Pioneer Days: The Works of Laura Ingalls Wilder

[monkey]

Check out the cover of The Long Winter at the Harper-Collins site. Pa looks stoned, and the atrocious fake beard isn't helping.

[Deleted]

Is nothing sacred? I've noticed in recent years that hardly anything "classic," in its original or best-known form, is considered marketable--especially to kids--anymore. The Little House books and the stories they tell are old-fashioned in many ways. We see this in LIW's (and Rose's) use of language, the way the Ingalls family relates to one another, their (usually) quiet endurance of hardships, and their emotional reserve. The Garth Williams illustrations and yellow covers are a perfect complement to the stories: they're a little quaint, but not cloying, and they're gentle and sort of lovingly rendered, which is also how I would describe the series itself.

But the series is also a timeless tale of growing up, resisting and accepting gender roles, devotion to family, hard work, and exploration. Because of this timelessness, and the books' reputation, they ought to sell themselves. They do not need NEW! COVERS! to attract readers' attention. I think it would do kids good to see that books, etc., don't have to look "cool" to be interesting, fun, and valuable.

ETA: I just looked at The Long Winter. Poor Pa has a distinct resemblance to Chris Robinson of Black Crowes/Kate Hudson fame. That would explain the stoned expression.

[ladymadonna]

OT: Yay! Trixie Belden fans! We should start a thread!

I hate, hate, HATE when series get "updated" with new covers and pictures. It's like I get really attached to the first version that I read, and then when they come out with a new cover, it pisses me off. "To Kill A Mockingbird" for example. The first version I read was the sixties or seventies edition. link I read it literally to shreds and had to update. All I could find was this version of the cover, and it pissed me off. Same wonderful book, crappy cover.

I can't even imagine trying to read Little House In The Big Woods without Williams' sweet drawing of little Laura holding her rag doll, Charlotte. The illustrations helped me form my mental picture of the Ingalls' world, and it irks me that tons of kids who get the newer versions won't get to see Almanzo in a bandage after the potato exploded in his eye, or Laura curling her hair with a heated piece of chalk, etc.

[divasahm]

Oh, I just hate when they do this!

I've tried so hard to find copies of my favorites with their original illustrations for my kids, and sometimes they make it damn near impossible. Did you know, for example, that for a while in the '90s it was very hard to find an affordable copy of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" with the original Tenniel illustrations?

Thank goodness we've already got the Little House books--although ours have the blue gingham covers instead of the yellow--same illustrations and cover art, though.

[pamster]

monkey said:

Check out the cover of The Long Winter at the Harper-Collins site. Pa looks stoned, and the atrocious fake beard isn't helping.

He looks all like "Duuuuuuuuude..." and the kids are posed in a very stiff artificial-creepy way. Happy family at home...

Yeah, that'd make me want to buy a copy.

[linared]

Check out the cover of The Long Winter at the Harper-Collins site. Pa looks stoned, and the atrocious fake beard isn't helping.

Why would they have a cover on that book where everyone is laughing? Everybody almost died in that book. It is stupid.

[dwanollah]

linared said:

Check out the cover of The Long Winter at the Harper-Collins site. Pa looks stoned, and the atrocious fake beard isn't helping.

Why would they have a cover on that book where everyone is laughing? Everybody almost died in that book. It is stupid.

I was just gonna say that. Like, nothin' says a down-home good family time like near starvation.

[divasahm]

Hmm...did I miss the part about the hunger delirium that had everyone but Pa sitting around laughing like they were on nitrous oxide?

[monkey]

Well, whatever they were on, it compelled them to strip poor little Grace down to her slip, despite the supposed freezing conditions, and made Mary do her hair like Claudia from The Babysitters' Club.

[Mugsy]

Huge confession: I've never read the books. I received one as a child, and it had probably what you guys are referring to as the classic cover. But to my stupid TV-watching self, Pa looked like Mr. Edwards, which I thought was so wrong, so I never read the book, even though I was an avid reader. Dumb, I know.

Reading this thread, I really want to read them now and plan to this winter. What order should I read them in? I'm a linear thinker, so I like to read things in proper chronological order.

What's interesting about pioneer/prairie life in general is how it's often romanticized. People just don't realize how HARD it was, the prospect of illness and death always hanging there, and all the work required just to get through a regular day.

The women had it worse, I think. They would get up with the husband, and while he was in the barn doing chores, she was in the house, stoking the fire, making bread, boiling water for coffee, fetching and cooking eggs, etc. He comes in for breakfast and gets a nice sit-down break while she serves and cleans up. Then both go on with their workday. When is her break? Oh, and she often has to do everything while pregnant, nursing and/or with a bunch of kids around her ankles.

Some women even rose before "their man" so that the coffee would be ready when he got up. Again, it was set up so that he could get his deserved rest and break, and no one ever thought that the wife needed a coffee break, ever. She was only doing house chores after all.

The sad thing is, I still know a few farm wives who live like this. They work together in the barn and fields, but at mealtimes, he "rests" because he works so hard, while she is cooking.

History implies that the New World was "won" by all those hard-scrabbling menfolk, but because of writings from women like LIW, I think we know better.

*This isn't intended as an anti-man rant, just a pro-woman one, I guess. A lot of women's stories aren't written because they didn't have the time or resources to do it, or the wherewithall to publish them.