The author style was rambling and not chronologically consistent. There was little discussion of how Rose Wilder Lane's nascent Libertarian views influenced Laura Ingalls Wilder's writer. RWL was LIW's editor, and RWL influence, in this area, was very strong.

VERY detailed

This added just a bit to my knowledge about LIW. I found it a bit of a slog with very plain retelling of many of the well-known incidents in LIW's life.

The final chapters about the relationship between Laura and Rose held the most interest for me.

Contrary to some of the other reviewers, I think this a good if not great biographical reference for the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Unlike the other "Laura" biographies, this one has the most insightful historical contexts. The historical context spans all of Laura's life from her earliest days in Pepin Wisconsin, to her life in Kansas, Walnut Grove, Burr Oak, De Smet, Missouri and everywhere in between. The book tells of the people and events surrounding Laura particularly within the location she was at the time, and in turn gives insight into how this shaped Laura's life experiences. There are also many relevant facts in this book such as: the fact that Laura was a loan officer for a Missouri bank, she once ran for political office, she died the year that a satellite first went into space, etc. I would not pass over this Laura Ingalls book as the narrative is fine throughout and detailed. It feels like a captivating history book. It reads as non-fiction, which it technically is anyway!

Eh. I wish this had been a more interesting read. Too thin and at the same time too much filler about the times padded with census data. A map of her journeys, before and after her marriage, would have been a really helpful addition. Maybe one day I'll pick it up again but I doubt it.

I belong to a Facebook group for people interested in Laura Ingalls Wilder, and when I heard about this book I was intrigued because I hadn't heard of it. (I've read a *lot* of books by and about her.) It does a great job of researching what was going on in the world during her life, as well as differentiating what's in the books from real life, plus the role of Rose Wilder Lane in Laura's life and books.

If you're looking for a good read about the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, there are better ones out there than this one. I would recommend

Laura Ingalls Wilder: a biography by William Anderson
Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Donald Zochert

I felt the author's own opinion detracted from the real facts and too much focus was centered on Laura's relationship with Rose. Except for the bit about another family living with the Ingalls during the Hard Winter, Miller has nothing new to add that wasn't already covered by the other two biographies I'd already read.

Good overview of Laura Ingalls Wilder's life, though it did seem to capitulate on the relationship between Rose and Laura. Was it good? Was it bad? It was good! It was bad! There were some interesting tidbits with no source information, and the author relied heavily on Rose's journals for a lot of the book. But overall, I liked it.

i liked the authors approach to the subject. it is unfortunate that much of what there is to learn must come from the less objective view of Laura"s daughter Rose. However, learning about Rose was also interesting. I certainly learned more about the life and times including statistics of the communities that were settled near, as well as news of the day. Very good research and presentation.

I listened to this one for the first time on my way to and from visiting De Smet, South Dakota, the Wilders' first home for those of you who don't know the history. So as I was driving around a touring, this was a great companion to what I was seeing. I've been a Little House fan since I was a little girl, so as an adult I got to geek-out on this road trip. But this book provides a lot of new details that aren't in other books about Wilder. And the narration is very good for a biographical work. For Wilder fans, I'd say this is a must-read!

Written in the style of a term paper and sometimes over-speculating or relying too much on the over-emotional diary entries of Rose Wilder Lane, this did illuminate some of Laura's life. The parts about the process of writing her books were especially interesting. [Reviewed in the "book journal" I kept throughout 1999.]

An interesting account of the suprisingly not very interesting life of Laura after she moved to Missouri with her husband. Most of the book revolves around her often stormy relationship with her only daughter, but the author assumes that people already have a working knowledge of Rose Wilder Lane's story. He often refers to future events or refers back to previous events in her life in a way I found confusing. And he ends abruptly at Laura's death and fails to finish off the book with any summary of how Laura (and Rose's) legacy continued. It kept me up several nights reading it though!