty time I had at work revisiting these books of my childhood. Time well spent, I say. I borrowed the books from the library, the very same library I borrowed them from ten-ish years ago. Whoa. They were just as beautiful as when I was a kid, only now I saw Laura's transformation from little girl in the big Wisconsin woods to a little lady teaching school on the Kansas prairie as something much more nostalgic and tear-jerking. As I read Laura's growing up, I saw mine and that was not something a premenstrual, 21-year-old person on the brink of the Real World was ready for. No, no. Finishing the last two books in the series is heartwarmingly stressful. These Happy Golden Years are full of handsome Almanzo and his big, gentle hands and beautiful horses. I ate up every bit of their courtship, because if I can project myself onto Laura, I have absolutely no problem projecting Jake onto Almanzo. Then, in The First Four Years, which was originally an unpublished journal designed mostly like for non-children, Laura's sweet life with Almanzo proves to be nothing but hardship: a baby born, a baby lost, multiple devastated crops, and a house fire. But despite all that Little House is still beautifully romanticized in my head. How good would I look on a warm summer day in a flowered calico dress, sleeves rolled up, hands kneading bread, with my hair falling loose from its bun? The answer is pretty darn good. These books make my yearning for a farm a little stronger. I want a garden and to be self-sufficient And I wouldn't object to a bonnet, either, lest I freckle!

After finishing the series I felt upset and empty, the usual just-finished-a-series-blues for me. What made it worse was when I Googled and Wikipediaed the real life Ingalls family. I saw pictures of Pa and Ma and Laura and they were so not what my mind's eye had made them out to be. Frustrated and with my heart feeling heavy, I took a nap. Somewhat rejuvenated today, I began a book recommended to me by my delightful friend Hannah, a bookworm like me. Hot off the press, The Wilder Life was surprising available at the local library. Wendy McClure, the author, is so funny, down-to-earth, and basically me that I can hardly stand how good the book is. She does a gorgeous job of summing up the connections we Laura readers have to one another and to little, idealized Laura. Lots of real-life research and smarts happening in this book too. Also, I am happy to note that I got every single one of McClure's references to the books and they were all poignant, hysterical, and deeply rooted in Laura fact. It's an excellent--and I mean truly excellent book. Please, if you know anything at all about Little House, give this book a try. And then we can talk about it. And squee.