The Wilder on the Prairie Podcast is getting ready to do this one, so I picked it up to reread. I have read it so often that it really flies by, but it is so interesting to see what stands out on each subsequent reading. While it’s not my favorite, it furthers the story well and the girls are growing up. I did laugh out loud at intentionally planting cottonwoods.

Another reread.

Always a pleasure revisiting this series. I am still always humbled by how grateful they were for the little things that I feel I take for granted, and all the hardships they endured.

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আগের বই গুলোর কাহিনীর পুনরাবৃত্তি মনে হলো অনেক জায়গায়। এছাড়া মোটামুটি লেগেছে বইটা। শেষ দিকে ছোটখাটো একটা চম ছিল, যা পরবর্তী বই গুলো পড়ার জন্য আগ্রহী করেছে।

I don't know what happened but there is a somewhat large gap between On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake. We only learn that there had been some life-altering events in Ingalls' lives but never really take part in them. Grace appears without an introduction and scarlet fever has left Mary blind. Then Laura is much more grown up in this one (she is thirteen years old.) and to make it all worse, Jack dies.

Pa gets a job offer to works for the railroad and on the eve of Pa going West poor Jack dies. (why!!!) I do love the series and it's not that I don't completely dislike this novel; it's just in comparison to the other novels (specially the previous one), it didn't quite do what others did for me. Not to mention it's kind a rude to kill Jack (I know, I know, this is historical fiction based on a true story.) The series supposed to make me feel better but, really, this one is bit depressing.

My second favorite from the Little House series.

Nearly a teenager now, Laura and her family now move from Plum Creek to Dakota Territory after her Pa gets a new job as a bookkeeper. She sees many surprising things which includes riding her first horse, rattled workers, and a permanent new home. A (100%/Outstanding)

Sniffs. Wipes away tear

n  Laura knew then that she was not a little girl any more. Now she was alone; she must take care of herself. When you must do that, then you do it and you are grown up.n

Oh, they grow up so fast, don't they? I do wish that this series could stay with Laura as a young girl - running around and having adventures with Ma, Pa and her sisters. But, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote this as autobiographical and so her younger-self had to grow.

Gone are the isolated cabins in Wisconsin and here is the bustling brand-new town of DeSmet. Laura and her family are living in a n  townn now and with that comes quite a lot of differences. The girls have to go to school and behave like little ladies - but if you think that will stop Laura from letting loose, then you have another thing coming.

Told in simple, plain language, this book manages to capture the beauty and the wildness of town life in the late 1800s. What a time to be alive!

Audiobook Comments
Read by Cherry Jones and accompanied by Paul Woodiel on the fiddle - absolutely loved it!

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Well, Jack's dead so what is really the point of these stories now?

Which lady did Santa ask to sit on his lap at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas party tonight? 

This lady!

And did he ask any other grown ass woman (or man) on the scene to do so? 

No friends, he did not.

And it wasn’t even pervy.
No mistletoe in the vicinity.
We shared a few laughs, I gave him a big hug, and I left that party feeling like I’m sure to get exactly what I want for Christmas.

…
Also... which lady checked into the hotel afterward, and hit it off with the clerk who is also originally from California, and ended up hanging with her and eventually her two daughters in the hotel lobby, because they all somehow felt like extended family members?
This lady!
…

In other words, it’s been a good night.

And this is precisely what I love about traveling. You never know if it’s going to be one of those terrible, tire-popped-on-the-side-of-the-road kind of days (I've had too many of these), or if it'll be bursting with kind strangers who make you feel like you’re not alone.

And perhaps that’s part of why our dear protagonists, the Ingalls, move around so much in this series. Yes, there are definite push and pull factors at work in the fore, but Charles in particular strikes me as a man who gets antsy if he can’t explore what possibilities may be waiting, just around the bend.

