Review: The Laura Years Books 6-9 by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Last week I took you with me as I traveled with Laura Ingalls Wilder from the Big Woods of Wisconsin, to the plains of Kansas, to a sod house in Minnesota, and finally to the shores of Silver Lake by De Smet, South Dakota. I also can't leave out a little detour in New York to learn about the childhood of Almanzo Wilder, Laura's future husband. As a reader, I got to grow up with Laura and by the fifth book, Laura was very much coming into her own as a teenager. Her family was deciding to settle in De Smet for a lengthy period of time and a world of new opportunities was arriving.

The sixth book, The Long Winter, has always been my favorite of the series. I'm not sure why, since it is a sad and depressing novel about the plight of the early settlers in De Smet, but I always loved the way the family seemed to stick it out through everything to survive one of the hardest winters anyone has ever known.

After an omen of a long and hard winter, Pa decides to move everyone into town and his building for the duration of the winter. The family settles in and is continuously hit with blizzard after blizzard. When a storm clears up, work begins to clear the railroad to the town so supplies can be sent in, but by the time everything is clear, another blizzard hits.

As time passes and winter continues, things begin to get desperate in De Smet. Coal runs out so the Wilder family twists hay into sticks to burn for heat. At one point there is a tunnel of snow that Pa dug to get into the barn and out. Laura can look out the upstairs window to see people passing by on snow above her.

But through it all, the family and town continue to survive. Almanzo and another man hear of a man with wheat south of town to buy for the starving town. On a clear day they make the long journey there to buy wheat for the starving settlers, but are caught in a blizzard on the way back. It was only by chance they found the town in blinding white snow, but thanks to their courage, the town could eat.

I know now why I love this book so. I think it really speaks to the perseverance and courage of the men and women who took chances to settle in the wilderness. We all complain when we're a little cold but have the luxury of notching up the thermostat. These people had to fight for survival.

But I also love Almanzo in this novel. He took a huge risk to bring wheat to starving people when he didn't need to. I think that speaks for his character and truly develops him into more than just a passing character.

The next book, The Little Town on the Prairie, is probably the most "fun" of all the books. Exciting things are happening in De Smet as the town booms. The Wilder family begins regular visits to Church and Laura and Carrie attend school (by this point Mary is in a college for blind students). The family participates in all kinds of social events held in the evenings at the school.

It is a wonderful and happy time and the book reflects that. I think the settlers of De Smet were glad to have lived through the long winter and they seem to be enjoying society and the new things in town.

But of course one of the best parts about this novel is all of the romance popping up. Alamanzo calls on Laura to drive her places and you can see the beginnings of the relationship and love forming. I also love that Ma gets all worried-what mother doesn't get worried when boys start calling on their daughters?

The eighth book in the series, These Happy Golden Years, continues the story. Laura is a teen and the rest of the family is prospering. Their shanty on the claim is expanding, things are going well, and the family is happy.

One of the most memorable portions in this novel is when Laura gets her first teaching position. She is a teacher to five students away from home. She is forced to live with a family and the wife is clearly unhappy with Laura in her home. But every weekend, without fail, Almanzo comes to get Laura and taker her home. And every Sunday he drives her back so she can escape Mrs. Brewster.

It is truly touching that he sacrifices so much for a girl he barely knows. But its clear that at the beginning of their courtship that he feels more than she does. Laura always keeps him at an arm's length in the beginning.

Laura teaches two more school terms before the end of the novel, and her marriage to Almanzo. The wedding is rushed, as Almanzo wants to be married before his sister and mother arrive to run the show. I always felt bad as a girl that Laura had to hurry to get married and she wore black to her wedding. So sad!

But the novel ends as a new and powerful chapter of Laura's life begins. She is married to Almanzo and for the first time in her life, living away from her parents.

The final novel in the Laura years series is The First Four Years. And this is the book that I was anxious to get to. I said in my first post about these novels that Jillian had said something that spurred me to pick these up rather than be done with my return to childhood. Jillian talked about how in this novel everything seemed so detached, and how Laura seemed different being married. But she also talked about the trials Laura and Almanzo faced in those years. That is what made me decide to reread these. More on that in a moment.

