Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

We will be reading Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie as the first two books in our 2022 buddy read of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House series.
As each month progresses, we will be discussing the following books in the series, all in this thread.
Please feel free to comment on either of the first two books in the series, being sure to state which book you're talking about.

The first two books feature a young Laura, so much of the focus in on her family, especially Ma.
If any of you have watched the TV series, you will that the Ma in the books is somewhat different, but Pa is pretty well the same.

I hope you have a chance to join us during the course of the year.

Why not? I have read some of these 6 times (the first 2), some 5 times and others 2 -4 times (most of this aloud). Wait, not true--I think I've read a few more than that. I just reread one or more in 2020.

What fun! I recently re-read the entire series, so it will be great to have some folks to discuss with! Will definitely check back here from time to time.

I will love to join in with this. These books are so lovely and it's been a while since I read them and look forward to other people's thoughts.

Just to let people know there is a channel on youtube where the Little House books are read amongst other good books. It's called Reading with Beverley Volfie.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGsB...

Thanks, Tracey.

I have just started Little House in the Big Woods. The big woods sound wonderful teeming with wildlife and trees.

I like the scenes of family life too.

Believe it or not, I have reached my late sixties without ever having read or watched anything Little House! I guess it is time I change that!

Karen I really enjoy the shows and I have only read the first book.

Karen wrote: "Believe it or not, I have reached my late sixties without ever having read or watched anything Little House! I guess it is time I change that!"

I read them because the tv series became popular when I was a girl and being a reader I wanted to read the books. There are many things I haven't read that others have so it is quite believable that you haven't read them. I hope you enjoy them now; as the group name says, it's never too late :)

Tracey wrote: "Karen wrote: "Believe it or not, I have reached my late sixties without ever having read or watched anything Little House! I guess it is time I change that!"

I read them because the tv series beca..."

I read two of them because my parents bought them for us, but I'm a bit older than you so read them prior to the show.

Karin that reminds me.

All little girls got a box set from my Mom for their birthdays!
She loved the Little House stories too!

I have never read this series and have not seen the TV series. I would like to try and join in.

You're in for a treat, Penny. But it's important to remember they're a product of their time. Ma wasn't always open-minded about certain things.

Rosemarie wrote: "You're in for a treat, Penny. But it's important to remember they're a product of their time. Ma wasn't always open-minded about certain things."

I have to say that anyone who expects the Little House series to show a modern attitude towards in particular Native Americans needs to start thinking. For these books were written in the 1930s about events that took place in the mid 19th century and if Laura Ingalls Wilder were to have shown a contemporary attitude in her texts that would definitely not be historically accurate (for either era).

And I frankly find it ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING that some moronic “activists” have taken the erstwhile Laura Ingalls Wilder Award and removed her name! Really inappropriate and in my humble opinion something that Hitler or Stalin would have done for both of them kind of thought that they had complete control over the past and could change things at will, just like the haters who decided to keep the award but disgustingly erase Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from it.

That is such a shame!

That is horrible! So I looked into it and Manybooks is correct and her statement of disgust.

"formerly the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, is now named the Children’s Literature Legacy Award.

The award, distributed to just 23 people over more than six decades, recognizes authors and illustrators whose books have created a lasting contribution to children’s literature.

Wilder herself received the first award in 1954, three years before her death in 1957."

Sign of the political discourse of 2018.

In the later books in the series we learn just how hard her family's life was when she was young, and her first years as a wife.
The Long Winter was an eye-opener about their hardships.

I've been sceptical about awards for a while, but erasing her name is just wrong on so many levels.

Lesle wrote: "That is horrible! So I looked into it and Manybooks is correct and her statement of disgust.

"formerly the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, is now named the Children’s Literature Legacy Award.

The awa..."

Both on the right and the left, the extremists are winning, sigh.

Lesle wrote: "That is horrible! So I looked into it and Manybooks is correct and her statement of disgust.

"formerly the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, is now named the Children’s Literature Legacy Award.

