| Title | : | The Complete Little House on the Prairie Collection |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 1897 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1971 |
This eBook includes:
1 Little House in the Big Woods
2 Farmer Boy
3 Little House on the Prairie
4 On the Banks of Plum Creek
5 By the Shores of Silver Lake
6 The Long Winter
7 Little Town on the Prairie
8 These Happy Golden Years
9 The First Four Years
The Complete Little House on the Prairie Collection Reviews
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Like so many people, I read and loved these books as a girl. When my son was an infant and I was looking for something to entertain me during his marathon bouts of nursing, I decided to read the series again. I still found it immensely enjoyable, but with one striking difference: When I was a child, Pa Ingalls seemed like the coolest dad on the planet - he played the fiddle, made his own bullets and took his family on all sorts of adventures all over the unsettled west. As an adult, however, I thought Pa came off like a flakey dreamer who put his family through years of hell, always claiming "Caroline! If you just put up with backbreaking labor, mortal danger and starving kids for a few years, just watch! This expanse of desert/marsh/frozen tundra will become the breadbasket of the world and make us rich as kings!" How Ma Ingalls put up with his crazy schemes for so long is a testament t her patience/holy doormat-ness. On re-reading, I thought the series must be missing the volumes "Little House on the San Andreas Fault", "On the Slopes of Angry Volcano" and "By the Toxic Tidepools of Three-Mile Island."
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OK, so I'm a little generous with the whole Little House series. Sue me. But for me, as a child, they WERE "amazing," and here's why.
When I was in first grade in a tiny, tiny town in Arkansas, and hating school with the heat of a thousand suns, each member of the class was given identical packages at Christmas time. They were books. I'd been reading for a long time already, so loved a new book...but disappointment set in as my classmates who got their books first opened them before I had a chance to open mine, and they were all the same: A beginner children's book called "The Big Snow." (I think) It was about a kid getting dressed to go out into the snow. On one page, he put on his pants. On the next page, his boots, and so on and so on, FOR AN ENTIRE BOOK. I wanted to cry.
And then when I opened MY book, it was
Little House in the Big Woods. Then I DID cry, because it was a REAL book, and somebody "got" me, and knew I was different, and it was OK.
I loved the series as a kid, and after reading each book, would spend lots of time imagining that I had brought Laura from her time to mine, and what it would be like to show her things like cars and telephones and televisions--she'd be AMAZED! And she'd think I was so COOL!
Yup. I just reviewed a book as a 7-year-old. You're welcome. -
I read these as a young girl and loved them. That's about all I remembered about them, though. So I decided to read them again, and I'm so glad I did!
Reasons I loved these books:
1. They are clean and wholesome.
2. They teach responsibility and hard work.
3. They teach about gratitude and being happy with what you have instead of looking elsewhere for happiness.
4. FAMILY is emphasized and taught to be an important part of society. Laura's family is warm, loving, and kind.
5. After reading about all of the work that went into obtaining honey, cheese, eggs, grain, meat, oats, and butter, I'm grateful that I can make a quick trip to the grocery store and spend my time doing other things!
I enjoyed every character in this series. I especially loved Laura and grew to admire her throughout the series. She always wanted to be outside, enjoying nature. She wasn't big on sitting around for any extended amount of time. She was strong-willed and opinionated, yet well-mannered and feminine when needed. She was a true pioneer and worked hard for everything that she achieved in her life.
I also enjoyed the fact that there was a strong father figure in these books, who loved his girls and taught them to work for their dreams. I was annoyed with the fact that he continued to uproot his family, but if he had quit the first time around, and everyone else had, too, then we wouldn't have the good country that we do today.
This book isn't politically correct in some places, and it gave me a taste of what it was like to live back then. I'm grateful to be living today, but there are so many things to be learned from these great people!
I better stop now before this gets too long. I'm going to buy all of these books because I will be reading them again, and again, and again... -
I read this series when I was in fourth grade...so it was many many years ago. However, the story has not left my mind. I absolutely adored these books, and I'm sure I would love them just as much if I re-read them! I remembered feeling as though I was with Laura's family during every journey they went through. It's a fascinating story - and a true one at that. I'd recommend that everyone reads this series at least once in their life!
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Individual reviews were left on each book's page.