This novel is different than the others in that the characters are less developed and it feels like you are reading mere glimpses of memory from Laura. The book was published after Almanzo's death and you can tell that Laura was trying to record thoughts and give some kind of ending to her story.

The story follows the first four years of their marriage, as they try their luck farming and succeeding on their own. But their first fours years are wrought with pain and struggle. They are deep in debt. Laura loses a son and has to struggle to recover. Both of them fall ill and when Almanzo tries to work too soon after being sick, he suffers a stroke and never fully recovers. It seems as if the two cannot recover and cannot get ahead. But even with all of that struggle and pain, they have hope. And they keep trying.

When I remembered what this novel was about, I knew I needed to read them again. Matt and I are approaching our one year anniversary. This first year has been a struggle for us-you know, with me not working, money issues, and health problems-but here we are. We are still pushing forward and stilling working towards something better. Reading this gave me hope about our own situation, and the knowledge that things could be a lot worse. :)

I am so glad I decided to go down memory lane with Laura and her family once more. It was wonderful to re-experience life on the prairie with her family and my childhood. If you have never read these, I suggest you add them to your list, right now. They are timeless stories of a loving family full of hope, courage, and perseverance.

Review: The Laura Years Books 1-5 by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The Little House series was as big a part of my childhood as any of the other books I have been featuring this week. In fact, they are probably the series of books that I can remember reading far earlier than anything else.

My introduction to the series was due to my grandmother. We would often spend the night at their house and on one occasion, I finished the books I brought with me and had nothing to read. She sent me down to the basement to look at the bookshelves and I came back up with all of the Ingalls books I could find. She told me the order and said that as long as I was nice to the books (they were old editions and belonged to my aunts when they were children), I could go ahead and read them.

It was love for me in that moment and I reread the stories about Laura, Mary, Ma, Pa, Carrie and Grace more times than I can count. I even read the first couple of books about Laura's daughter Rose. I loved them. A part of me wanted to go live on the prairie with them.

When I originally put these on my list, I was hoping that I would eventually get to them, but as the month of November went by, I was debating not reading them at all to save time and get back to my classics. But Jill at A Room of One's Own was reviewing them and said something about the last book in the series that made me want to jump in, so I did. (If you want more thorough reviews than what I give here, I highly recommend reading hers). Oh, and you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see why I wanted to read them so badly.

The first book in the series, Little House in the Big Woods, sets up the beginning of the stories, with the whole family living in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.

As a child, this was always a favorite of mine. Laura, Mary, Carrie, Ma and Pa always seemed so much happier living in the Big Woods with their family nearby than they do in later books. I never understood why they left their home to go so many other places across the country. I do now, but as a little girl, its hard to imagine leaving home (we have always lived in the same area as my extended family members, so moving away was never something I could relate to).

I also love some of the scenes in this novel that paint a vivid portrait of life in the wild. The stories Pa tells the girls of panthers and bears are always exciting. I also love the time the family spends with their grandparents making maple sugar. The part where they pour strands of hot maple sugar into snow to make candy is something I have always remembered and always wanted to try as a little girl.

But I what I loved the most this time was the sense of family among the five members of the Ingalls clan. Everyone had a role to fulfill and a job to do. This is something that carries throughout all of the novels, and here is the firm base where it begins.

The second novel in the series (in my collection anyway-sometimes books 2 and 3 are switches around) is The Little House on the Prairie.

The second novel is full of firsts for the girls. They move out of Wisconsin and the Big Woods and go to town for the first time. Then they leave and begin the long journey by wagon to a new homestead in the wilds of Kansas. Pa heard that the Indians will be moved and the areas open to settlement, so he wants to head West and grab a tract of land early.

Again, as a child I never understood why the family would leave their established and cozy home in the Big Woods to move away, but now I can understand the need to get away and start anew.

This novel tells of their short time in Kansas. They built a log house and stable and began to harvest crops on their land before learning that the area where they settled was not going to be open for settlement. This forces them to move once more at the end of the novel.