The awa..."

I hope they did not try to posthumously strip Laura Ingalls Wilder of her award.

There are unfortunately far too many biographies of Laura Ingalls Wilder that are trashy and try to claim that it was not her but her daughter Rose Wilder Lane who “wrote” the Little House series (which is ridiculous as while Rose did a lot of editing, the basic texts are by her mother). For me, Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life is very good, wonderfully balanced and highly recommended.

Please feel free to discuss any of the books in the series now.

Hi All, I may join in for some of the books, but I think my view point may be a bit different. I did not grow up watching the TV show or having read the books as a child, so I do not have a sentimental attachment to them. I am a trained historian, so I do not expect a modern attitude toward Native Americans or other marginalized groups. I understand that I should look at the these books for the time they were written. That being said, I am also a home-educating mother to my young daughter. I have to address these issues with her so that we can put the books in perspective. Early in the pandemic we read The Little House in the Big Woods and The Little House on the Prairie. We both appreciated the detailed accounts of how people lived and survived in these respective environments. There are, however, points that I either had to censor or we had to have some very important conversations. I look forward to possibly exploring the rest of the series. Is there a particular schedule for this buddy read?

Manybooks wrote: " For me, Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life is very good, wonderfully balanced and highly recommended...."

Thank you Manybooks for the recommendation! I will add to my wishlist!

Rosemarie wrote: "Please feel free to discuss any of the books in the series now."

Hello Marie
It is good of you to take your time to discuss with your daughter parts that do not fit in our social life anymore.

To answer you question, I believe you can read any book in the series as long as you mention in your comment which book you are discussing. Rosemarie??

There is no set schedule and I know our members will be considerate about spoilers!
Just to be sure to mention which book you're discussing.
I found that Ma had the most difficult attitude to people of different backgrounds.
The books do depict the hardships and the joys of those times.

A good time to read the book Farmer Boy(if you haven't read it yet) is after Almanzo is mentioned the first time. Any sooner than that interrupts the flow of the other books.

Thanks! Yes I skipped Farmer Boy because I was working the other two books into our lessons about Wisconsin and Kansas, respectively.

Lesle wrote: "Manybooks wrote: " For me, Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life is very good, wonderfully balanced and highly recommended...."

Thank you Manybooks for the recommendation! I will add to my wishlist!"

This is the best Laura Ingalls Wilder biography I have read.

I find it kind of sad that some would rather ban the Little House series than discussing it with their children.

Marie wrote: "Hi All, I may join in for some of the books, but I think my view point may be a bit different. I did not grow up watching the TV show or having read the books as a child, so I do not have a sentime..."

I think that all of these books make for great discussion topics, and frankly, the entire Little House series should definitely not just be read in particular by younger readers without discussion. And since much of what Laura Ingalls Wilder writes actually mirrors historical accuracy and truth, it sure drives me batty when so-called activists claim that this series should not even be read anymore. Because ignoring history or painting a different and more postive but ultimately fantastical portrait of history is at best naive and at worst really dangerous.

Lesle wrote: "That is horrible! So I looked into it and Manybooks is correct and her statement of disgust.

"formerly the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, is now named the Children’s Literature Legacy Award.

The awa..."

Part of the problem is that her daughter, who had a hand in editing the books, and who owned the rights after Wilder's death, had a strong connection with right-wing politics and the libertarian movement. If you lie with dogs, you will get fleas.

John wrote: "Lesle wrote: "That is horrible! So I looked into it and Manybooks is correct and her statement of disgust.

"formerly the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, is now named the Children’s Literature Legacy A..."

Rose Wilder Lane seems to have been a real piece of work. She was originally a radical Socialist and then suddenly changed to extreme right wing libertarianism. She was often really horrible towards her parents and used her mother’s autobiographical notes for her own novels without asking permission.

I just finished reading the first book in the series recently, Little House in the Big Woods. It is a book typical of its time; gentle, quiet and educational. I hope kids still like this kind of book today, but nothing got blown up and no one died a gory death. No bathroom humor either...

