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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Racism, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury
There is a house fire in the last year. No one dies in this fire.
Several people are mentioned to die of weather related problems. In addition Laura's son dies within his first year. This is only mentioned briefly.
Racism: There is one short scene with native americans in which Laura is frieghtened of them and worries they will steal from her.
Laura is pregnant twice during the book but the details are not mentioned and the births are in very limited detail.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I wish we had stopped with These Happy Golden Years. I'd read multiple reviews saying to stop there, but my kids really wanted to finish the whole set. It felt like we were reading a first draft, which makes sense because it was published posthumously. It was lacking the details and tone that we'd come to love in the other books. It was also really, really sad throughout. It was all of our least favorite.
Although I loved reading as a kid, I had never read these books. It wasn’t until I had my own daughter, and she fell in love with the Cherry Jones narrations of the books as she drifted off to sleep each night that I decided I really needed to hear this whole series. I just finished The First Four Years, and after following Laura from a young girl in the big woods to her first four years of marriage, this series has become one of my top two. I’m some ways times were so much more difficult than what we have today, but in other ways, times were so much more simpler. If I have grandchildren some day, I hope I can introduce them to this series.
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
At last, my husband and I have finished reading all of the Little House books aloud to each other. Unlike all of the other books, I'm not shelving this under Children--this book clearly wasn't meant for kids. To be fair, it wasn't really meant for anyone; Laura wrote it out but never published it, nor did her daughter. The first four years of Laura's married life were so miserable, I can fully understand why neither Wilder woman wanted to polish the story up for a child-friendly audience. Making this into a true children's book would require changing what happened so much as to make it unrecognizable. Nevertheless, for fans of the series or of Laura herself, it's a fascinating chapter of life, even if it is told in a much briefer, rougher style than the rest of the Wilder books.
We're so reluctant to leave Laura behind that I think my husband and I will read her journal On the Way Home next, and then perhaps her posthumously published autobiography.
We're so reluctant to leave Laura behind that I think my husband and I will read her journal On the Way Home next, and then perhaps her posthumously published autobiography.
This is the last book in the Little House series and it covers Laura and Manly's first 4 years of marriage and their attempt to make a living farming in South Dakota. This is short and seems a bit lacking in... I don't know, something. I read that the manuscript was found in her papers after her death, so maybe she hadn't finished and polished it all up. It just seems kind of gloomy and depressing.
One of the few books I read in elementary school. I still remember bits and pieces of it. I loved this series.
By far the weakest of the series. Perhaps it's deserving of a higher rating, because it's basically a draft that Laura didn't complete before her death. But it was just so much more bleak than the other books. Probably closer to reality...but still bleak, which isn't in character with the rest of the books. Laura and Manly just couldn't catch a break! Still, I enjoyed it, and it was a quick read. Now that I've completed my reread I'm looking forward to reading Caroline (a book from Ma's perspective) and Prairie Fires (pulitzer prize winning nonfiction)!
Laura's second baby was born and died within a page and when I finished the book, I had to go back and reread to make sure I had indeed read he'd died.
I know this is a fragment of a book and without any editing or depth to it, but again, we got a whole damn book about a single winter and the death of a child got...a page.
Anyway, good to know the men were all kind of dumb and hopeless. I thought Almanzo (surprisingly only referred to as Manly in this book and literally never called that elsewhere) was perhaps an upgrade from Pa and his Follies but...nah, not really.
I know this is a fragment of a book and without any editing or depth to it, but again, we got a whole damn book about a single winter and the death of a child got...a page.
Anyway, good to know the men were all kind of dumb and hopeless. I thought Almanzo (surprisingly only referred to as Manly in this book and literally never called that elsewhere) was perhaps an upgrade from Pa and his Follies but...nah, not really.
We finally finished the last of the Little House books, The First Four Years. It was by far the shortest and, I think, the most depressing of the series. Laura and "Manly" had setback after setback, entire years' worth of crops lost to early frost or drought, the death of their newborn baby boy, a house fire in which they lost almost everything, it was such a heart-breaking note to end on. Laura left us with a hopeful reminder of their love of the land and her smiling as Manly sang a cheery song, but it definitely emphasized the harshness of life on the frontier.
For more book reviews, visit Build Enough Bookshelves.
For more book reviews, visit Build Enough Bookshelves.