This one I remembered clearly from my childhood. The scene with Laura and Mary collecting beads around an old Native American campsite always enthralled me and I always hoped to stumble across beads in the wild as a girl. Right after that scene they make a necklace of their beads for Carrie, which goes to show you how completely unselfish the two girls can be when they want to be. I highly doubt that some kids I know would be willing to give their items to their younger sibling.

However, I always feel a little....ehhh...about the portrayal of the Native Americans in the novel. On one hand, you can see that Ingalls is trying to show them in as positive and noble a light as possible. The imagery of the long line of them leaving on the trail by the Wilder's house is another vivid image in my mind, but they are often seen so savagely. I suppose it comes back to saying, "If they knew then what we know now" things would have been incredibly different.

In all, I enjoyed this second novel on this reread, and was reminded of how absorbed I was in these novels as a girl. I would have loved to go hunting for beads, or down to the creek to wade right with Laura.

The third novel, Farmer Boy, takes us away from the Ingalls clan to the home of Laura's future husband, Almanzo. As a kid, I HATED this third novel and would often skip over it to go on to the next Laura novel. I mean, who would want to read about a stinky boy?

Obviously, I have matured since then and I can appreciate why Laura added this novel to her own story. You know from the beginning that she'll eventually marry Almanzo, so getting a sense of his background helps us appreciate the man he'll become.

We are introduced to Almanzo's family in New York and I was immediately struck by how different his upbringing was than Laura's. His father ran a large farm, with multiple horses and oxen. Their house was large, with a fancy parlor for entertaining guests, and a huge storeroom for their food. It seemed as if there was always a surplus for the Wilders and Almanzo was truly fortunate in his childhood.

We get to see Almanzo take on responsibility in this novel. He trains his own pair of oxen, grows his own pumpkin for the fair, and admires the beautiful colts his father raises. He learns lessons about the value of money and what to do with it once he has it.

But what I love about this novel is how it shows Almanzo's love for animals and the land. Even after being offered an opportunity to learn a trade in town, Almanzo determines to stay and become a farmer like his father. His love for the land is so clear and apparent and truly makes the reader appreciate why he is the man he is when Laura meets him years later.

The fourth novel, On the Banks of Plum Creek, takes us back to the Ingalls clan as they had to Minnesota to try their fortunes there. After the heartache of leaving their beautiful home in the heart of Indian country, none of the women seem too excited to see their new home is a sod house built into a hill.

However, their new home near Plum Creek offers new opportunities for the girls and Ma. For the first time the girls get to attend school, a condition that Ma had when she married Pa. Mary and Laura are deemed "country girls" by a few girls who live in town, but that doesn't stop them from socializing and playing anyway. The two little parties (one in town and one in the country) really made me smile for their differences. Me made every effort she could for her daughters to feel included and as special as the town girls.

The other new experience was the ability to attend Church on Sundays. These new connections with the people of the Church helped the entire family (and does in the future). They make lasting friendships with those they meet. The Christmas scene with the handing out of gifts on the tree was beautiful and warmed my heart.

I also loved that Pa tried to do more for the family after the heartache of what happened in Kansas. He taught the girls to swim and built Ma a beautiful house as soon as he could to get her out of the sod house. They had horses and oxen and even bought glass windows.

Of course, the saddest thing about this novel is the heartache that inevitably happens. A swarm of grasshoppers come and eat all the crops. Then they lay their eggs so there are grasshoppers the next year as well. I couldn't imagine the feeling of having grasshoppers crawling all over everything non-stop like Laura describes, and for a couple years in a row! And I can only imagine how heartbreaking it was for both Ma and Pa to realize that once again they were in debt and there was nothing to do about it. Perhaps they were thinking at that point that it might have been better to stay in the Big Woods of Wisconsin after all!

Book 5, By the Shores of Silver Lake, continues the story of the Ingalls clan from the point where they leave Plum Creek. From the point where the story picks up, the family has lived and suffered in Plum Creek for a few years. And just before the story begins, the entire family is struck with illness. Laura's older sister Mary is blind as a result of being sick and Laura begins to step up into a new role as caregiver. Pa also entrusts her with the task of showing Mary what it going on around her, a task that Laura does well.

