...
Show More
I read this because I loved all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I think John Miller did a good job and the book was well researched, but sometimes you don't want to know this much about your heroes.
Ease Reading-Find Your Next Favorite Book
Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend
...
Show More
Although generations of readers of the Little House books are familiar with Laura Ingalls Wilder’s early life up through her first years of marriage to Almanzo Wilder, few know about her adult years. Going beyond previous studies, Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder focuses upon Wilder’s years in Missouri from 1894 to 1957. Utilizing her unpublished autobiography, letters, newspaper stories, and other documentary evidence, John E. Miller fills the gaps in Wilder’s autobiographical novels and describes her sixty-three years of living in Mansfield, Missouri. As a result, the process of personal development that culminated in Wilder’s writing of the novels that secured her reputation as one of America’s most popular children’s authors becomes evident.
320 pages, Paperback
First published May 31,1998
This edition
- Format
-
320 pages, Paperback
- Published
-
January 31, 2006 by University of Missouri
- ISBN
-
9780826216489
- ASIN
-
082621648X
- Language
-
English
Characters More characters
-
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was an American writer known for the Little House on the Prairie series of childrens books, published between 1932 and 1943, which were based on her childhood in a settler and pioneer famil...
Readers also enjoyed
Community Reviews
Rating(4 / 5.0, 74 votes)
5 stars
20(27%)
4 stars
31(42%)
3 stars
23(31%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
74 reviews All reviews
...
Show More
Not the best Laura Ingalls Wilder bio I've ever read, but it does give more insight into her relationship with her daughter. Very "academically" written, I think.
...
Show More
This is a good biography (written for adults)that provides some critical analysis of Wilder as an author.
...
Show More
I have to say, I was surprised at how much of a role Rose Wilder Lane, Laura's daughter, played in the writing, editing, and publishing of the Little House books. I'm not sorry I read this, but I will say that it changed the way I viewed Laura Ingalls Wilder a bit, as my previous view of her was drawn only from the Little House books. I knew they were works of fiction, but they are autobiographical to a certain extent, and I think in my mind the book Laura and the author Laura were basically the same. Overall, I enjoyed this book and found it interesting to learn more about the life of one of my favorite children's authors.
...
Show More
Very informative and interesting. I learned lots of things I didn't know.
...
Show More
Read too much like a biography of Rose Wilder Lane. Still, I liked learning about the real LIW.
...
Show More
I wavered between 3 stars and 4 stars for this one. I was somewhat annoyed by the author's handling of political and religious issues, natch. I rarely see eye-to-eye with academia on these matters.
As part of a series dedicated to Missourians the book contained more about Missouri history than was ideal for someone not as in interested in that topic. Not that it wasn't interesting or apropos. Just a warning to others. One could certainly skim those parts without losing the thread of the story.
This is not a standard biography. It deal primarily with Laura's time in Missouri as an adult which was largely ordinary and unrecorded. There is interesting discussion of the nature of her relationship with her hugely complicated and brilliant only child, Rose. This portrait of Rose is less than flattering. Almanzo is mostly absent from the book as would be expected given how little is really know about his life in Missouri.
I ended up giving it 4 stars because I did enjoy the scholarly nature of the book and the amount of information and I could certainly recommend it to any devotees of Laura and/or Rose and/or Missouri.
As part of a series dedicated to Missourians the book contained more about Missouri history than was ideal for someone not as in interested in that topic. Not that it wasn't interesting or apropos. Just a warning to others. One could certainly skim those parts without losing the thread of the story.
This is not a standard biography. It deal primarily with Laura's time in Missouri as an adult which was largely ordinary and unrecorded. There is interesting discussion of the nature of her relationship with her hugely complicated and brilliant only child, Rose. This portrait of Rose is less than flattering. Almanzo is mostly absent from the book as would be expected given how little is really know about his life in Missouri.
I ended up giving it 4 stars because I did enjoy the scholarly nature of the book and the amount of information and I could certainly recommend it to any devotees of Laura and/or Rose and/or Missouri.
...
Show More
Surprisingly good. I usually quit biographies part way through and this one I more or less finished. (I did skim through the politics and social history sections.) Despite the authors' claims that the Little House books were not biographies, it was fun to draw correlations between the lives the Ingalls and Wilders and the books themselves.
Leave a Review