Any Laura Ingalls Wilder fans?

mignonette It was my second degree and I was given the go ahead, once I could show that there was both enough secondary literature and yet enough gaps in the existing research. This was in, I think, 2001 or 2002. A lot has been added to the topic since but your friend is right. My tutor pretty much said that he wanted to read my diss on the topic, as it was unique (British university). I was the only one of my cohort to do a diss based entirely on secondary literature and after that, they banned anyone else from doing that. It was a course in librarianship, so I was being a bit cheeky!

Ooh - I think dd has a Pa's fiddle magnet! Did I mention that on the blog? I can't remember. We didn't look round the museum in Walnut Grove (I bought a Charlotte keyring in the gift shop) because we only had a few hours to spare and I wanted to spend them at the creek. I confess, paddling in Plum Creek was one of the best things I have ever done.

Prairieflower, I tried the maple toffee too, with equally disappointing results! Next time, I will try zzzz's tip. Grandma boiled it, didn't she?

At my old primary school we used to tap the many maple trees on the school grounds. It was mostly for educational purposes as you need an awful lot of sap to make any decent quantity of syrup.

But Mary eventually recognises that in the last walk they take before Laura gets married. And says one shouldn't worry so much about being good. That's the moment when I like her.

"although we have to sympathise with Mary because she's blind, she wants to punch her she's so smug!"

I know what you mean. I am still reading LHOTP to DD, so it is before Mary goes blind. DD keeps comparing her her to Perfect Peter in Horrid Henry.

I am so looking forward to rereading all the other books and reading some of the later ones and biographies that I haven't read. This is a fantastic thread.

I have just read all the links on this thread. Fascinating and illuminating.

I think that Pa probably had some of the wanderlust and desire for adventure that many homesteaders had. My great grandparents came up from the Satates to settle claims in Canada, but they did so for the adventure and free land - not because they were particularly poorly off where they lived in Illinois. Apparently, my Great Grandfather wanted to move on again from their first home in Saskatchewan and carry on up further north, but my great Grandmother put her foot down!

The Bloody Benders were real serial killers. It is said that they were in the original Little House on the Prairie but were omitted as inappropriate for kids (which raises a lot of eyebrows...). They were included later in "A Pioneer Girl" (written by Laura and Rose) and discussed at length in a famous speech where she was discussing how everything she wrote was true, but she took out things kids shouldn't know even if she did know them as a kid. In the speech and The Pioneer Girl she discussed Pa and the Bloody Benders - but later it was revealed that it couldn't have happened as they weren't in the area when the Bloody Benders were, the timelines of both give no overlap. Following the timeline also shows a lot of other issues, mostly with them breaking treaties with the indigenous populations.

See:
americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/selective-omissions-or-what-laura.html

americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/following-up-on-what-laura-ingalls.html

I sooooo want a Pa's fiddle fridge magnet too and a bonnet for dd.

Do any of you read the Soulemama blog.She's a LIW fan(does make one feel hugely inadequate though)and makes fab quilts!

Just found this thread.

I am beside myself. I have long wished to visit the Little House on the Prairie museum and when I do so I plan to buy a "Pa's fiddle fridge magnet" ! Actually from my wanderings around t'internet I have seen there are several museums: are the others worth a look does anyone know? I am dreaming of a 50th birthday trip (gives me, ahem, a couple of years to save up...)

I started a thread a while ago suggesting that Pa Was Unreasonable. He did not have four sons, he had four daughters, one of whom was blind and another sickly. He was not an uneducated man and could have secured (which he did from time to time) an office job, rather than trying to set up homesteads and farms here, there and everywhere. If Ma had been on MN we'd have all been baying "Leave the bastard!"

I am reading the books to dd and just at the point where Almanzo has proposed. I was trying to explain to dd that in those times early marriage was quite the norm, and Laura leaving home would have meant one less mouth to feed, especially as Mary would have been costing some. Dd also keeps interrupting that although we have to sympathise with Mary because she's blind, she wants to punch her she's so smug!

