Review #45: Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Title: Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Little House in the Big Woods. Harper Collins. 1953. 238 pages. Tr. $17.89. ISBN 978-0-06-026431-4

Genre: Fiction/Historical Fiction
Reading Level/Interest Level: 5.1/ Grades 3-6
Awards: None
Series: Little House

Little House in the Big Woods (1932)

Farmer Boy (1933)

Little House on the Prairie (1935)

On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937)

By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939)

The Long Winter (1940)

Little Town on the Prairie (1941)

These Happy Golden Years (1943)

On the Way Home (1962)

The First Four Years (1971)

West from Home (1974)

Old Town in the Green Groves (2002)

A Little House Traveler (2006)

Similar Titles: Hannah’s Journal by Marissa Moss, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

 

In the beginning novel of the little house series, Laura and Mary (and even Carrie) help their mother and father keep house and survive day to day by working hard in the (then) wilds of Wisconsin. Their most important asset is each other, no matter how hard the day’s work or the life’s challenges. 

 

Wilder used her own  life story as a background for her stories, explaining with real and heartfelt adequacy all that she experienced as a young pioneer girl, with a family struggling to survive, but nurtured through the worst by their faith, their work ethic, the help of friends and the strength of their love for one another.  Readers will hear tales of clothes making, hunting, farming, harsh conditions, canning, preserving, finding a meaning full place and a sense of community, finding a purpose,…..tales of everyday life that made pioneer living possible and the westward expansion successful, though no less arduous.

 

To this very day, I still think of Wilder’s description of their meager but joyful Christmas, with their handmade, and incredibly thoughtful gifts, with the evergreens, candles and wood shining brightly, thankful for their health and simply being together as the true meaning of Christmas, every year in my holiday planning.

 

These are another set of books, much like the Anne of Green Gables series that may seem a world apart, given the time passed, but somehow still seem so relevant as we read about the daily life of this amazing girl and her incredible and brave family. Often by taking the fuss and the business out of the modern equation, by reading of "simpler" times in the past, we can often hear the voice of reason and of virtue more closely, realizing what is most important in life, and what we truly, take for granted in this day and age.