My two younger daughters recently discovered the Little House series and are speeding through the books this summer. As I am in between books and wanted to avoid a reading rut, I decided to revisit the first book in the series for myself. As I am always on the lookout for quality children's books, I spent a few hours rereading the beginning of a series that I had enjoyed when I was my daughters' age.

Little House in the Big Woods begins the classic children's saga that follows Laura Ingalls Wilder on her journey from childhood to marriage. It features a wide eyed five year old girl who has her entire future ahead of her at a thrilling time in American history as the country has moved past the civil war and is starting to settle the west. Ingalls was born in 1867 in the big woods of Wisconsin. She lives with her parents and sisters Mary and Carrie in a log cabin in the middle of the woods and has rarely traveled anywhere other than to visit her grandparents and aunts, uncles, and cousins. The woods and all that was in it made up her entire life.

Even if the country was beginning to modernize, and we glimpse it with the horse powered threshing machine toward the end, the industrial revolution had yet to come to Wisconsin. The Ingalls family lived according to the seasons of the year, was a devout Christian family, and each member of the family worked from morning to night doing their share of chores. Pa hunted and farmed while Ma cooked, baked, and sewed the entire family's clothing from scratch. Mary and Laura were expected to do their share of chores as well, including helping with the dishes and basic needlepoint and cross stitch. Both girls were model citizens who children of today could learn many lessons from, especially in obeying their parents and knowing to be seen and not heard.

The edition I read is the collectors edition illustrated by Garth Williams. Williams had illustrated over one hundred books for children including the classic Charlotte's Web. His illustrations bring Laura's life to life as readers see her dancing at her grandpa's barn dance, going into town, and her daily life throughout the year. Williams met an adult Ingalls and traveled to all of her homes in order to view first hand how she lived. I felt the illustrations were vital as children are reading about a different era in history, and illustrations can assist them on their journey through time. Even an adult can benefit from viewing color illustrations as they can once again become captivated by a series they read as children.

As an elementary aged student, my favorite series was All of a Kind Family. I had much in common with the girls in the story and reread more times than I could count. Yet, Little House was easily a close second as I was and am a lover of history and enjoyed reading about a girl and her family in an earlier part of my nation's history. I am glad my daughters have discovered this series as we can share our memories of it as they continue Laura and her family's journey through life.

I had no idea how much I missed these books until I started reading them again. I used to read these so often as a little girl and I definitely need to keep it up as I get older. Reading this book again brought back a rush of memories from reading them years ago. And oh how I love Garth Williams' illustrations, the pictures alone brought back memories, the girls sitting on their pumpkin chairs, at their pumpkin tables, with Susan and the other dolls. I remember being a 7-10 (somewhere in there) year old and wishing I could've been with them in the covered wagon and in the Big Woods. My 16 yr old brain says now that that life back then was so much harder and there's no way I would've actually wanted that. But my heart still longs to have been able to play with the Ingalls girls and their corn cob dolls, it still longs to sit around the fire with Pa and listen to stories that make me roll with laughter (I remember laughing so hard at the screech owl story, and the stump bear story, and of course the panther one. They still brought a smile to my face this last time), it still longs to fall asleep to Pa's fiddle songs. These books made up my childhood and these will be the first series I will have my future kids read. It was the first series I ever read and I'm still old-fashioned enough that I want my kids to fall in love with these good wholesome stories about family and life before they go down the road of fantasy and mystery.

I highly recommend this series to anyone regardless of age. They were written for kids so the older you are the more you might find the writing lacking but the stories are timeless. At least to me.

This is the first of the series of stories of a pioneer family that takes them to many different locations in America’s Heartland. In the Wisconsin “Big Woods” we meet Pa and Ma and young girls, Mary, Laura and baby Carrie.

The book covers about four seasons of experience during the last quarter of the 19th century, and we also get to meet the extended family of grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins that the family will leave behind in the future.

Plenty of time is taken on description of clothing, skills of both parents, animals (both wild and domesticated) and celebrations. We experience the family’s Christmas with expectations quite different from current times. We learn about how maple trees are tapped for what becomes syrup and confections. There are celebrations and stories about how hard/strict life was for previous generations.

Our soon-to-be six year old was interested in most of it (though she didn’t question the unfamiliar words and we sometimes chose to add further explanation). She liked the play among the children, was a bit scared about the bee stings, wanted to hear more about maple sugar sweets and seemed to follow the plot without too much trouble. Reading this again was a different kind of pleasure – both fresh and informed by experiences since the last time decades ago.

A fine start for the series.