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pacey1927 's review for:
The Long Winter
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
I will tell you a not-so-secret secret. The DeSmet books are my favorite Little House books. I have been entranced by and emotionally invested in the books from the trip to DeSmet by railroad in"By the Shores of Silver Lake" straight through Laura receiving her own Little House in "These Happy Golden Years". But even among the four perfect novels, two stand out. One of them is "Happy Golden Years" because who can resist the courting and marriage of Laura and Almonzo? (I mean, omg, he drives through blizzards to take her home every weekend when she was teaching school and miserable). The other is "The Long Winter". And no I won't pick between them. You can't make me.
But lets talk about "The Long Winter". This is the saddest, scariest of the books. The blizzards that hit DeSmet lasted for most of a year. The trains couldn't get through and that meant supplies were scarce for a long time. And then they were gone altogether. The book focuses on the survival of the Ingalls family in particular and the whole town in general. Laura is growing up and she takes an active part in helping the family survive. She churns the coffee mill (in turns with the others in the family) to make bread. She learns to twist hay for heat which helps Pa more than the book really stresses, but the man was never resting just to keep the room warm. By the way...that hay? They wouldn't have had nearly as much if Laura hadn't helped her Pa for the first time with they haystacks before the blizzards hit.
But what really saves them when their spirits are failing and Pa can't even play the fiddle anymore because his fingers are swollen and frozen? Each other. They read stories and entertain the younger girls. They make presents for Christmas found with things in their own home. They sing songs. They dance to keep warm. This family is what we all want our families to be. When I was a girl and found out that the real Laura left DeSmet to move to Mansfield MO, it broke my heart. I couldn't believe that she could leave her Ma, Pa, and sisters no matter what. But what i kept coming back to were all those scenes in The Long Winter where the only thing that mattered was trying to keep cheerful and positive for each other.
But lets talk about "The Long Winter". This is the saddest, scariest of the books. The blizzards that hit DeSmet lasted for most of a year. The trains couldn't get through and that meant supplies were scarce for a long time. And then they were gone altogether. The book focuses on the survival of the Ingalls family in particular and the whole town in general. Laura is growing up and she takes an active part in helping the family survive. She churns the coffee mill (in turns with the others in the family) to make bread. She learns to twist hay for heat which helps Pa more than the book really stresses, but the man was never resting just to keep the room warm. By the way...that hay? They wouldn't have had nearly as much if Laura hadn't helped her Pa for the first time with they haystacks before the blizzards hit.
But what really saves them when their spirits are failing and Pa can't even play the fiddle anymore because his fingers are swollen and frozen? Each other. They read stories and entertain the younger girls. They make presents for Christmas found with things in their own home. They sing songs. They dance to keep warm. This family is what we all want our families to be. When I was a girl and found out that the real Laura left DeSmet to move to Mansfield MO, it broke my heart. I couldn't believe that she could leave her Ma, Pa, and sisters no matter what. But what i kept coming back to were all those scenes in The Long Winter where the only thing that mattered was trying to keep cheerful and positive for each other.