<p>I loved, loved, loved these books and read them all out loud to my DDs when they were young. I was just talking to DD 13 today about the Long Winter and the chinook, and we were thinking about visiting the museum.</p>
<p>I loved these books as a child and proudly and happily bought a new hardcover set when my daughters were old enough to read to. They liked them, but not as much as I did. </p>
<p>I think, especially for the time they were written, they were unusually honest in the “bad” feelings Laura struggled with. The boy with the copper-toed shoes she wanted to be, the sunbonnet that just wouldn’t stay on her head, how she and Pa wanted to live with the Indians and ride bareback - and of course all her trouble being as “good” as Mary, with her pretty blond curls. Wow! It was so transparent that Mary was playing along with whatever Ma wanted in the early days and then the girls’ relationship became more complex and much closer. </p>
<p>The pioneer life aspect is amazing but to me the true gift is Laura and all her struggles. The family dynamic, town life, and school life add extra richness too. Long live half-pint!</p>
<p>I also appreciate the tension when she and Almanzo were courting. You know how it turns out considering her last name is Wilder, but I was still worried over that Nellie Olson incident.</p>
<p>So glad to find some other dinosaurs!!! :D</p>
<p>I, too, loved how honest Laura was about the fact that she struggled with her “bad” side. I do remember how shocked she was the time she took a walk with Mary after she got engaged and Mary confessed that she was not as “good” as Laura had perceived her to be. I remember thinking “Aha! I KNEW it!”</p>
<p>I read all the books. I was in the school library checking one of them out when our principal came over the PA to announce that President Kennedy had been shot.</p>
<p>When my D was young I bought her the set, which she enjoyed as well.</p>
<p>Oh yes, my friends and I all LOVED the Little House books. We’d take turns checking them out of the elementary school library and discussed them a lot. </p>
<p>Could I get either of my own kids interested? No. Of course I never thought to read them aloud. They were avid independent readers, and I let them choose their own books. Their choices leaned heavily to Harry Potter. Oh, won’t they be bummed if their kids don’t like HP?</p>
<p>Still have my hardcover set of the books – I got one each year for Christmas and one for my birthday until I had them all. </p>
<p>A strange thing happened to me a couple years ago. We were in DC, and were in the National Archives. I went to the bathroom upstairs and when I came out, right next to the bathroom door was a little glass case. The only thing in it was Charles Ingalls’ homestead application for land in DeSmet. It was simple half sheet form, filled out in pencil and signed by Pa. I burst into tears. My husband and son thought I was nuts, but it just made it all so real.</p>
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<p>LOL, I love that! 
Yes, long live half-pint!</p>
<p>Did any of you know that Cap Garland died at age 26 in some kind of boiler explosion? The boy with the blonde hair, blue eyes, and smile like sunshine died single, and his mother was called to the scene to see her son’s mangled body? In Laura’s memoirs, she admitted that she actually had her eye on Cap rather than Almanzo, but when it came down to it, and she was invited to go sledding with Cap, she realized Almanzo was the better match. :)</p>
<p>I love those books, and have reread them many times. When my S was in kindergarten I gave him Little House in the Big Woods to read. (I figured I should slip it to him before he had people telling him that they were "girls’ " books. 