Georgian

I envy you having the freedom to use these books as part of your dissertation. My friend is reading English and American Lit and has had her proposal for a dissertation based upon LIW books alongside other children's literature of the time turned down. She argued that if one doesn't contribute to academic debate then how will an adequate body of sources develop?

Did you get the green light easily? My friend would be interested to know. Her Dissertation supervisor says that first degree dissertations do not have the academic rigour to truly form part of the body of resources/sources. My friend's retort -depends upon the quality of the work!

What a lovely thread! I love these books, read the early ones to DD not so long ago but have never got round to the later ones - can forsee a LOT of titles going on my Amazon wishlist! I love the bit when Mr Edwards is Santa Claus and also when Laura gets the fur muff and cape from the Christmas tree and is so happy, without knowing or caring that it's second hand and has been donated by someone better off.

Also adored Anne of Green Gables (still need to read a few of the later ones of those too), quite enjoyed the What Katy Did series but found them a little bit pious, and of course loved Little Women etc - it was a toss up when my DD was born whether she'd be named Beth or Amy :)

Laura's house is absolutely beautiful, I would love to go there - in my head I am imagining some kind of literary tour of the US/Canada taking in Missouri, Concord, PE Island and no doubt a few others, sounds as though I would have a few willing travelling companions!

How did I miss this thread? I adored both the books and the series.My mum made my sister and I Laura and Mary rag dolls complete with bloomers,bonnet,freckles,plaits,pinafore-the lot.We also had gorgeous patchwork quilts.I tried pouring maple syrup into snow last winter to make that candy they did but it didn't work.

I used to be obsessed with the idea of the covered wagon.Recently found out an ancestor was a pioneer that went West and"discovered" Yosemite.

Would love to do a big trip right across the States,one of my dc8 is the same[he's planned the route,although it keeps going up and down as he thinks of more things to see].

Moon tell me more re your trip(if you don't mind).Need ideas on how to fund such a trip,would love to go for 2 months.

Second attempt at linking to the blog you actually want to read: mrs-ruby.blogspot.co.uk

zzzz, I love the idea of you trying to extract maple syrup from your ornamejtal tree!

OK, here, at the risk of outing myself, are the blogs:

1. The travel blog from last year: http//mrs-ruby.blogspot.co.uk

1. The 'everyday' blog, sort of an homage to LHOTP but mainly very parochial and chock-full of shocking typos: littlehouseontheheath.blogspot.co.uk

Pharisee, who were the Benders?

Ooh, this is all so interesting but I have to go to work! I will be back and read properly later.

You've inspired me to reread the LIW and the Anne books, and to add more destinations to my "when the DCs are older" holiday list. Thanks!

georgian, I am so jealous! Your dissertation/blog sound awesome, that must be so much fun to write.

moon - I haven't been to Boston's house but I really want to go sometime. I think her quilts are beautiful and amazing to think she was a very elderly lady working in a house with no central heating (12th century doesn't run to it!).

good ... oh, yes. I think the bit I find hardest is Laura wanting a 'papoose' for herself, which I found really strange.

As a child, I loved them. I remember them being the first series I read, and my mother had all the Laura Books, then the Rose ones, then they came out with books about her mother as a child, then her grandmother and her great-grandmother in Scotland. My mother had them all I remember reading them repeatedly.

As an adult, I wobble. Still good stories, but so many problems I can now see - Pa talking about "hunting wild animals and Indians", the general attitude towards the indigenous populations in general and when seeing the timeline you can see often they were squatting on Native lands and forcefully taking it from them, finding out as others have mentioned how much is inaccurate (the whole episode with the bloody Benders doesn't work as they weren't there then, and so on). Trying to replace in my mind into historical fiction, as the new ones with her older family obviously are, has been hard as it was such a part of my formative years. I remember getting it at 7 or 8 from my mother, I'll probably wait longer to give it to my kids as I'll want them to old enough the problems and issues with the language and manifest destiny attitude. Might start with the great grandmother ones that are obviously fiction, may be easier that way.