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REVIEW OF THE KINDLE EDITION
So one of my main children’s literature reading projects this year will be to (hopefully) and finally reread and post detailed reviews for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series (as thus far, I have only managed to do this for the third novel, for Little House on the Prairie). But while my reviews for the individual series novels will of course be posted separately, I am in fact going to be reading each of the Little House novels from this here simply wonderful and totally reader-friendly Kindle edition, from The Complete Little House on the Prairie Collection.
Because it is in my humble much much easier and much less stressful reading nine novels in a single e-book omnibus (and yes, part of the reason why I have to date only managed to reread and review Little House on the Prairie and not any of the other series novels is precisely because it was always too much of a pain to keep lugging my hardcover editions of the Little House on the Prairie series around with me, something that is of course totally avoided with The Complete Little House on the Prairie Collection as everything is ready, waiting and easily portable as a Kindle edition, as an e-book).
Four stars for the general and very much reader-friendly set-up I have encountered in The Complete Little House on the Prairie Collection and with my only caveat being that while ALL of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s texts have been faithfully and completely presented, unfortunately none of Garth William’s accompanying illustrations are included (something that does not really bother me all that much, since I have always found Williams’ pictures for the Little House on the Prairie series more like visual trims than an essential part of my reading experience, but since I do realise that for many readers, Garth Williams’ illustrations are an essential part of their childhood reading experience with regard to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s memoirs, I do feel that I must issue a warning that this here e-book omnibus, that The Complete Little House on the Prairie Collection only features Laura Ingalls Wilder’s printed words and does not include Garth Williams’ artwork). -
Okay, I'll admit it. I still re-read these. I just finished a ramble though the pioneer prairies with Laura and enjoyed it throughly.
I know there is an outcry about the treatment and representation of Native Americans in these books, not to mention women, African Americans, and children. But let's calm our politically correct minds for a moment and think about the treasure of literature these books are. Specifically, they are WONDERFUL for educating young people about how people of color, minorities, women, and children were treated and thought of in the late 1800s.
It's not like Laura is out there advocating Native American oppression! These books are her memories (or maybe her daughter's interpretations of the stories she heard) and that's how it was for her and her pioneer family. It's not how it is today, thank goodness. Laura gifted us with these memories - let us use them wisely. -
Overall, a wonderful classic collection: however, there are some politically-incorrect portions in some of these books.
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I don’t think I’d ever read all 9 Little House books in a row before. I have read all of them on their own and several repeatedly, but it wasn’t a series I re-read in its entirety. The whole series is a roller coaster for me and (to be completely honest) my childhood self preferred the spinoff series to most of the Little House books.
I’ve heard it said that the Little House series glorifies the pioneer lifestyle. While I can’t deny that some people read it that way (see The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure), I simply do not. Sure, I dressed up as Laura when I went to visit De Smet, but I never wanted to live like the Ingalls, nor did I wish myself back in their time period. Their lives were difficult and dangerous. It makes for great suspense, though some of the Ingalls family’s problems are due to Charles’s poor decisions. I keep wondering why they didn’t go on to Oregon. Plenty of good farming there, with more temperate weather. I know Caroline didn’t want to keep going west, but with hindsight, it would have been a safer option.
The genius of Little House lies in three things: good writing, a memorable close-knit family, and bringing the ways of the past to life. There are plenty of good books that have the first two elements, but the third is what sets Wilder’s books apart. It’s why they have lasted for more than 90 years. It’s still a big part of what I love about history today. Knowing about how lives in history were lived doesn’t mean I want to go back to those times; it’s about saving knowledge and expanding our concept of human lifestyles. The series is not perfect by any means--there are plenty of scenes I skipped, plenty that made me angry--but good literature should make a space for difficult questions. Even as a child, I knew Caroline’s attitude toward the native peoples whose lands she was colonizing was horrible. I didn’t have the language of xenophobia or white supremacy to express it, but my conscience knew right and wrong. There’s something to be said for a series that gave me, at a young age, the chance to see and reject a hate-filled way of life. I also can't separate the fact that I love fiction by/about indigenous people from spending so much of my childhood reading on the prairie.
Overall, I enjoyed the books I knew I would enjoy again, and only found one book surprisingly delightful upon re-reading. There’s a space between idolizing the past, glossing over its horrors, and pretending it didn’t happen. The Little House books fit in the between space for me, and I am happy to nestle in the nuance.
Little House in the Big Woods: I was wondering why this book was not a part of my regular childhood re-reads, and then I remembered…I like Renée Graef’s picture books about Wilder’s Wisconsin life much more than this book. It’s so violent. I just can't with the Charley scene. And Pa is so unfair to Laura. Being a toddler is hard and it's not easier when your parents have a favorite child.
