Another wonderful entry in the series, although quite different from the others. This is the story of Almanzo Wilder who would later marry Laura Ingalls. I imagine these stories were memories he shared with Laura as she wrote the novels. Most of the memories have to do with farm chores and the delicious food he ate. (Listening to this on audio made me VERY hungry.)

Almanzo's father is quite different from Laura's "Pa." He is a prosperous farmer and his family lacks for nothing. BUT that doesn't mean his children are spoiled. He teaches them to work hard and save every penny. Although he would be considered too strict by today's standards, I really appreciated it that he let Almanzo "suffer" his way through some sticky situations. Intermixed with all the firmness is a lot of love and wise counsel. It was a pleasure to watch this young boy grow up!

This was book 6 in the box set I got as a kid (I only made it through five) but was published second and then ordered third with a new edition.

This one was enjoyable because there were more stories than the first couple Little House books: going to school, parents leaving on vacation for a week, county fair. It follows Almanzo Wilder for a little over a year, when he’s 9, living in upstate New York on his family’s rather prosperous farm.

I can’t imagine trying to navigate a farm wearing a hoop skirt (the girls, not Almanzo). The food descriptions are frequent and thorough—with all the calories they burn, they sure need it. I guess I’m a city slicker, because those descriptions of butchering were not appealing. I mean, head cheese??

I don’t know how much of the account is fictionalized, but several things astonished me:
● Teen boys beat a teacher to death and got away with it? They weren’t jailed or even expelled?
● An American Indian ran a mile in 2:40? Is that even humanly possible?
● Almanzo gets a concussion and a bad sprain, he’s expected to just get up and get back to work! That’s what happens when kids are told they can’t speak unless spoken to.

The Wilders place high value on self-sufficiency and self-reliance. Nearly everything they have they make themselves. They hire someone to make shoes, and even then they provide the materials.

I enjoyed this story probably a little more than the first book of the series. Almanzo gives us great insight into how children may have grown up in early America. While Laura's story gave us insight into the dances, run ins with wolves, and the food of the day, Almazo's story gives us a peek at school life, how farming the land often took precedence to spelling lessons, and how boys learned bartering and math skills in the market. While the intended audience is for children, this was a pleasant read as an adult.

সময়টা ভালো কেটেছে বইটার সাথে। চমৎকার রূপান্তর।

First published in 1933.

It difficult to see Almanzo as anything other than 20 something years old and married to Laura.

In Farmer Boy Almanzo is nine years old and very focused on food. He enjoys helping his father farm and wants to be older to have greater responsibilities.

Interesting to see how their day to day life and schooling were during the time period. I especially enjoyed learning about the process of replacing shoes.

I wasn’t sure what to expect since this is listed as a part of the Little House on the Prairie series, but it does not involve the same family. In fact, it is all about life on a farm in “upstate” New York. I thought I knew a little about farming. I’ve been on farms; I’ve plowed fields (with a tractor). I seen how dairy farms operate and how baby pigs are “prepped” for the market. I had little idea how (when 90% of all Americans lived the rural farm life) difficult and chancy life was and how self-sufficient each farm had to be.

The focus of the book is on the youngest member of the family, Almanzo. His daily life: school; chores; family time; and special events. For others, this may be disconcerting or even boring. For me, it was a delight to take such a deep dive into how rural life was carried on in mid-nineteenth century America.

There are far more details here than in the other “Little House” books. That was part of my delight as was my growing understanding of how little “spare time” there was on a 19th century farm. Another part was the personal growth of 9 year-old Almanzo during the year covered in this book.

Below are some of the details
"Mother was making soft-soap, too. All the winter’s ashes had been saved in a barrel; now water was poured over them, and lye was dripping out of a little hole in the bottom of the barrel. Mother measured the lye into a caldron, and added pork rinds and all the waste pork fat and beef fat that she had been saving all winter. The caldron boiled, and the lye and the fat made soap."

"But when they were all tucked under the buffalo-skin robes, with hot bricks at their feet, Father let the prancing horses go, and Almanzo forgot everything else."

"For a long time they talked and argued. Shining tinware and piles of rags were all over the porch. For every pile of rags that Nick Brown added to the big pile, Mother asked more tinware than he wanted to trade her. They were both having a good time, joking and laughing and trading.”

"Snow was falling next morning when Almanzo rode with Father to the timber lot. Large feathery flakes made a veil over everything, and if you were alone and held your breath and listened, you could hear the soft, tiny sound of their falling. Father and Almanzo tramped through the falling snow in the woods, looking for straight, small oaks. When they found one, Father chopped it down. He chopped off all the limbs, and Almanzo piled them up neatly. Then they loaded the small logs on the bobsled. After that they looked for two small crooked trees to make curved runners. They must be five inches through, and six feet tall before they began to curve. It was hard to find them. In the whole timber lot there were no two trees alike. “You wouldn’t find two alike in the whole world, son,” Father said. “Not even two blades of grass are the same. Everything is different from everything else, if you look at it.”"

