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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
Completes the Over 65 task for the Read Harder challenge.
I have read these books over and over again since I was small. They will always be my favorites.
This has always been one of my favorites in the series… no catastrophes or tragedies!
This book heavily features Laura's brief teaching career along with her continued budding relationship with Almanzo. I just can't wrap my head around the fact that a 15-year-old who's still in school can also be a teacher with a class of kids older than her. Things were just simpler then, I guess. Speaking of simplicity, isn't courting just so sweet? It really takes all complications out of relationships. You just sort of hang out together then suddenly you're engaged. I just can't imagine being romanced by a man twice my age at 15. Laura sure did make Almanzo work for it though.
In some ways this book reads as an epilogue for the series as a whole—not stunning on its own, but did I cry a bit when I realized Laura was all grown up and leaving home? Hell yes. The story is largely a romance between her and Almanzo Wilder, hero of The Long Winter. Notably, as they plan their wedding vows, Laura says she does not want to promise to obey him, because she doesn't think she can; he's cool with that. (She clarifies she's not a women's rights advocate, though, because she doesn't really care about voting.) Rereading the Little House books has been one of my great pleasures this year. For all the ways they are problematic, they are also a beautifully rendered snapshot of a key moment in American history.
I have read the whole series countless times — more than 20 — starting when I was in 3rd grade. I am aware of the controversy and criticism around the books, and, if you have not read the paper titled “Little squatter on the Prairie”, you should. Certainly we should teach US History in a balanced way that doesn’t glorify the westward expansion at the expense of the Native people whose lands were stolen.
However, that does not make Laura’s story, with all its flaws, less valuable, nor her experience less real. And I love these books.
I think we can best learn from history by looking at what was good and bad, what we can learn from attitudes and events that we now recognize as wrong, and finding ways to make up for historical wrongs. I don’t think we are helped by trying to erase outdated ideas from the historical record.
However, that does not make Laura’s story, with all its flaws, less valuable, nor her experience less real. And I love these books.
I think we can best learn from history by looking at what was good and bad, what we can learn from attitudes and events that we now recognize as wrong, and finding ways to make up for historical wrongs. I don’t think we are helped by trying to erase outdated ideas from the historical record.
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
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
I have read the Little House series a number of times now -- nearly always in the winter it seems; perhaps because so much of the books seems to take place when the family is struggling through blizzards and cold weather! Despite elements that make me occasionally cringe (in the first book, there's a song about an "old darkie"), and the conflicting emotions I feel when skimming quickly past these passages (these songs were real...the events were real...that is really what people were called back then...and yet, I somehow wish they could be removed if only to restore the simple purity of the stories), I continue to read the entire series every few years. The stories of hard work and perseverance will never grow old. The way the family makes due with so little, and yet with such happiness, is always a refreshing reminder of not only how good we have it now, but that perhaps there are aspects to that way of living that deserve to have a place in the modern world.