Farmer Boy: Top tier. A true favorite! (Though I skip the school violence in the beginning, yikes!) As one of my childhood friends said, “I like reading about plenty.” It’s a delectable book with some good stories. We see Laura’s emerging horse girl tendencies vicariously through Almanzo. I really wonder why the Wilders moved west--their farm seemed stable and prosperous, but times, places, and people change.
Little House on the Prairie: Ugh, I did not like this book as a child and I don’t enjoy it now. What was Charles Ingalls thinking, moving into territory he knew he could not rightfully claim? Honestly, sir, get a grip. This book also has malaria, an interminable covered wagon journey, wildfire, and many other reasons why I never, ever wanted to live “back then.” My friends’ classes read this book in school, and I was so confused. It’s nowhere near the best of the series.
On the Banks of Plum Creek: This was my favorite as a kid. The cover still brings me so much joy, and I feel a spark of delight whenever I see pink or blue morning glories. I visited the site of the Ingalls dugout as a child and it brought this story to life. The way Wilder wrote Nellie is a study in pure, unabashed hatred. Honestly a little shocking to re-encounter as an adult, the way Wilder held such anger in her heart over the decades! Not even Little Town on the Prairie has that much ire. I also cannot believe Caroline’s audacity in giving Charlotte away. To quote Caroline back to herself, for shame! If Carrie had been the one throwing a fit in a neighbor’s home, Caroline would never have allowed her to accept a toy. You can bet that the next time some modern parent says they won't let their child read a certain book because of the characters' attitudes, I will ask them about Laura's hatred for Nellie Olesen.
By the Shores of Silver Lake: Regretting that this one wasn’t part of my regular re-reads growing up. It’s so cozy and delightful! The scene of Laura watching the building of the railroad is fantastic, too. Maybe my favorite Christmas scene in the series. It made me wonder why Mrs. Boast is absent from the rest of the series, except for that heartbreaking scene in The First Four Years.
The Long Winter: This one is just rough. I’ve lived through blizzards and forty-below temperatures, but with the comforts of electricity and a well-insulated home. Wilder does a good job of building suspense with Almanzo’s narrative.
Little Town on the Prairie: The Ingalls family deserve a break, and here is where they get it. There are antagonists to keep the plot rolling, and Mary’s leaving for college always makes me tear up. (I skip the blackface scene.) I love how the Ingalls rally to send Mary to college so she can live more independently and continue her studies.
These Happy Golden Years: This is my favorite of the series. Laura learns she loves to earn money, she shows her strength of character and lives up to her principles, and the romance between her and Almanzo is sparely written but delightful. I feel for Mrs. Brewster, too. She must be suffering from PPD or some sort of psychosis. It’s so sad. I can’t believe how Laura kept it a secret from her family. She can honestly be so mercenary! Horse girl Laura is in her element here.
The First Four Years: Like certain other books in the series, this one is hardship after hardship. Hard to catch a break on the prairie. I wonder how Almanzo convinced Laura to move and try farming somewhere else. It does have me wanting to read the Rose books again… -
Read this series many times when I was younger and it's one of my favorites!
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This is a nice classic, and I read the very first book in this series years ago for school. I will admit that any book I was forced to read for school was not one I enjoyed as much as I could/should have, because of the quizzes, projects, and the like which for most people, would lessen their enjoyment of said book. (I'm sure we all remember that kind of experience!) Even as a major bookworm, required classroom reading always dampened my enthusiasm.
However, I did read the rest of the series on my own through the next few years, and I very much enjoyed the series. As a kid, I did not realize that this was only semi-autobiographical, and I learned years later that some of the real-life events that happened to the Ingalls family had been sanitized, or wiped out - no mention of Laura's dead baby brother, or just how Mary became blind (in one book, she can see. In the next, she is blind. No mention of how it happened IIRC) Some of the characters in the series are composites of real-life people, and some of the events are described in a more subjective manner.
Even knowing this, I still think it's a good series for children to read, especially with the illustrations by Garth Williams. Although some of the darkest stuff was cut out of the story, there's still plenty enough difficulties experienced by the Ingallses to make today's average kid appreciate the conveniences they have. Back then, the Ingallses could not just pop by Wal-Mart when they needed something, there were no video games or Netflix for entertainment, no AC/heating system, medicine was very limited especially if you lived in the backcountry, etc etc.
