Little House on the Prairie

I started off this summer in a bit of a reading slump. My requests for library books were delayed by many weeks, and nothing on my shelf looked intriguing. In times like these, I try to relieve pressure from myself, telling myself it’s okay to not want to read, and that I don’t always need to have a book on my nightstand, but honestly it’s not even a pressure I put on myself; I just like to read. That being said, I don’t make myself read things that I don’t want to read, and sometimes I read really “low-brow” or childish literature. Why? Because I’m not pretentious about reading. I read for enjoyment, not because I’m trying to be fancy or make people think that I’m smart.

When I was in college, I checked out Charlotte’s Web from the university library. The librarian even commented on it! I remember her clearly trying to tell me where the adult fiction section was located, pitying me as if I simply couldn’t find anything more advanced. Truthfully, after reading a lot of college textbooks, I wanted to clear my mind with an old familiar story. Sometimes I love reading books from my childhood that I remember cherishing. 

This brings me to my current summer reading: the entirety of the Little House on the Prairie series. 

I loved the Little House books as a young girl. I loved learning about settler culture, and people moving west, and I begged and begged until my grandma hand sewed me a “pioneer dress” to wear with my bonnet. I loved my bonnet so much that when my aunt gifted it back to me for my bridal shower (my little cousin had inherited it as I aged, and thought I might want it back), I cried with joy at rediscovering my lost treasure.

I thought I remembered so many details about young Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life as a young settler and later teacher, but it turns out I had a lot to gain now as an adult as well. 

The books, which are semi-autobiographical about the Ingalls family’s struggles and triumphs in the 1870s and 1880s, were published later in Laura’s life, in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by the TV show in the 1970s (rumored to be rebooted in coming years). 

I checked the books out from my elementary school library back in the day, but I now own a box set. It’s a vintage box set, which I got at my local antique warehouse a few years back. This boxset has handwritten notes on the inside covers, and was given as a Christmas gift to a granddaughter from her grandparents in 1981.

When I bought the books, I thought they would make a great gift to my future children’s library one day, and that is what pulled my mind to thinking about them again. After I found out that I’m due with a baby girl later this fall, I pulled the set off my shelf to put in the pile of nursery goods. It was only after I admitted that I was in a reading slump that I began reading them in June. 

Truth be told, they are easy reads. The print is large, and there are scattered illustrations throughout by Garth Williams (same illustrator as Charlotte’s Web, in fact), and the content is straightforward. They are written for a younger audience, but the books also grow with Laura Ingalls as she ages. 

There are eight books in total, beginning with Little House in the Big Woods. During this book, Laura is about five years old. It is the simplest book, where the least happens, and it is full of stories about her grandfather and her Pa and their log cabin adventures in the Wisconsin woods. As the woods became more crowded with settlers, Pa took the young family to the great plains in Little House on the Prairie. Next comes On the Banks of Plum Creek, and Laura, now about eight years old, struggles with the aging of her family dog, the realization that her parents are human and sometimes struggle, and her role in the family as the middle sister between Mary, who seems perfect and pleases her parents always, and baby Carrie, who is the family baby. There is a huge jump into the next novel, By the Shores of Silver Lake, wherein the stories get more complex, the chapters are longer, and Laura struggles with the onslaught of upcoming adulthood. As she’s nearly fourteen now, some of her peers are getting married, some of them are attending school, and some, like Laura, help to keep their families afloat. The Ingalls family has a new addition in baby Grace, Mary has gone blind from Scarlett Fever, and the family is moving to a new homestead claim in Dakota territory. 

Each book gets progressively more intense as Laura’s life changes shape. In The Long Winter and Little Town on the Prairie, Laura helps with the family work while also studying to become a teacher in hopes of making money to send Mary to college. There are hints of romance as Almanzo Wilder (later to be her husband) enters her life, and Laura becomes a proper young woman. The series ends with These Happy Golden Years, which details her life as a young teacher, being courted by Almanzo, and leaving her family home to establish her own. Funnily enough, I didn’t remember as many details about these later books from when I was younger– to be honest, I think that I was bored of the romance and wanted more frontier fun. 

I’ve loved reading these books this summer. They are quick, and easy, and not only do they transport me back to my childhood, they are a refreshing firsthand account of settler life, which I find interesting as a US History teacher. This summer I am also taking two professional development classes– one dealing with art history in the 19th century, and the other covering Native American history from 1900-present. All of these experiences combined (along with the new History Channel docuseries on the west!) have provided me lots of food for thought this summer. It’s been an interesting study of a true American family in the 1870s and 1880s, but also of the era in which they were published in the 1930s and 1940s. For example, the way the children are expected to obey their parents (and the consequences when they do not do so), the narrative surrounding women’s rights, and especially the race relations and settler colonial mindset reflect both eras, and not in a positive way. As I purchased this box set of books with the intent of gifting them to a child someday, I can’t help but wonder how to navigate those conversations about a different era, and how I perceived this as a child. Will kids today understand the cultural context of the time? 

So, yeah, I’m reading children’s books, but if you take some time to consume some literature outside of your normal box, you might learn something! I know I have.