Re-read for the Maud list group read. I think this is the first time it really registered to me just how harsh (and claustrophobic) that long winter was.

This story can get depressing since there is so much cold darkness and disaster and privation. But man triumphs over nature, and I love how the Ingalls family support and encourage one another even in the difficult times. A wonderful story, beautifully written and very compelling!

Throughout the winter hardships, Laura and Mary study together so that Laura can become a teacher to earn enough money to send Mary to college. But eventually their minds are so dulled with the constant snow and wind that they can't study anymore. They are starving and exhausted, so no wonder their minds are sluggish. But they never stop singing! Even after their father can't get his numb fingers to play the violin anymore, they still sing hymns and encourage each other through song.

I like how this book gives us some of the scenes from Almanzo Wilder's point of view. We hear about his precious seed wheat, and see his courage as he travels through the prairie searching for food for the town. He is a very strong character with a memorable personality.

Of my rereads so far, this one has had the widest disparity between my childhood memories and my adult experience. I know I read this book (and the two after it) most often, and I guess the cheery picture on the cover of two smiling girls about to get snowballed by a little boy influenced how I thought of the book, because I recalled it as a cozily thrilling depiction of a long cold winter, with some bright spots to make it into an adventure. Instead, it was a harrowing, grueling depiction not just of a very difficult experience (cold, starvation, depression), but of how much worse the townspeople make it for themselves by just trying to act like everything is normal. I lost track of the number of times Pa reports someone in town is price-gouging, always with the implication that it’s perfectly fine to do this when neighbors are experiencing disastrous hardship (thanks, Rose Wilder Lane’s libertarianism!), and in general it’s so clear throughout that everyone’s misery is amplified by the town’s failure to do the most basic communal behavior (share shelter and stop wasting so much fuel, share food, etc) that it’s really bleak. What makes it even crazier is that for every time you get something like

“I hope you don’t expect to depend on anybody else,” Ma said, shocked. “A body can’t do that.”

you get examples of the townspeople figuring out they do actually need to work together (Almanzo and Cap going for the wheat, the people making the train engineer break into a car for food). But then you get right back to people selling their supplies for high prices and basically acting like only people with capital or labor to trade deserve to live. It’s exactly the mindset I feared coming across revisiting this series, and the only thing that makes it bearable is the sneaking suspicion Laura doesn’t really share it.

Full review @ Smoke & Mirrors: http://books-n-music.blogspot.com/201.... Unbelievable how close they all came to starving! Oh, my! Twisting hay for fuel and using ab itty-bitty grinder to coarsely grind wheat for brown bread, which they lived on for months! Crazy blizzards, one right after another. This had more suspense, what with Cap and Almanzo on their "wheat expedition"!