You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
isnotacrayon 's review for:
These Happy Golden Years
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The best part about reading a book from your childhood again as an adult, is the appreciation you can have for a novel to captivate a child, and often an adult as well.
This was not the case for Laura Ingalls Wilder's These Happy Golden Years.
I remember devouring these books, mainly because all the other girls in my class were reading them, and I wanted to know what they were about. Of the series, this had been my favorite one because of the budding romance between Laura and Almanzo.
This particular book is about Laura leaving home to be a teacher for a few months; every weekend, a young man from town named Almanzo Wilder comes and drives her all 22 miles home. Considering the memoir author's name, we can all assume where this is headed. Laura spends the book not only falling in love, but learning that she is an adult now -- Her big sister, Mary, is off to college and rarely comes home; she finds it more important to earn money to help her family; and all her friends are getting beaus.
Perhaps my literary tastes are just more evolved now. I found Wilder's prose incredibly slow, and her stories not especially interesting. Of course, I liked when Laura and Almanzo finally got together (I'm a real sucker for a love story), but it was not nearly as riveting an engagement as I remember it. It's just all so blunt, which I suppose is for a child. She describes only settings and not people or events or emotions.
"'You may kiss me good night,' she said, and after their first kiss she went into the house while Almanzo drove away."
How boring is that? It tells us nothing about how she feels, or he feels, or anything about the kiss being deep or sweet or pleasant in the slightest.
I considered re-reading the entire series. This one installment has convinced me otherwise.
This was not the case for Laura Ingalls Wilder's These Happy Golden Years.
I remember devouring these books, mainly because all the other girls in my class were reading them, and I wanted to know what they were about. Of the series, this had been my favorite one because of the budding romance between Laura and Almanzo.
This particular book is about Laura leaving home to be a teacher for a few months; every weekend, a young man from town named Almanzo Wilder comes and drives her all 22 miles home. Considering the memoir author's name, we can all assume where this is headed. Laura spends the book not only falling in love, but learning that she is an adult now -- Her big sister, Mary, is off to college and rarely comes home; she finds it more important to earn money to help her family; and all her friends are getting beaus.
Perhaps my literary tastes are just more evolved now. I found Wilder's prose incredibly slow, and her stories not especially interesting. Of course, I liked when Laura and Almanzo finally got together (I'm a real sucker for a love story), but it was not nearly as riveting an engagement as I remember it. It's just all so blunt, which I suppose is for a child. She describes only settings and not people or events or emotions.
"'You may kiss me good night,' she said, and after their first kiss she went into the house while Almanzo drove away."
How boring is that? It tells us nothing about how she feels, or he feels, or anything about the kiss being deep or sweet or pleasant in the slightest.
I considered re-reading the entire series. This one installment has convinced me otherwise.