One caveat is that the series was written in the 1930s, and PC was not a thing back then, so there is some derogatory language associated with Native Americans, and there is also a slanted view regarding the government and homesteading. So if you're getting this series for kids, it's important to have a discussion with them about that.
Overall a good series, educational so far as to how difficult life could be in these times, and different cultural/societal norms of the 1870s-1880s. -
These books are a portal to a time in history long gone, told through the perspective of a child as she grows and experiences her interesting life. I absolutely loved these books growing up and wanted to crawl into the pages and live alongside Laura. They will forever hold a very special place in my heart. <3
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Domestic life back in the day might not be quite as cozy or cornucopia as these stories suggest. But I worked out my own personal truths about the Little House Books and why the stories live in my blood. It’s my way of making peace with yet another childhood relic facing the wrath of actuality.
Truth #1. Christmas is always better in a log cabin on the prairie when you have nothing.
Remember Mr. Edwards crossing the wild creek to bring the Christmas presents from Santa Claus? Remember the new tin cup, the stick of peppermint candy, a heart-shaped cake? Remember Ma asking them if their stockings were empty?
“Then they put their hands down inside them to make sure. And in the very toe of each stocking was a shining bright, new penny! They had never even thought of such a thing as having a penny. Think of having a whole penny for your very own. Think of having a cup and a cake and a stick of candy and a penny. There never had been such a Christmas.”
Let’s face it, if you’re ecstatic about receiving a penny, albeit a shiny penny, you live in an entirely different universe than the one today with expectant kids opening smart phones, x-box machines, and six hundred piece Lego sets. Christmas on the frontier lacked frantic materialism. Laura understood at a very basic level the difference between nothing and something, between molasses and white sugar, between poverty and a penny.
In each book, Christmas is always a monumental event usually with its own chapter that never fails to create a sort of pithy yearning in the modern reader. The chapter usually includes such details as Pa whittling flowers and birds into a wood bracket for Ma, Laura receiving Charlotte her first rag doll, the aforementioned pennies, the Boasts showing up on Christmas Eve at Silver Lake, the secret makings of mittens, neckties, aprons, and handkerchiefs knitted of thin lawn, the Youth’s Companions saved to read on Christmas day, cans of oysters which apparently were quite a treat, popped kernels, Almanzo coming from Minnesota with oranges, and my favorite- the Christmas tree at the church with the little fur cape and muff saved for Laura. The very fur cape and muff that upstage the infamous Nellie Oleson.
Oh to be content with a penny of your very own! To have a moment fully realized, to yearn for nothing else. For sheer joy to wash down to your bones. To be content with a one room cabin, Pa-made furniture, and white sugar only when company came. To find your true gifts in the natural world: The rippling grass and enormous sky. The plum thickets and cattle paths. The sheet of silver water and tall wild grass of Silver Lake. The tangles of wild grapevines and wind blowing through the cottonwoods. Gifts savored with appetites void of distractions, without the clutter of too many presents under the tree.
Truth #2- Don’t believe everything you read about Pa.
I love Pa. I might have even been in love with him at some point with his wild hair and fiddle playing and his “Where’s my little half-pint of sweet cider half drunk up?” Seriously, Pa could do anything. Build a log cabin, fashion furniture from trees, dig a well, construct a fish trap with scraps of wood, twist hay into sticks for burning, follow the clothesline to the stable to feed the livestock during a blizzard, cross a roaring creek, outsmart a pack of wolves, survive for three days in a snow bank during a blizzard, play the fiddle like a choke cherry tree quivering in the wind, melt lead to make bullets, kill animals to feed his family, build the rocking chair of all rocking chairs for Ma, win the town spelling bee, trap and skin animals, plow a wheat field, plow a corn field, save the house from a prairie fire.
However, on the internet, there are certain innuendos about Pa. Quite a few bloggers attribute the family’s several moves and financial loses as proof that Pa was either a good-for-nothing lazybones or an opportunist charlatan.
“So in reality, Pa ends up being rather a jerk,” one blogger opined.
Be still my heart. If Pa wasn’t a decent, hard-working guy wouldn’t the entire premise of the stories falls apart?
