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Smiling Shelves

Little House on the Prairie [RtK Book Club]

3/1/2014

2 Comments

 
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I've decided that it's a really good thing that Little House on the Prairie was February's selection for the Reading to Know Book Club. Reading this book made me discover just how woefully ignorant I am about Little House on the Prairie. For example, I didn't know that this was the second book in the series. Little House in the Big Woods comes first. I just assumed, since the series was essentially called Little House on the Prairie, that it was the first book. Yup, I was pretty ignorant.

As you can tell, I never read this series when I was a kid. They sat there on the bookshelf, occasionally tempting me. But the couple of times I tried to pick them up, they just couldn't hold my interest. This is rather strange, since I read Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink repeatedly as a child, and they're essentially the same story. I've never seen the television show, either.

All this meant that it was high time I picked up one of the books in this series, and I'm oh-so-glad I did. Little House on the Prairie tells a simple story that is really not that simple. Life wasn't complicated by technology and social media. Each day passed slowly, living in the outdoors. But that's exactly what made it not so simple. Can you imagine living as the Ingalls family did? To pack everything on your wagon, leaving all the furniture behind - after all, you can simply make more. To build a house in a random spot from what you can find on the land. To hunt for each night's supper - otherwise, you won't eat. I guess I am truly a child of the twenty-first century, because I truly cannot fathom being totally self-reliant like that. Settlers who lived in this way just gained an awful lot of respect from me.

I'm sure Laura Ingalls Wilder's treatment of the Indians is a source for much controversy. We all cringe when we read, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." And while that was an accurate portrayal of many settlers' feelings at the time, it isn't the opinion of Charles Ingalls and his family. Charles views Indians as individuals, as human beings - not savages, as his neighbors do. He offers them respect and peace. Which makes me wonder if this was really Charles' opinion at the time, or was this Laura trying to make her father look good in retrospect?

It took me much too long to truly discover this series. But now that I have, it won't be much longer before I add the rest of it to my repertoire. I just need to go get them from my childhood bookshelf, dust them off, and enter the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

2 Comments
Carrie, Reading to Know link
3/4/2014 05:05:35 pm

It would be interesting to see what parts of the story are entirely true and which might be fabricated (a bit? a lot?). I've heard wind of some controversy concerning that but haven't looked into it. I don't currently believe that Laura woudl be trying to make Pa look better because even at the time she wrote these books we weren't (as a society) as concerned with being "politically correct" as we are these days. While I don't agree with every position the Ingalls took, I do like the feeling of honesty in the writing that just shares what she was *thinking*. At least, I hope that's what I'm reading. Again, I haven't looked into it.

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one who hadnt read these books as a child. :) We'll be our own special club. Congratulations on making it through your first book. I'm glad you joined in!

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bekahcubed link
3/5/2014 07:53:54 am

I'm thrilled that you are getting caught up on some of these childhood classics! I am one of those who loved the Little House books as a child--and continues to love them now.

Reading this one now was interesting for me, though, since the treatment of American Indians really stuck out to me this time around. From what I've read about the Ingalls', I think it's likely that the position Pa took on the Indians in <em>Little House on the Prairie</em> is accurate. I am a little less inclined to give Pa as much grace as you did. While he definitely had a better outlook on the Indians than did his neighbors, he still chose to squat on their land, expecting that they'd just move on out to make room for him (and that Washington would support him in making them move.)

It's interesting to read about the novels versus reality. From what I have read, Laura tells an essentially true but not a factually true story. The events she writes of actually happened, but they might have happened in a different sequence or to a different character than she described. I liken it to my telling people stories from work. Every story I tell is REAL, but I am constrained by HIPAA to avoid any identifying details. Which means that the children in my stories have different names, sometimes different genders. When I'm mocking names, as I sometimes do, I change a different name in the same way as the real name was changed from typical spelling but don't tell people the actual name. Sometimes I aggregate two or three stories together. All of it happened, the spirit of the story is truth--but the details are reorganized.

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    My name is Julie, and I own a lot of books. As in, they are stacked on the floor because I've run out of room on the shelves. And those shelves? There are so many books on them that they smile -- not sag; smile. This blog will cover book reviews and all manner of other bookish things.

    You can contact me at julie@smilingshelves.com.

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