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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
This has to be my favorite Little House book on the basis that it describes a real weather event that took place during the winter of 1880-81 on the Dakotan prairie. A winter full of horrifically low temperatures and killing blizzard winds that lasted from October until April with no supplies being brought into town from November on wards. The awful privation that the Ingalls family suffered because there were no supplies in this new prairie town make really quite harrowing reading even for an adult. When Charles notices that the muskrats have built an exceptionally sturdy home for the winter with very thick walls he points out to Laura that animals know things through the environment that we humans no longer recognize. Other signs are pointing to a cold winter and when a Native American comes into one of the shops and communicates his prediction of 7 months of bad weather.
The settlers only had small amounts of food raised on the new farms and there was no infrastructure other than the railways to enable food and fuel supplies to get to the town. How no-one died in De Smet is a miracle, and it is in the historical record that many settler families froze or starved to death on the prairie in Dakota that winter.
The ingenuity of the people in the town and how they made do with so little makes this book fascinating to read. The sense of relief just for the reader when the blizzards cease and the Chinook wind blows is quite enormous, for those poor people on the prairie it must have felt like the release of a trap. But they still had to wait another six weeks for trains to finally get through.
The settlers only had small amounts of food raised on the new farms and there was no infrastructure other than the railways to enable food and fuel supplies to get to the town. How no-one died in De Smet is a miracle, and it is in the historical record that many settler families froze or starved to death on the prairie in Dakota that winter.
The ingenuity of the people in the town and how they made do with so little makes this book fascinating to read. The sense of relief just for the reader when the blizzards cease and the Chinook wind blows is quite enormous, for those poor people on the prairie it must have felt like the release of a trap. But they still had to wait another six weeks for trains to finally get through.
I can't imagine surviving something like this. It blows my mind, just reading about it freaks me out.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-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
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Charles Ingalls, harvesting hay in the late summer of his family's second year in newly-founded town of De Smet, South Dakota, begins to notice troubling signs of a difficult winter ahead. When the signs become too much to ignore, he moves his family into the shop building he owns in town to try to weather the relentless succession of blizzards that soon cut off the railroad and leave the town on the brink of starvation.
The opening few chapters of this installment, the sixth in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series could easily function as the beginning of a straight-up horror novel, and indeed, the events in the story come close to being horrific on several occasions. The dangers of the weather and of starvation loom large as the winter drags on, and the tensions between the townsfolk threaten to reach the boiling point several times.
This story breaks away from the point of view of second-oldest-daughter Laura in several places to tell the story of Almanzo Wilder, who was introduced back in the second volume in the series. Almanzo, now nineteen, and a landowner after lying about his age on a land claim, is staying in town with his older brother, and undertakes a journey to obtain desperately-needed supplies during the worst of the cold weather.
The author provides her usual attention to detail, and does a nice job of building subtle tension as the stress of barely scraping by wears on all of the characters.
The opening few chapters of this installment, the sixth in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series could easily function as the beginning of a straight-up horror novel, and indeed, the events in the story come close to being horrific on several occasions. The dangers of the weather and of starvation loom large as the winter drags on, and the tensions between the townsfolk threaten to reach the boiling point several times.
This story breaks away from the point of view of second-oldest-daughter Laura in several places to tell the story of Almanzo Wilder, who was introduced back in the second volume in the series. Almanzo, now nineteen, and a landowner after lying about his age on a land claim, is staying in town with his older brother, and undertakes a journey to obtain desperately-needed supplies during the worst of the cold weather.
The author provides her usual attention to detail, and does a nice job of building subtle tension as the stress of barely scraping by wears on all of the characters.
Read aloud with my 13 year old. Honestly, because of things I’d heard about this book, I expected it to be more bleak than it was. Thankfully, Laura Ingalls Wilder knew her audience and with each hardship the family faced, she made sure to bring it back with a good attitude and hard work. So, it never felt like it’d be too overwhelming to young readers to take in. But honest to goodness, if Mary would’ve offered to sacrifice her college money one more time, I was ready to deduct a star. If the book weren’t so serious, that bit might’ve started to feel like a punchline.