This was my favourite in the series mainly because of the romance.

The first love story I ever read and still my favorite.

Listening to the audiobook with my kids, I used it as a teaching moment: “Girls, if you get married you need to look for someone willing to drive a sleigh for hours in negative forty degree weather for you, like Almanzo did for Laura.”

My daughter replied “... but, Mom ... we live in Florida so ....?”

Hopefully they still get the idea.

Twilight faded as the little stars went out and the moon rose and floated upward. Its silvery light flooded the sky and the prairie. The winds that had blown whispering over the grasses all the summer day now lay sleeping, and quietness brooded over the moon-drenched land.

"It is a wonderful night," Almanzo said.
"It is a beautiful world," Laura answered, and in memory she heard the voice of Pa's fiddle and the echo of a song,

"Golden years are passing by,
These happy, golden years.”

Best one yet

Ma, Pa, Laura, es war schön mit euch. Nun schnüre ich mein Sonnenhüttchen und es ist unvermeidlich mit meinem cornbread gen wilden Westen zu reiten.

This is my favorite Little House book. I think that pretty much says it all.

I was so excited when I got to read about Almanzo and Laura being able to date and get engaged. I have never forgotten my first time reading this book as it was the first time I wanted to marry and hold out for the man of my dreams like Laura did. I'm lucky in the fact that I got my wish.

the romance in this one just warmed my soul ♥️

This is one of the sweetest in the series! If you can catch the audio version with Cherry Jones, it’s even better!

Such a sweet ending to sweet book and a sweet series. (Yes, I know there’s technically another one. I’ll list the reasons I’m skipping it, momentarily. :p ) It had all the things I’ve loved about this series: The Ingalls family, the setting, seeing how things were in that area during that historical time period, Almanzo, and a very sweet, innocent romance. The familial love and support of the Ingalls family for each other was especially wonderful. I shed a tear of happiness at Laura and Almanzo’s wedding, especially when Pa played all the old songs on his fiddle, and everything else, and just… gah. <3 It made me so happy.

I am truly content with this being the end of the series, which is why I currently have no intention of reading the last book, “The First Four Years”. Having researched it and read a synopsis as well as the actual historical account of Laura and Almanzo’s married life, I guess I just feel like the fact that I already know what happens, the fact that it’s a bit of a downer (in spite of still having a hopeful note to it), plus the fact that it’s less polished and questionable as to whether Laura Ingalls Wilder actually intended it to be published at all (the thing I read said she abandoned it) all works together to make me not really that interested in it. Maybe someday I’ll take a look, but honestly, I feel like I already read it, figuratively speaking, and I’m just wanting to leave things on a happy note instead of being made kind of sad. So…yeah. I think I’m just going to call “These Happy Golden Years” the end.

This has been such a wonderful series. On one hand, I almost wish I had discovered it when I was younger so I could have enjoyed it sooner. On the other hand, I’m happy I discovered it as an adult so I could truly appreciate the history and the deeper themes being presented. I’m sure that if I ever have kids, I’ll be reading these books to them and will revisit them myself many, many times.


Content advisory for those who want to know:

As the series progresses and as Laura matures, the stories matured a little with her. Parents may want to be aware of certain story elements before reading the later books to particularly young children.

In this book, while Laura is teaching at the school she stays with a married couple who are very unpleasant to be around. They argue constantly and outright seem to hate each other. The wife at one point slaps her toddler’s hands for throwing a plate once. Later, Laura wakes up one night to hear the couple arguing and sees the wife threatening her husband with a butcher knife because she thought he kicked her in his sleep. It seems that something like this may have happened before because the husband doesn’t seem too afraid and simply talks his wife down until she puts the knife away. The incident scares Laura badly, but nothing like it happens again.

Near the end of the book, one of Laura’s sisters reminds Laura to keep her bonnet on in the sun or she’ll turn “brown as an Indian”. This is an inside joke and a reference to their Ma telling them the very same thing when they were younger.

What a joy this was to read!

Laura and Almanzo’s unconventional courtship was sweet and funny to read, and it was fun to see Laura as a grown up, teaching school and making her own decisions.

I read it in a day and stayed up way later than intended reading it.

This is my absolute favorite of the Little House series!
My review:
https://www.greatbookstudy.com/search...