Little House On The Prairie (2015) - Plot & Excerpts
I read this book when I was six years old, and then over and over again until I was about ten. I loved it. It inspired my imagination like nothing else until Harry Potter more than thirty years later. For years, I wanted to BE Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved when the grass grew long and I could pretend it was the prairie. When I was stuck in the outfield during elementary school softball I was imagining I was playing with Mary and Carrie. I read all the books and wrote my own biography of Laura when I was nine. I was thrilled to discover an actual biography (Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder)! What did I love about the Little House books? I loved Laura. I loved that she felt real emotion. She was bored, frustrated, and jealous. I loved the adventure: the idea of moving slowly across the wilderness with all of my family's belongings in one small wagon was deeply appealing. I was fascinated by the wolves, Indians, and the details of the cabin building. I loved the idea of living in the past. It was years before I thought about how difficult life would be without the conveniences of modern plumbing. I must also mention that I was entranced by idea of wearing a calico-print dress and making my own dolls as well! As I grew older, I grew to love more historical fiction. I loved exploring the past. I fell in love with Caddie Woodlawn, A Little Princess, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and, later, A Lantern in Her Hand. I was able to experience the hardships of girls all over the world in different time periods. Little House on the Prairie introduced me to that world. I have read a variety of criticisms of The Little House Collection. People are bothered by the treatment of Native Americans or the embedded sexism of the family. My response to this complaint is, yes, Ma was a racist, and girls were treated worse than they are today. But Laura doesn't like it! And she wins, in the end. The Ingalls family could not stay in Indian Territory and Laura is the one who becomes an internationally known author, while the rest of the ladylike girls disappear into obscurity. I am now a school librarian, and still recommend these books to my students. The writing is clear and straight forward without being too short or short on detail. There is no doubt that the book must be read in context, but in today's school environment, historical fiction is often the way children begin to learn about history.
Okay, it's a great American classic, I realize that. I read it for the first time in third grade because the pioneer-go-forth-and-push-westward philosophy is a central feature in the proud American mindset and heritage. But it's for that very reason that the value of the book needs to be questioned.While much of the story focuses on a family's self-reliance on the Kansas prairie, the book preceding it - Little House in the Big Woods - does the same with the exception that the Ingalls family was integrated into a functioning Wisconsin community of relatives and neighbors. That book, however, is NOT the famous one after which a television series was made. WHY the Ingalls family felt the need to abandon their community and settle in what was in fact disputed Indian Territory other than out of a lust for adventure is insufficiently explained. Unlike immigrants of the time, American pioneers like the Ingallses were not driven to the new land by persecution or famine at home. They drove themselves there and expected the local Indians to like it or stay out of the way. The Indians are portrayed as mysterious savages who are ultimately given what actually belonged to the hard-working white family. (I'm not at all surprised it was written in the 1930's.) My third grade class was outraged at the injustice of the U.S. government telling the Ingallses' to abandon their self-made cabin for the Indians, yet no one was outraged in the beginning when they arrived and no one was asked to question this. Stories like the Ingallses's are history that cannot be changed or forgotten, but like all history should be constantly questioned. I would read this to children and elementary/middle school classes, but not without a corresponding story from the perspective of the Plains Indians, and not without asking children important follow-up questions to spark dialogue. Did the Ingallses have to leave Wisconsin? Would you have? Why do you think they decided to? Were the Ingallses malicious, naive, or justified in their pursuit? Can the rural dislike of government involvement be traced back to stories like theirs? Why was this story so popular in the 1930's, 40's, and 50's? Why is it still popular today?
What do You think about Little House On The Prairie (2015)?
I enjoyed watching series show on inspirational channel.
—Joanna Alleyne
I can vividly remember the first time I read this book. I was sleeping over at my best friend Mary's house when I was about seven or eight years old. She lived next door to me. Her family always slept with their attic fan on, and with a radio in each bedroom tuned in to a country station. This was strange to me, as nights at my house were totally quiet. Plus, I was a little freaked out at spending the night away from home, because I hadn't really done that very much at that point in my life. So, the noise and the mild homesickness added up to a sleepless night for little Bethie. So, after Mary went to sleep, I picked up "Little House on the Prairie" off her bookshelf. I'm not sure how she came to own that book, as she wasn't much of a reader. Anyway, by the time she got up the next morning, I was finishing up the last pages, and I was hooked on Laura Ingalls Wilder. That wouldn't be the last time I stayed up all night reading a great book.
—Beth
I bought the CD of this story for my 4 year old daughter and have spent many days listening to it in the car with her.This book should clearly be renamed "Pa's follies" as the entire story is about him bumbling from one misadventure to the next....1. Pa leads the family across a frozen lake Peppin. The very next morning the family hears the ice on the lake start to crack and break up. By the luck of one day the Ingalls family is spared a frozen death.2. Pa nearly drowns the entire family crossing a creek into the Indian country.3. Pa nearly shoots good dog Jack thinking he is wolf after Jack manages to survive Pa's ineptness at crossing the creek.4. Pa drops a log on Ma while building their house nearly breaking her leg.6. While scouting out the new homesite, Pa bumbles into a pack of 50 wolves without his gun.7. The chimney pa builds soon catches on fire.8. Mr. Scott nearly dies while helping to build the Ingalls well when Pa doesn't check for gas.9. It turns out the new home is built near a malarial swamp which soon leads to the whole family getting fever and ague.10. The Indians, who Pa maintains are peaceful, keep harassing Ma and the girls when he is away and stealing their food.11. The Indians, who Pa maintains are peaceful, come withing a hair of deciding to slaughter all of the white settlers.12. After all of the family's blood, sweat and tears the government forces them to leave Indian country making the entire adventure a complete waste of time.His name should be Charles In-galling Incompetence
—Mike Angelillo
I scrolled quickly down the page and noticed that nobody has much to say about this novel. What _is_ there to say about Laura Ingalls Wilder's fiction/memoir accounts of growing up in the period of American expansion and homesteading? A lot - at least 7 volumes' worth, in Ingalls Wilder's own series. It's easy to categorize Ingalls Wilder's series as "children's" literature, but her books are also documents of an indomitable feminine spirit, a woman's relation of the American experience in a time when "high" literature focuses only on the cities of the East, dismissing the westward push as fledgling cities of the plain.But there is nothing plain about the Little House books. Through Laura's eyes, we see the 19th century experience firsthand. The advent of the railroad, and early communications technology. The raw human communities that form around open space and the need for solidarity in times of hardship. We see petty jealousies and lifetime friendships, suffering and triumph, death and birth. We see the process of taming the wild land to make a working farm, and the struggle to build a functional home for a growing family, out there in the middle of nothing but prairie. Governmental decisions and big-scale events are mediated through the child's point of view - this is not "hard history," but rather history made intimate, a "this is how we lived it" reel, history that grows more perceptive and subtler as the narrator grows up.
—ruzmarì