In the books, there is always a really good reason for the moving ons and starting overs and Laura certainly didn’t seem to mind them since she personified wanderlust. In the big woods, the land was settling up and food was becoming scarce. No more bears and deer meat to survive those long winter months. The Indians and the government drove them from the little house on the prairie. And surely Pa couldn’t be held responsible for the plague of grasshoppers that devoured his wheat crop on the very eve of harvest while they lived on the banks of Plum Creek. Later, the long winter stalled their homestead progress and blackbirds ate the corn.
In reality, there might be some truth in the assertion of Pa’s opportunistic tendencies. Apparently, he knew the land in Kansas wasn’t cleared to be settled yet. There’s also the part between Plum Creek and Silver Lake when Laura and Mary worked in a hotel in Burr Oak, Iowa and boarded with other people. I can’t imagine Pa and Ma paying rent and not living in spaces as wide and vast as a prairie. With this knowledge, I thought it rather interesting when I reread the following in the first chapter of Little Town. Pa has just asked Laura if she’d like to work in town. To which Ma exclaims, “No, Charles, I won’t have Laura working out in a hotel among all kinds of strangers.”
“Who said such a thing?” Pa demanded. “No girl of ours’ll do that, not while I’m alive and kicking.”
But apparently two girls of his did do exactly that while he was alive and kicking.
So Pa was a complicated man and maybe not as idyllic as the books suggest. Still, Laura chose to portray Pa as hardworking, witty, brave, larger-than-life. Maybe he’s the Pa Laura wanted or believed or remembered. I’m sure in actuality Charles Ingalls was somewhere in between the good-for-nothing bloke and mighty Paul Bunyon. It’s a bit reassuring that he might not have been king of the castle in everyway. (He did dwindle down to skin and bones during the long winter and could be found cursing the wind and snow.) I’ve made my own peace in the realization that it doesn’t matter to me if the real Charles Ingalls was this way or that way. I have Pa from the books and that is the way I choose to remember him. Even if fictional, Pa fulfilled a vital purpose in my young life. He personified the kind, fierce father, the protector of little girls. He took them to abandoned Indian camps and carried deserted beads home in his handkerchief. He knew the answers to vital questions such as how a panther sounds when it screams and why Laura wanted that Indian papoose with the black eyes. And Pa was brave! Remember when he hit a bear over the head with a club because he didn’t have his gun? (True, the bear ended up being a tree stump that Pa mistook as a bear in the darkening woods but it takes the same amount of courage to attack a tree you honestly believe is a bear as it takes to attack a real bear.)
Truth #3- I was born in the wrong era.
Yep, I mean it. I’m sticking to it. The Little House books have always created a sense of longing in me (and countless other little girls) to live in a log house. And even as an adult, I still wonder if I’ve been cheated by being born into this techno-crazy world. Sure life was hard back then and the thought of an unheated house, baths only once a week and untreatable malaria hardly sounds like a vacation. Still, they had roasted pig’s tail and country dances and buggy-rides!
Despite the abundant amount of information at our fingertips today, there seems a lack of critical thinking, a lack of wisdom. No one I know, including myself, can divide sums without a calculator or recite from memory the entire American history like Laura did at the school exhibition.
In actuality, I’m sure the Ingalls found plenty of tedious moments. For instance, we never hear about the outhouse situation in the little books. Wouldn’t that have caused some serious headache during one of those three day blizzards? And how much of their life was spent fetching water, kneading dough, washing dishes, sewing even stitches on a bodice? Most of their time and energy was spent on providing shelter, warmth, food and clothing. But for me, this single-mindedness is the appeal. There is no therapy like work. They didn’t have time to wonder how their parents ruined their childhood or if they should vaccinate their children or if the food they ate caused cancer. (Although, Ma did believe watermelon caused Fever’n’ague. Pa ate an entire one by himself anyway.) Mostly, they were grateful for food even if it was blackbird pie.
Out on the prairie or in the little town, strangers aided each other in times of illness or distress. People needed each other for survival. I wonder if their perspective focused more on the eternal because death lurked in the corner. Although I’d never say their lives were easier or even simpler, I do believe the reality of their situation forced them to face the bigger questions more often. They dug to the roots of life more often because they had fewer distractions obscuring their view like overgrown ivy. For some reason that sounds mighty appealing to me.
Truth #4- A fictional story is no less beneficial and authentic than a true story.