Now, don’t get me wrong.
In this fifth book of the series, the eldest Ingalls daughter goes blind, and the beloved family dog dies, and the new homestead in South Dakota wreaks havoc on an already storm tossed family.

But they also find a lot of good that would never have entered their lives without a significant risk, and a significant change of scenery.

Highly recommend this one, though I’ve decided to take a hiatus from the series. The Ingalls rock, but I need a literary change of scenery, myself. I’m thinking my next read should be something aggressively unwholesome, to restore balance in the universe (I'm open to book suggestions). I do believe these were decent folks, salt of the earth. But no one in real life is as cheerful and good as these people are all the time in Ms. Ingalls Wilder's rose-colored memory, and I don’t even know if it’s healthy to always be so “up.”



Book/Song Pairing: I Still Haven’t Found (U2)

Such nostalgia for me. Good stories, great characters, good details, etc. I can’t wait to read these to my daughter (and any other future kids I may have).

Listened to this volume with kids, in car, over supper. And it, the whole series, is an old classic I might have been tempted to dismiss. I had three sisters and all these books were in the house and I read everything, so I knew these stories decades ago, and it is surprising to return to them and find what a good writer Wilder is. This book was written in 1939, and is meant to reflect 1880 U.S., and it is a sort of fictional treatment of Ingalls's own experiences growing up, with herself as the main character who would write these books.

It is impossible for me to read these books without images of the TV show in my head, Michael Landon as Pa Ingalls taking his family west to the unsettled wilderness of the Dakota Territory. And now we own the DVDs and we are watching them. I can recall coming home from school in the sixties and sometimes joining my mom and my sister watching episodes of this show, and almost every show, crying over some thing. The death of a dog, a close member of the family, takes up three pages or more, for instance.

After a series of moves, Pa heads to what will become DeSmet, South Dakota. When Ma, Mary, Laura, Carrie, and baby Grace join him, they become the first settlers in this town. They file a claim for the settlement they choose. And Pa begins work on the first building in what will soon be a brand-new town on the shores of Silver Lake. Mary is already blind, Laura is urged to be the family teacher (against her will, since she wants to be more independent than this), and much of the book is focused on just surviving a hard winter. We see how hard they have it economically. How close they are to losing everything. But then there's Christmas, and we get a portrait of this American holiday, circa 1880.

My favorite scenes include the railroad trip west, the family's first. Wilder captures the absolute magic and thrill of this trip, and the feel of the Future for all of them. Laura's watching some of the building of the railroad is fascinating. You realize this is what it must have been like, and she captures it with precision and detail and awe, and you feel that, the thrill of "progress".

You also get to observe what we learned in school is Manifest Destiny, the idea that this was the white settlers's land to take. The Ingalls family don't really question this. This is land they will claim and build on. Ingalls is not unaware of this problem, as she sees the Native American tribes are all cleared out. One "half breed" friend of theirs is a positive character. But the very fact of injustice is only hinted at and not really discussed in this volume; nor do I recall, growing up, reflecting much about it, though in elementary school and later in high school we did spend some time on how the hopeful "westward ho" movement also entailed the destruction of the Native American way of life.

Which is a devastation you don't really get the feel for in this volume, and why most people don't want to read these books anymore. They are a kind of sweetness that cloaks tyranny. And maybe Ingalls never adequately addresses it, I can't recall; we'll see. But the stories are well written, and now, being read, we can use them as an occasion to reflect on these important issues. Have to! This is exactly what the idea of deconstruction is about: Sometimes you have to read books for what is NOT there, what is missing. The Ingalls family didn't kill anyone or move tribes out of the area to make room for westward expansion. But they are also not entirely innocent, either.

And the buffalo are gone at this point. At one point they see a lone buffalo wolf, and realize this is the end of an era. What makes this experience pretty special (in spite of the above issues) is that it is read by the wonderful Cherry Jones. There's so much music throughout, too, which is fun, too, hearing the music of the times. The family portrait is terrific, pretty unforgettable. I will keep reading.