Seasons

I never knew this picture book series existed until recently. The narrative is simple, and the pictures are fantastic. It's a great introduction into the Little House series. And since I never read those as a girl, it's been a good introduction to me too! Our whole family enjoys these books.

I love these books so much!! So heartwarming and cozy.

I read a few of these books to Elsa. She loved them. It was great to show her what life was like for other little girls, and to teach her gratitude for all that she has.

The classic stories of life on the American frontier are adapted for the picture-book set. Young people are offered a (very idealized) glimpse into the past and the ways the Little House family prepared for the winter months.

Veg*n parents note: Pa is shown going into the woods with his gun and we are told that he hunts every day so the family will have plenty of meat for winter. This could bring up discussion regarding how food and our ways of obtaining it have changed greatly over time.

My sister passed this along me, us both being fans of Little House. I've never actually read any of the books before, and wondered if this was a snippet from the series, or a made-up story.

I loved the little cabin in the woods, with the split-rail fence. It looked so cozy.
I found myself comparing it with the show, thinking they didn’t have a bulldog, it was a boarder collie. Like in the show, Laura had brown hair, Mary and Carrie had blonde.

They were picking vegetables from the garden, but it didn’t show a garden, just her holding carrots above the grass, which looked like they sprang up out of nowhere. Rather than having a garden with rows of different vegetables.
It showed the simplicity of games children back then would have, how they played house in the attic, using pumpkins as tables.

When the first snow came, the windows were frosted over, with pictures of trees and flowers and fairies. Ma said Jack Frost came in the night and made the pictures while everyone was asleep. Laura and Mary used Ma’s thimble to make patterns in the frost.

They had a day for each chore: Wash on Mondays, iron in Tuesday, mend on Wednesday, churn on Thursday, clean on Friday, bake on Saturday, rest on Sunday.
She would cut paper dolls for them, drawing their faces on with pencils, and cutting dresses, hats, and ribbons out of colored paper.
The best time of all was when Pa came home. He would take off his fur cap, and coat, and say “Where’s my little half-pint of sweet cider half drunk up?” If you’ve watched the show, you’re definitely familiar with “half-pint,” but I’d never heard the rest of that tacked onto it.

Like the show, Pa plays the fiddle, and he sang, too, although I don’t remember that in the show. Carrie looked cute on this page, with her arms outstretched, listening to the music.
He also liked to tell them stories, setting them on his knees and ticking their faces with his whiskers. We’re told he had blue eyes. I guess that's accurate to his eye color in real life.

It says it was cold and snowy outside, but they were all cozy and snug in the little log cabin, and happy in the Big Woods. I liked that line, because it shows the coziness you can feel in your house during winter, but I didn’t expect that to be the last line of the book
The last picture shows their cabin in the snow, with a smoke trail from the chimney, and the light from the windows shining in the snow on the ground.

This shows a glimpse into what life was like in the past. I loved the outfits, like Pa in a fur cap, with his rifle, and hunting gear on, and them in their dresses. And how even though their house was little, they were still cozy and happy in it.
I wish it had been more of a story. It’s titled winter days in the big woods, but the chores it talks about are done on any day, any time of the year. It only snows eleven pages into the book, and shows them drawing on the window. It didn’t cover what chores are specific to winter. The rest of the scenes in the book are of them inside of the cabin. You wouldn’t even know it’s winter, until the very last page.
This didn’t really feel like a winter book.

We love this series for our little boys, and I can't wait to read it to our little girl when she arrives. There are some awkward lines here and there, but I think that just comes with the period the book is set in, which I love. We hope to add all of these to our children's library at some point!

Love all the stories in this series. Love the illustrations!

Our family loves these illustrated versions of The Little House books!