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A review by therealkathryn
The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure
5.0
When I was a little girl, my mother gave me a copy of Little House in the Big Woods. I read it and fell in love with it, with Laura and the Ingalls family and their pioneer life. Mom then showed me a treasure - she had bought all of the books in the series (through These Happy Golden Years) for me and I could read them all right then. I tore through the rest of the books. I still have them - the covers have fallen off of most of them yet they have survived every time I have culled my book collection. Later on I read The First Four Years and Donald Zochert's biography. Later still I read some of the pamphlet-style booklets that tell what happened to others in De Smet and to Laura's sisters (mostly rather sad). I found out more about Laura in later life and about Rose and her influence on the books (also sad). I stopped wanting to find out more; I decided to leave the Little House books and my happy memories of reading about them as they were.
Then a friend told me about The Wilder Life. I lucked into getting an advance copy and from the first pages it was clear that if Wendy McClure and I ever met, we would jump up and down, squealing in our shared Laura and Little House fangirl love. Wendy (I'm going to call her Wendy, clearly we would be BFFs) continued past where I left off, reading the books and taking the trips that I would have loved as a girl.
In The Wilder Life she takes me (and all of us Laura lovers) back to Laura world (her term, and just where I felt I went when I read the books). She churns butter and makes the bread that sustained the Ingalls family through the Long Winter. She explores the good (the attraction of self-sufficiency, the old timey doodads, Laura's spirit) and bad (Ma's anti-Indian racism, the hints of Libertarianism) of the books. She discusses the many biographies of Laura and her family. She visits every one of Laura's homes - no mean feat as the Ingalls family moved often. And she does all of this because of and with a clear love for Laura and the books.
While I wouldn't want to do most of those things, I was very happy to go along with Wendy and see them through her eyes. Reading about Wendy's experiences and experiments felt like a modern-day trip to Laura world. If you grew up a huge fan of the Little House books, you'll love this book too.
Then a friend told me about The Wilder Life. I lucked into getting an advance copy and from the first pages it was clear that if Wendy McClure and I ever met, we would jump up and down, squealing in our shared Laura and Little House fangirl love. Wendy (I'm going to call her Wendy, clearly we would be BFFs) continued past where I left off, reading the books and taking the trips that I would have loved as a girl.
In The Wilder Life she takes me (and all of us Laura lovers) back to Laura world (her term, and just where I felt I went when I read the books). She churns butter and makes the bread that sustained the Ingalls family through the Long Winter. She explores the good (the attraction of self-sufficiency, the old timey doodads, Laura's spirit) and bad (Ma's anti-Indian racism, the hints of Libertarianism) of the books. She discusses the many biographies of Laura and her family. She visits every one of Laura's homes - no mean feat as the Ingalls family moved often. And she does all of this because of and with a clear love for Laura and the books.
While I wouldn't want to do most of those things, I was very happy to go along with Wendy and see them through her eyes. Reading about Wendy's experiences and experiments felt like a modern-day trip to Laura world. If you grew up a huge fan of the Little House books, you'll love this book too.