"All winter long, on stormy nights, there would be threshing to do. When the wheat was threshed, there would be the oats, the beans, the Canada peas. There was plenty of grain to feed the stock, plenty of wheat and rye to take to the mill for flour. Almanzo had harrowed the fields, he had helped in the harvest, and now he was threshing."

Always a classic - no matter how many times you read it. This one is an amazing family read-aloud!

Update: Rereading the whole series with my boys, twin 12 yr olds and a 14 yr old. We plan on taking them to Hale Farm and Village in the Fall, a pioneer exploratory trip, where they can see first hand how all these things are done. Like all kids, they enjoy the events with the people more than the explanations on how things are done, but I think they will appreciate it more when they get to see it in person. I'm enjoying the memories these are bringing back from my childhood, and it makes me so happy to be able to share these stories with them. Also for this book, I love Almanzo, but I look forward to getting back to Laura's life, which seems a little more relatable to me.

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Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder is an exquisite set of books that I cherished growing up. Read until they were dog-eared, this series has to be one of my childhood favorites. A story about a young girl growing up on the frontier, it was so popular they made it into a T.V. series even though the series didn't do it justice. Stories as a young girl I could relate to, the mean girl in town, fights with my sisters, and just the struggles of everyday life of any family. The love Ma and Pa had for each other showed through so much so, that even today I can still see Caroline's eye's sparkling bright blue as Pa whirled her around the dance floor. This series is a perfect example of a story well told. When you're there in Laura's life so much that you can feel her fear when in trouble, or you can taste the penny candy on Christmas, that's a story. I have no doubt this will be a children's classic for years to come. I highly recommend it.

My annual re-read, this time with Heidi! :)

My favorite of the Little House books from start to finish, but especially the chapter where Ma and Pa go away for a week and the house falls into disarray as the children eat cake, slice watermelon, blacken the parlor wall, and most importantly, use up all the sugar making ice cream. Still no other author has ever captured the life of pioneers in quite this way, and the good eats will make your mouth water!

Almanzo Wilder is growing up on the farm, helping his father with all the chores and planting and harvesting. But he isn't allowed to go near the young colts, for fear that he would startle them or teach them bad habits. More than anything, Almanzo longs to have his own colt to break and ride, but his father says he is too young. Year after year, Almanzo works in the barn and in the fields, determined to prove to his father that he is ready to have his own colt.

This book makes me hungry because it is constantly describing all this delicious food in delightful detail. Don't read it on an empty stomach! I guess when Almanzo looks back on his childhood, he just remembers the good food from the farm! haha!

It is really humbling to see how excited the family get about simple things like new shoes or a "store boughten" hat. It makes me realize just how rich we all are in this modern day, and how grateful we should be for the simplest things in life.

I thought I wouldn't really like this book because it isn't about Laura and the rest of the Ingalls family. Well boy was I wrong!! I LOVED Farmer Boy!

Let me just say all those mouthwatering descriptions of all of that delicious food...it made me so hungry I actually went up and got myself a bowl of ice-cream. xD

I also think Almanzo's father is great. He disciplines and lets Almanzo figure things out for himself, but he's also very kind, compassionate and sensible. Alice was also fun, she reminded me of myself. Not quite a tomboy but not quite a girly-girl. Eliza Jane didn't get much characterization and so I didn't really like her, but I think I could have if she was more rounded out. Same goes for Royal.

The stories were fun and made you laugh. A lot of the descriptions reminded me of those in Little House in the Big Woods, but things like butchering the pigs were basically skipped so it didn't feel repetitive to the previous book in the series.

Overall, it was a wonderful book and I hope to be reading it again soon. 5 stars out of 5! Loved it!!

I liked this way more than I thought I would. Some quick observations:

1. All this family does is eat and talk about eating and plan around eating.

2. The parents go on a "vacation" for a week to a family's residence 10 miles away and leave the kids alone. Sheer chaos, of course, on the part of the kids.

3. Almanzo's family is way richer than Laura's, but they also seem to work more. Everything is about the value of money to them, which, when they're not eating or talking about eating, is the thing they love talking about. And when Almanzo asks for a dime, he gets a half dollar, then is made to feel guilty about it by his dad.

4. All he wants is a damn colt. And he gets one.

5. THE DRAMA about what Almanzo will be when he grows up. He is 9-10 years old in this book and legally will live on the farm till he's 21. Seems like they should be putting that worry elsewhere for a bit.

6. Like, it was so cold in July they got snow. That's ridiculous and a detail I can't stop LOLing about.

7. WHOOOO BOY the racism and sexism. The things said about Natives in this book are cringeworthy, as are the depictions and the fact that Almanzo and his friends "play Indian." And on the sexism angle, boys are allowed to talk quietly on Sundays but girls are not allowed to talk. And they cook while boys do not.

8. So glad I live in the era of modernity because I swear, this life would bore me to death. Even if I never knew anything else.