) He told me, very solemnly, “I’ve never read a better book.”</p>
<p>ek–interesting article. I’d heard for many years that the books were more historical fiction. Doesn’t matter though, does it? My Mom thought they were a really accurate depiction of prairie life, sanitized for our protection, of course. The absolute accuracy, well, as one poster said, a little girl couldn’t possibly remember every detail. Real life, in it’s exact accuracy, might need a little excitement added and a little drudgery removed.</p>
<p>My favorite is actually her account of husband Almanzo’s upbringing in upstate NY, Farmer Boy. I reread these books almost every year. One thing that stays with me is how hard life was; the teacher who had to throw a family of bullies out of school with a bullwhip (borrowed from Almanzo’s father); the time the entire Ingalls family almost died of diphtheria when they were homesteading alone in Missouri, and were saved by an itinerant African-American doctor; the time they almost starved to death when the snows were so heavy in DeSmet that the trains with food from the East couldn’t get through and Almanzo and Cap Wilder had to take a life-threatening trip to buy grain from people a hundred miles away. Life was really, really tough in those days, and it wasn’t all that long ago.</p>
<p>I read all those books as a child. loved them. I could not get my girls interested in them. They loved harryPotter and nancy Drew. I am glad to see that other people read childhood books as adults too. I was re reading Cherry Ames Nurses stories, that I had read from childhood (my mothers) , and my SIL could not figure out why I was reading them. Now dont feel so strange.</p>
<p>Some of my favorite books are children’s books. The Witch of Blackbird Pond and The Sherwood Ring are two. Does anyone remember the Nancy drew book where she’s given a dress (frock maybe) made from spiders webs?</p>
<p>EK, what an interesting link! It has been interesting to keep up with the scholars of the books, as to how accurate they might be.</p>
<p>Did anyone besides me read Judy Bolton mysteries as a child? Nancy Drew was ok. But somehow Judy Bolton was far more exciting. I’ve never met anyone who knew of them. Someone gave my family a set of the books. </p>
<p>Bethie, no, don’t remember that Nancy Drew.</p>
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<p>I believe it was malaria, which Ma thought was from eating watermelon. The doctor was real and his name was George A. Tann. I loved how the usually ferocious Jack barked like crazy and got him to go into the house.</p>
<p>Thanks for the correction (malaria not diptheria). I also am so sad when Jack dies right before the family emigrates to the railhead, and Laura feels bad because she forgot to fix his bed.</p>
<p>Reading these books as an adult is an interesting experience, because you realize just how hard Pa and Ma were trying to survive. Charles Ingalls kept on failing at everything he did and having to move on. The tone of the books is so positive and the narrative is so fast-moving that as a child, I did not really pick up on this. As an adult, I see it. </p>
<p>“These Happy Golden Years” is another interesting book; it describes how Laura, at 16, had to board with a family (sleeping on the sofa) and teach a country school to make money to send Mary to her special school for the blind. The mother was a little crazy and attacked her husband one night with a knife. Almanzo picked her up every weekend and took her home to see her own family, and that’s when she started to be interested in him. He was quite a bit older than she was, which was another detail I didn’t pick up on as a child, and might explain why her family wasn’t that keen on him at first.</p>
<p>^^^^^Yes, it seems Charles Ingalls had to be a jack of all trades until the day he died; he never did succeed at any one vocation. Caroline had to take in boarders to make ends meet after he died.</p>
<p>They had a hard life, for sure, but I doubt they were unique in that respect. They did seem to provide a very loving home for their girls. </p>
<p>Reading as much as I could about the “real” Ingalls family, it seems they never got over the death of their little son, Freddie. Someone quoted Caroline as saying something along the lines of “Our life would have been so different if Freddie had lived.” </p>
<p>Interesting that Laura completely omits Freddie from the Little House books.</p>
<p>Also, in the book, it is Ma who is wary of Almanzo dating Laura. Pa knows and likes and respects him and tries to reassure her that he is okay.</p>
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<p>^^^^^^^^Ditto.</p>
<p>I loved the books, cried when Jack died. The Long Winter was always my favorite, though nothing beats poor Alamzo’s proposal in These Happy Golden Years. “I was wondering if you would like an engagement ring.” “That would depend on who offered it to me,” Laura told him. “If I should?” Almanzo asked. “Then it would depend on the ring,” Laura answered."</p>
<p>^^^^^And then, ONLY after they are engaged, Laura says, “You may kiss me goodnight.”</p>
<p>YOWZA, times had certainly changed by the time I read those books! :D</p>