A teacher friend and I were discussing the series - her school requires the younger grades to read Little House On the Prairie because the students have no frame of reference for that period of history, what a prairie is, how the pioneering families lived, the strife between the Native Americans and the settlers. Full, grammatically correct sentences as opposed to cartoon bubble thoughts. These older books are so important in that regard.

I loved it. I didn't find this one to have any offensive cultural references but as was discussed above, cultural references need to be taken into account based on the time period and discussed with young readers instead of just banned out of hand. How do we learn/teach not to repeat certain behaviors without any frame of reference. But not everyone feels that way, I guess.

Anyway, next up for me is Farmer Boy and I'm looking forward to it.

I'm also fully immersed in the Narnia series right now - another series I missed as a child. Filling in all the gaps - better late than never!

I discovered the Narnia books in my 20s. I loved them, and have since reread them numerous times.

Since I last checked in here, I have finished Farmer Boy and Little House on the Prairie. Farmer Boy was very similar to Little House in the Big Woods; a year in the life of Almanzo Wilder, Laura's future husband. Almanzo was born and raised in New York state on a quite well to do and successful farm.

In addition to being an endearing story, it is a great way to introduce children to turn of the century farm life and how grueling, as well as how satisfying, a way of life it is. Almanzo and his siblings work along side their parents from dawn to dusk milking cows, tending stock, churning butter, hauling timber, planting crops, harvesting, threshing, preserving, stocking the ice house, maple sugaring, weaving, spinning yarn, endlessly cooking enormous meals, spring cleaning, and tending to the myriad other things that keep a farm running over the course of a year. In addition to the endless work there are good times and highlights; holidays with relatives, the visit from the tin peddler and the shoemaker, the state fair, and days bobsledding and fishing. The chapter when Almanzo's parents go away and leave the children to tend the farm for a week was one of the more amusing adventures. It goes about how one might expect it to even today!

Little House on the Praire follows the same calendar year format but involves a move from the Big Woods to Indian Territory in the midwest and a year of prairie living. It isn't quite as instructive as Big Woods is and covers more drama, mostly in respect to Indian encounters. The tension between the settlers and the Indians is palpable and leads to a pretty climactic conclusion which I honestly didn't expect. I thought sure the Indians would be booted out so the settlers could stay - the settlers expected the same thing - but it seems the Ingall's would have been asked to leave had Pa stuck around and not pulled up stakes and left of his own accord. It's pretty astonishing that people could just head west and plop themselves down anywhere and build a house with no formal deed or paperwork and no regard for the "savages" as they saw them and their claim to the land. Unfortunately it didn't work out for the Ingalls, and I'm next off to the Banks of Plum Creek wherever they might be.

On the Banks of Plum Creek has more of Laura's story than the previous books, and also the books after that. We learn about her points of view as well as those of her parents. They're fun reads.

I haven't started reading this series yet but I think I will add it to my list of books to read this year. Two books doesn't sound too much. I remember my teacher reading these to us in the Third Grade. Amazing that I don't really remember much about school but what teachers read to us in class. What a waste of time that was!!! I think school would be a lot better if they just gave us books, art and legos.

Okay, I haven't been around much, but since I have read part of this series 5 times, part 4 and part 3, etc, I can still chat about it. (I read 3 of the books out loud to my 3 kids 4 times...one had me read the series to her twice.)

I think many of us have good memories about reading this series. I used to read them to my Sister who is 4 years younger than me. She got a set from my parents for her 7th birthday. I do not remember when I got mine.

I'm now finished with On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake. On the Banks of Plum Creek was pretty relentlessly grim. Spoilers ahead...

