Laura Ingalls Wilder

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A single story told as though it’s the only one

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls WIlder

July 26, 2019 by Wanderlustful Leave a Comment

For those of you who missed reading this American children’s classic in your own youth, as I did, Little House on the Prairie is the second (or third, depending on whether you count Farmer Boy, apparently) in Ingalls’ multi-volume Little House set, after Little House in the Big Woods. It was my first foray in Ingalls’ works, and I don’t think I missed anything by starting out of order. The book kicks off with Pa Ingalls yearning for a place with less people (the Big […]

My favourite book of 2018

June 11, 2018 by llp 3 Comments

I know it is a terrible cliche, but every chapter inevitably had me thinking “this sounds familiar, I feel like we read this every day, the more things change…” While I did not grow up watching the television series, I was a voracious reader as a child, and repeatedly read The Little House of the Prairie series. I am also very interested in biographies of writers I enjoy, particularly when my perception of them isn’t particularly well matched by the reality (see also L. M. […]

Life Doesn’t Make Narrative Sense

March 4, 2018 by Ellesfena 8 Comments

I cannot review the Little House books without talking about this: these books are racist. I hope that teachers or parents who are introducing these books to children for the first time are having serious discussions with these kids about racism and colonialism, and how these attitudes influenced westward expansion. As I was rereading these books (which, by the way, I loved as a kid and reread many times), I couldn’t stop thinking about the word “pioneer,” which in this case is just a euphemism […]

The Real World: Little House on the Prairie

February 8, 2015 by ElCicco 7 Comments

I think I read all of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books when I was a kid and I watched the TV show for at least a few years when it ran. While I enjoyed the novels and the TV show, I don’t remember re-reading or re-watching them, so I am what you might call a casual fan as opposed to a fanatic. Still, when I read last summer that the “true story” of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life — in her own words — was […]