I think I came to this conclusion early in life, growing up on Narnia and Nancy Drew and Beverly Cleary. Then came Jane Eyre and My Name is Asher Lev and Housekeeping. All books that expanded and latticed my life with beauty. Yet in society, there is generally greater value placed on a true story than on a fictional one. Ask James Frey. A friend once told me she couldn’t justify reading fiction because she wasn’t learning anything. Apparently, fiction equates a lack of truth. In this vein, Laura and her daughter Rose took great pains to assert that every word of the books were true, thus creating the controversy when facts proved otherwise.
Yet stories, true or not, live in our blood and give meaning to our lives. Some of the greatest lessons are taught through fiction. Jesus himself taught eternal truths through parables. I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter to me whether every word in the Little House books reflects reality. Maybe it was never the “true” aspect of Little House that bewitched me. Maybe it was the way the books carried me out of the real world and into another “real” world that just might exist because this Laura person really did exist. The stories have become a part of me, as real as a childhood memory. They vibrate in my background like the wind chimes on my front porch. The idea of the log cabin made with Pa’s bare hands (and Ma’s until she sprained her ankle) still tangle up around me like wisteria.
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With Little House, I still find some sort of hoary comfort from reading about maple dripping from trees and squash stacked up in the attic. The stories are rustic safe. The Ingalls experienced hard times, but the stories seem to unfold and move beneath a safe paraffin-like surface. A surface not unlike the glossy pages in the full-colored collector’s set. Nothing scratching their beauty. No matter how many grasshoppers ate the wheat or how many blizzards attacked the house or how many times Nellie called Mary and Laura “country girls,” Ma was always home cooking her baked beans and no yeast bread and Pa’s gun hung over the doorway on two wooden pegs.
Oh, to play catch with a pig’s bladder! To wear a brown poplin to church (and have a cat climb up your hoops) or slide on the ice of Silver Lake and escape the wolves. To sleep in a hay ticked bed. To be thrilled with syrup squiggles in the snow or to wade in a creek with the water-bugs. To draw a dripping bucket of cold, fresh water from the well. To look through an open window at a pack of wolves. To slide down a golden straw-stack or gallop across the land clutching handfuls of a pony’s mane. To hear the horse bells in the frigid air coming to take you away from the horrid Mrs.
Brewster's for the weekend. -
After a couple of days immersed in this series for the first time in I don't know how many years, I'm left bemused in a lot of ways.
From a historical standpoint, there's little else out there for kids that is this rich and complete. The everyday details that make up a pioneer life are lovingly dwelt upon in a way that's just far enough removed that even the littlest reader doesn't panic. After all, if they all starved to death in The Long Winter, there wouldn't be a next book, would there?
From a modern, perhaps revisionist standpoint, I was uncomfortable with the hate that boiled out of Ma every time she talked about Indians. I didn't like the way Pa treated his family, the way he got the most potatoes, the way he dragged them from pillar to post on a whim. So many of the things I didn't like were cultural and I feel as if I haven't any right to not like them, if that makes any sense. It's the way things were then, and ought to be presented as such. Those who don't remember their history and all that.
I dig the messages about self-sufficiency, I found the descriptions of how to craft houses and furniture and food out of prairie sod and a few cottonwood trees to be fascinating and useful.
But I don't much like the Ingalls family. I haven't a thing in common with any of them, I don't think. I'm walking away for the last time with some fond memories, and that's enough. -
these books made my childhood amazing
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I actually read these books at the interesting age of 8.
I was completely obsessed with Laura and Mary. For some reason I liked to relate myself to Mary but then she went blind after getting scarlet fever and it kinda ruined it for me if I’m being honest. Typical Mary *eyeroll*
I loved them so much that I literally dressed up as Laura for world book day and I wore a bonnet and pinny with a FLOOR LENGTH GOWN. I was dedicated.
When the dog died a large part of me died with it. Same with the cat who was mentioned a couple times and they just LEFT IT BEHIND IN THEIR STUPID CABIN IN THE WOODS
Also Mary and Laura do be #girlbosses for walking 7 miles to school everyday
But yes, between the ages of 8-10 I probably would have given an arm and a leg for this book series -
This series was the one that jump started my reading. I almost despised reading up until the day when 8 year-old me picked up “The Little House in the Big Woods” determined that since my older sister had read them so could no matter how much I knew I’d dislike it. In the first chapter I was already enjoying myself. I read one after another of this series and I’ve loved reading ever since (though I’m still not as fast a reader as my sister).