The family is met by a family member, and they all set out to the new town of De Smet, South Dakota. When they arrive they settle down as Pa works for the railroad as a shopkeeper. However, when winter comes, they realize they must go East to stay, since none of the people building the railroad are staying. Instead, the surveyors offer their home to the Ingalls, in return for them watching the railroad equipment for the winter.

With all of this, the Ingalls family settles in for the winter by themselves. They are eventually joined by two friends (the Boasts). There, they wait out the winter until pa can get away to file for a homestead claim. As the snow begins to thaw, an influx of settlers start pouring in. Since the surveyors' house is the only house in the area, they stop in for a place to sleep and a meal. Ma begins to charge them and Laura is soon working hard washing dishes and cleaning up over the dozens of men who pour in.

Pa eventually leaves to get his homestead and once the paperwork is done (and before the surveyors come back), he uses extra railroad wood to build a house in downtown De Smet. The family moves in until their claim shanty can be built and before Pa rents the house for extra income. The house in town will serve as a place for the family to stay during the cold winters while their shanty is still just a shanty.

On this reread, I didn't connect to this novel. Perhaps its the uncertainty of the situation the Ingalls are in, but it merely felt as a book to transition their lives. Mary can no longer work as she used to so Laura must become what she never wanted to be. Pa and Ma are trying to survive and function in a new place once more. Grace, the baby of the family, is introduced, but I never felt she was developed as much as the others.

There were scenes, like in all of the books, that were memorable. Laura riding her first horse was something that made me smile, as well as her sliding across the frozen lake.

More than anything, when I closed this book I was excited to get to the next one, to the part where Laura meets Almanzo and her adult life seems to take off.

But the next 4 books will wait for tomorrow, along with my final thoughts on the whole series. I hope I'll see you then. :)

Book 25: A Change of Opinion.

One of the reasons I am starting to really love this process of reading and rereading the classics is that it is giving me the opportunity to go back and try again. So often we read things and dislike them, without understanding why. This is why I am a huge fan of rereading books in general.

Usually on the second time through, I find a lot more to cherish in books I love, and perhaps can find something to like in books I hated. Unless it is, of course, Great Expectations. I am afraid I will never be fond of that monstrosity.

But even authors and books I thought I would hate have become dear friends in this process. I was wary of Crime and Punishment but I ended up loving it. I also have fallen back in love with some old friends, like The Odyssey, Ethan Frome, and Much Ado About Nothing.

Then there is this novel by Willa Cather-O Pioneers. I swore to myself, way back in ninth grade to never read anything by Cather ever again since I hated My Antonia so much.

And now I sort of feel like I am cheating on my poor little ninth grade self because I am starting to fall in love with Cather's writing. It could be that it reminds me of those books I read over and over and over again as a little girl. I'm talking about The Little House on the Prairie novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Those books WERE my childhood. My grandma had old editions that my aunts read when they were kids and I read those until my mom bought me my own copies. I love the description of the farms and the way of life. I wanted to be a pioneer.

I am seeing the same in O Pioneers. While Cather doesn't have all the tiny details down like Wilder did, it is still magnificent. I love tales of the West. I love the bravery of the people who decided to move there with the passage of the Homestead Act and tried to make something of the land. It was an incredibly inspiring time and I wish I could have lived in it.

But I also love that Cather takes the relationships between her characters much more seriously than Wilder ever did. They are far more real and tangible. Their struggles and relationships are what make this little novel so powerful (and I am only 3/4 through).

So I have learned from Cather that she is a good writer. I bet my ninth grade self just couldn't appreciate the beauty of her descriptions. I have to remember that at that time in my life, I didn't have a degree in history and didn't appreciate literature the way I do now. My tastes have changed, but Cather has not.

It really does just reaffirm my belief that books have to be read at the right moment, and sometimes, try as you might, that book is not meant for that moment. That is not to say that there are not books that are ever right, but sometimes, you just have to give them a second chance and a change of opinion.

Thanks Willa. You're my home girl now. :)