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Children's books

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Original poster

I have just rediscovered Little House on the Prairie...

225 replies

Fillyjonk · 30/03/2008 17:45

Thats it really

But it is REALLY good

ds won't let me stop reading

Had forgotten about these books

OP posts:
moondog · 02/04/2008 08:51

It's not difficult at all, I promise you.

Join a class to get going. It is (quite honestly) a fantastic experience to sit with a group of women and sew.

moondog · 02/04/2008 08:58

pa and ma in surprisingly loving pose for the times don't you think? Has she got her arm/hand on his knee?

talkingmongoose · 02/04/2008 09:13

Didn't they sacrifice a lot for Mary? Laura's teaching wages all went on her college, and Pa requisitioned $100 dollars of hers to buy Mary an organ - a huge amount compared to anything else mentioned in the books - and Mary didn't go home that year to see it, when they'd got it as a surprise.

TooTicky · 02/04/2008 16:13

Yes mongoose, such a loving close family.

I have made a quilt (albeit a small one). It was fun and not too hard.

flyingmum · 02/04/2008 16:35

Very exciting to find other fans. Manky I too want to make a trip someday to see the places and I have a funny feeling that hubby might give me one of his slightly despairing looks if I mention it.

I re read all her books last year. I have the utmost admiration for Ma. She gets her house all sorted, lives near relatives and friends, fairly happy life then Pa decides to upsticks and off they go to the wide blue yonder - literally. The fact that they knew they would never see their friends and family again must have been hard.

Almanzo always seemed very gorgeous to me - the photo of him on the front cover of her last book was a real let down!

mankyscotslass · 02/04/2008 17:16

Flyingmum, he has agreed as long as we tag it onto a month of storm chasing
I agree about how brave they were though...I found it hard enough to move here from Scotland!

moondog · 02/04/2008 21:35

How exactly did Mary go blind?
Did she marry?

sallystrawberry · 02/04/2008 21:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Kathyis6incheshigh · 02/04/2008 21:57

My SIL read these to my nephew recently - he loved them and insisted on dressing up as Pa for World Book Day, with a beard and an axe

Moondog - re the romance of wooden house building, there was a great reality tv series, The Frontier House, in the mould of the 1900 House etc, only American and evoking LHOTP. Instead of one family there were a few, and included one engaged couple who got married in the course of the project. The husband came out early, with his father, to build the house for his bride, who came to join him once the house was built. It was so romantic it's making my neck prickle.

TooTicky · 02/04/2008 23:15

Mary went blind as the result of illness - was it typhoid? I can't remember.

Who was racist?

moondog · 02/04/2008 23:31

God Sal, That's awful.

Ticky, i know she was ill,just wondering how an illness could make you blind. Poor Mary.

Kathy,I remember seeing one ro two of those.It was great. in one,the bloke called a doctor as he was convinced he was ill. Doctor checked him over and said no, he was just getting fit and losing al lthr blubber he had accumulated over years of sitting at a desk.

Original poster
Fillyjonk · 03/04/2008 08:11

well moony blindness is a known complication of measles and scarlet fever, so probably something like that.

I THINK the baby died around the same time as she went blind?

Have just got this book

i have only read a bit as my mum has appropriated it .

it has a lot of excerpts from pioneer girl, her unpublished first attempt, it is interesting as there are a lot of chronological differences, a lot of episodes left out-

Pa basically gave up farming quite quickly, and there is a question mark as to WHY the ingalls settled 3 miles into a native american reservation (events in lhotp-they ended up going back to wisconsin in rl, though they move to plum creek in thebooks). its a bit .

Also-the big woods were not really very isolated at all. at about 5,laura was off to the local school.

all very interesting

off to google more about quilt making, am trying to work out if i am basicaly just sewing squares together.

OP posts:
Original poster
Fillyjonk · 03/04/2008 08:16

oh the way the native americans are treated is just awful in the books, i think this is where the racism thing comes from?

otoh they did lead me to read a lot more about the many native american cultures-bury my heart a wounded knee is a wonderful book for this. gosh i must dig it out and reread it,

OP posts:
TooTicky · 03/04/2008 11:21

Ooh Filly, those look GOOD books!!
More requests for the library..

policywonk · 03/04/2008 11:32

(The racism thing was wrt sallystrawberry's aunt, who is a Mormon - not wrt the books I think)

moondog · 03/04/2008 12:33

Filly,that book looks fab.

I thought the baby had been born early in married life? Obv. not as Mary was a teenager wasn't she when she went blind. God, people suffered didn't they?

mankyscotslass · 03/04/2008 12:51

Baby Charles Ingalls Frederick was born in 1875, about 5 years after the 3rd sister Carrie was born, I think Grace was born about 18mths or so later. Baby was only about 9mths old when he died, from the biography I read it seems he was sick from birth. It must have been hard setting out leaving him behind.

moondog · 03/04/2008 13:36

What do you mean? Leaving the grave or the baby? Which autobiography did you read Manky?

mankyscotslass · 03/04/2008 14:14

Moondog, leaving the grave, I think i read the child was buried on a relatives farm....
THe book i read was this one here

There was also this book that mentions it here

Although the second is unofficial as far as I know it's based on fact...

moondog · 03/04/2008 15:08

Thanks.
Dammit I can't see myself getting anything useful done for the near future.

mankyscotslass · 03/04/2008 15:21

I am on a real nostalgia trip and just ordered the L M Montgomery's "Emily" trilogy!
There are still a few Laura Ingalls Wilder books I want though.....

moondog · 03/04/2008 15:23

'a few'!!!
FFS I need to get on with my life.
Please stop telling me this stuff.

flyingmum · 03/04/2008 16:03

Manky, yours can chase storms, mine can go play Church Organs.

Oh the joy of being male and being able to have a hobby . . .

(although I suppose letting the kids bring themselves up and the house go to rack and ruin while I've got my nose into a book kinda counts ).

Blandmum · 03/04/2008 16:14

Re the blindness it was probably caused by meningitis that was caused by something like Scarlet fever, measles or mumps. Prior to inoculation, mumps was the biggest cause of meningitis in the UK.

Not that uncommon in those days. Helen Keller lost he sight and hearing in much the same way

mankyscotslass · 03/04/2008 16:27

Lol, Flyingmum, I know. I can't even say I can read while feeding youngest manky anymore!
MB, the blindness was as a result of a childhood illness like you say, although there is a disagreement over whether it was measles or scarlet fever, and Laura even contradicts herself a couple of times on this. It's also the illness that made Carrie struggle in the Long Winter, as she never really gained strength after the sickness.
I can't imagine what Ma went through seeing this happen to her family.

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