Pioneer Days: The Works of Laura Ingalls Wilder

[ladytrentham]

Of course I find out about this after I get lap banded...

::runs off to Amazon::

[dwanollah]

It's actually a really good historical read, too. But a little fried salt pork gies a looooooong way!

[Ladybug]

We've been reading these books to our four year old daughter all summer. Just finished On the Banks of Plum Creek last night. She adores the books. This morning she asked if we could go to Laura's house. I said sure, sometime we'll take a trip and see where Laura lived. She said no, she wants to go back to when Laura lived. So, yeah, she's pretty hooked on these books.

I think my favorite is Little House on the Prairie. Reading it as an adult, I was struck by just how much work Ma and Pa had to do. Pa built their house himself, chopped the wood, built the furniture, and Ma made all of their clothes, cooked and preserved all their food, with almost nothing store bought. I mean, the woman made her own cheese! With rennet she got herself from the calf stomach! The amount of work it took to just survive is staggering. And it could all be taken away with bad winter or a prairie fire or a plague of grasshoppers. The perseverance and optimism of these folks is truly astounding.

[LAX]

It is amazing, isn't it? That pioneer spirit was in my maternal great grandparents out in North Dakota, and later on the Oregon Trail. Without their strength, endurance, and ingenuity, I wouldn't be here today.

[dwanollah]

That's why it cracks me up when people start gushing that they love the LH books because it was "a simpler time" and we should be living like that now- Excuse me? Did we all read the same books?! Pa didn't have enough fucking nails to build a door or floor, dammit! They ate ground wheat for 7 months and almost starved to death! They lost more crops in a matter of minutes than they harvested after weeks and months of backbreaking toil! That's a "simpler time"?!

It's funny how the ones that were my favorites as a child aren't as an adult. When I was 10-12ish, I loved Happy Golden Years, but would skip past creepy Mrs. Brewster for Laura and Almanzo stuff. Now, I LOVE the Mrs. Brewster section (and yeah, back to that "simpler time" thing... how about going nuts from almost total isolation on an empty prairie in a one-room cabin?!) for what it tells us about our history. I wasn't too keen on By the Shores of Silver Lake as a kid, but now it's so revealing in terms of various race/class relations, religion and the Wilder code of "independence" that it's a glorious read compared to, say, the basic coziness of Little House in the Big Woods. I think that's one of the things that makes certain "children's" authors last... they mean as much or more when you're an adult, or to subsequent generations. Laura and Rose nailed that one... without store-bought supplies.

[ladytrentham]

Hear, hear, Dwan!!!

When I read Little House on the Prairie now, I want to reach through the book and slap Pa around. Ignoring signs of human occupation when picking the site for the cabin really gets me. By all means, build your house right next to a recently used path where your children feel watched. Then endangering his family by staying put during the uprising because he couldn't possibly abandon his homestead. But what does he do at the end of the book? Have a temper tantrum and do that exact thing! Native Americans threatening violence couldn't make him budge, but the U.S. Army offends his pride? Wha...?

All that aside, Mr. Edwards rocks. And Dr. Tan.

[Ladybug]

We're reading On the Shores of Silver Lake right now, and it's like we are reading two different books. Lil' Ladybug loves the stuff about riding on the train, Laura and her cousin riding horses, Pa taking Laura to watch them build the railroad grade. I am reading it for all the signs that Laura is growing up into a young woman, and how this really concerns Ma and Pa. They are warning her to stay away from the "rough" railroad men, her mother is teaching her to act like a lady and not like her "boisterous" cousin Lena (who is just asking for trouble in Ma's opinion!). As an adult, you understand exactly why her parents don't want her anywhere near that shanty town full of men, but my kid's interpretation is that "they don't want Laura hearing any bad words." We're just getting to the part about the family moving into the surveyor's house for the winter.

I go back and forth on Ma. I don't like that she's such a racist, hating on the Indians and "half-breeds" (try explaining that term to a four year old), but I really sympathize with her in OTSOSL. Pa just really asks a lot of her and all she ever responds is "whatever you think is best, Charles." Just once I'd like to hear her say "Oh, hell no, you are not moving me and my FOUR DAUGHTERS to the middle of nowhere to live in a shantytown with a bunch of rough railroadmen!"

[Ripley]

I clearly need to re-read these books, because it's been years, and I've missed lots of details.

[Peggy Lane]

Rose Wilder Lane would die, because reading "The Long Winter" made me think that someone should make sure those people don't starve! They let the area be settled, now the government needs to step up and help them out! Not, you know, the message she was going for but LHOTP is one of those things that helped form into a liberal.

[Auroranorth]

Aug 8, 2011 17:27:31 GMT -4 Peggy Lane said:

Rose Wilder Lane would die, because reading "The Long Winter" made me think that someone should make sure those people don't starve! They let the area be settled, now the government needs to step up and help them out! Not, you know, the message she was going for but LHOTP is one of those things that helped form into a liberal.

Having just read Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder, I think I can safely say that Rose would totally freak out at that.