I’ve read through them myself twice since then and also participated in listening most nights when my mom was reading through them to my younger siblings before bed last year. -
Another set I read when I was younger. I think I've read them all at this point, but not in any order. I read a few for school projects, a few for myself, and a few to mom as a teen, this is another set I would like to try a reread for.
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Most people love these novels, and I can't for the life of me understand why. I was given the collection growing up and read them, but I never cared much for them and never re-read them.
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Loved each book in the collection.these books helped fuel my love of reading and interest in history. They made the past real to me.
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The Little House series is obviously so well known it seems silly to write a review.
The thing is, my memories of reading these books as a child are pretty tangled up with memories of the tv series, and they are actually pretty different. I reread the series with my daughter when she was little and was mortified. We had to pause constantly to have serious conversations about the racism and colonialism imbedded deeply within.
Laura Ingalls Wilder was a gifted writer and storyteller and the myth of the proud, hardworking, pioneer is not just her narrative, it's pervasive. This is American; Susanna Moodie is a much lesser known Canadian writer of this ethos. Thanks to some Indigenous friends I found Louise Erdrich and her
Birchbark House series. The main characters are in the same era, similar ages, but the story of the genocidal colonialist beginnings of Canada and the US told from the perspective of a young Anishnabe girl and her family is compelling and refreshing.
If you must indoctrinate another generation with the bullshit humble pioneer narrative, at least read The Birchbark House series as a counterpoint. -
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder is an exquisite set of books that I cherished growing up. Read until they were dog-eared, this series has to be one of my childhood favorites. A story about a young girl growing up on the frontier, it was so popular they made it into a T.V. series even though the series didn't do it justice. Stories as a young girl I could relate to, the mean girl in town, fights with my sisters, and just the struggles of everyday life of any family. The love Ma and Pa had for each other showed through so much so, that even today I can still see Caroline's eye's sparkling bright blue as Pa whirled her around the dance floor. This series is a perfect example of a story well told. When you're there in Laura's life so much that you can feel her fear when in trouble, or you can taste the penny candy on Christmas, that's a story. I have no doubt this will be a children's classic for years to come. I highly recommend it.
ClassicsDefined.com -
I began reading this series in the 4th grade and I think read the last one during my 6th grade or the summer before. I loved back then to read all kinds of stuff but books about history or rural settings just spoke to me. I think even then I was destined to be forever in love with history. I loved the adventurous nature of Pa and Ma Ingalls, products of a time in history when men and women had the pioneering nature that whether right or wrong was the history of the United States. They lived in a generation when many grew up hearing the stories of how their fathers or grandfathers crossed the ocean looking for a better life. About how brave they were. They wanted that same adventure. They were being tempted by a government offering free land and hearing everyone say just go west to the promised land.
The Little House series is about a portion of the history of the United States and how a young girl witnessed it. Laura Ingalls Wilder has endeared the Ingalls family to many young and old readers alike. Yes they are simple but even as an adult I still enjoy reading them today. -
I have, ever since I was 8 and received a box set of the "Little House" books, adored each and every single one of them. In over 20 years, my feelings towards these books haven't changed one iota. They are easy to read, and chock full of information about life as a young pioneer girl. How many times did I wish I could taste Ma's vanity cakes, or see Mary's college dress in person? These books are so fascinating, for anyone remotely interested in history, that it makes it impossible to put them down.
The writing itself is fine. Let us remember that Laura Ingalls Wilder was a teacher in the late 1800's, and that she always received top marks in grammar and reading. Even looking over her books now, as persnickety as I am about poor spelling/grammar/editing, while her language is simplistic, there is nothing wrong with the way she writes.
These books are meant to be treasured. -
My teacher gave these to me in first grade. She was impressed that I had taught myself how to read and I was such a well spoken child at an early age. What went wrong with me?
Well these books are an all time classic. I remember staying up all night reading the stories with the blanket over my head and my brothers flashlight shining on the pages. They kept me up all night and I so miss the books, the movies, but even more so the morality that was so simple and logical that it makes me stop wondering what went wrong with me but what went wrong with my country to dispel the fine, outstanding morals of this time and place. -
I started reading this set to my school kids. We are on the second book. These books are timeless and the kids love them. When I pulled out Little House in the Big Woods and told them it was our next storytime book, I got waving hands and big smiles. They said things like, "I love those books," and "Those are my favorite books."
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Sweet and ideal, but shockingly real in some ways.
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My mom read these books to me and all my other siblings at least 10 times, and each time I loved hearing each story! This series is one of the best!