The Ingalls have arrive in Minnesota where they settle on the banks of Plum Creek in a dug-out built directly into the bank of the creek. Another calendar year of a pretty difficult time including prairie fires, a plague of grasshoppers and life-threatening blizzards. Pa is away for a good bit of the time working "back east" where he can earn a living after the grasshoppers destroy his wheat crop. He does manage to build them another house, this one out of machine manufactured lumber and shingles pointing to modernization and the new technologies being developed. And Laura and Mary attend school for the first time much to Ma's delight, but Pa is a restless sort, and by the end of the book the reader senses that Plum Creek is not their forever home. He is already talking up the glories of moving west. Pa is something of a rolling stone it seems. I wonder does that come across in the TV series? I did not watch the series, but it seemed that Michael Landon had sort of a glow around him during those years as the wisest and the best in all he did for his family. Reading the books, I pity the long suffering Caroline who has been moved so far from her family and is subject to Pa's every whim. She always acquiesces but I sense a deepening sadness and frustration in each subsequent move.

Between this book, Plum Creek, and Silver Lake, Ingalls skips over a few years that were apparently too personal and too difficult for her to write about other than in her personal journals. I was not aware of this at first, so the transition between these two books is not very smooth. I thought at first that much of what I didn't pick up during the transition would be explained later in the book, but that is not the case. Cynthia Rylant has researched and written the story of those years but I don't think I am interested in reading it right now.

So I am next off to Silver Lake in the Dakota Territory where Pa has taken a job as a sort of storekeeper/accountant for those who have come west to build the railroad. Pa intends to settle a homesteading claim here once the trauma and debts of the previous unrecorded years is all settled. On a personal note, my father's family homesteaded on the North Dakota prairies and built the town of Ambrose way up on the Canadian border, so I am all about how this is going to go for the Ingalls. Things seem to go reasonably well in Silver Lake, considering all they've been through elsewhere. And the book is another thorough and interesting story of how the railroads were built and what camp life was like for those who built them. As in the workers and their horses, not the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts - the stories that are generally told. Grace has joined the family, taking Carrie's place as the baby, and following the death of a male child, never mentioned in the book. And Mary is now blind as a result of Scarlet Fever, briefly mentioned at the beginning of the book. So the family dynamic has changed quite a bit.

We leave Pa starting the business of settling up his claim and building poor Caroline her forever (?) house, much to her delight. We'll see. Pa is already complaining about the lack of wood and the lack of game... The teaser near the end of the book - who do you think has shown up in Silver Lake? Farmer Boy!

I like Almanzo and his brother.

I finished The Long Winter back in August. This had to be the bleakest book of the series. Forewarned by an Indian that the coming winter would be the worst in years, the Ingalls family moves from their homestead into town as their claim shanty would likely not withstand a tough winter and they wanted to be closer to the townspeople in De Smet. They quickly learn the terrifying weather phenomenon that precedes a blizzard and hunker down immediately as soon as they see the cloud on the horizon. From October to May they withstand blizzard after blizzard, each lasting days at a time. Supplies run short in town and the railroad can't get through the snow filled cuts. By February the Ingalls are living on brown bread alone and running out of the flour to make even that alarmingly fast. They have also run out of wood and coal to feed the fire and have to twist hay into sticks to burn in the stove. Pa has to make quick runs to the claim between blizzards to bring the hay back to town. No easy feat. It was just one thing after another - the family was numb to the point of stupification by the time spring came. The only thing that saved their lives was Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland's daring trip into the wilderness to bring back enough rumored wheat to tide the town over. It was a very LONG winter! No romantic interest between Almanzo and Laura yet. Not that they had time to court between blizzards and fighting to survive. And Laura is still only about 14 years old, I guess.

The Long Winter is bleak, and we see a more mature Laura and get a better idea of what their life was really like-very hard at times.

I forgot about their struggles with just life!

Rosemarie wrote: "The Long Winter is bleak, and we see a more mature Laura and get a better idea of what their life was really like-very hard at times."

Bleak yes, but realistic and also my favourite of the series, especially since Mary gets a bit more page time and shows that even with her being blind, she is a great help for everyone.