by Pamela Smith Hill
Pamela Hill Smith is both a true scholar and a true fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder; here she provides a book-by-book critique of Wilder’s skill as a novelist for kids & young adults (& young adults at heart).
Thoughts:
– Was surprised to learn that the book CADDIE WOODLAWN came out contemporaneously with the Little House series. I hated CADDIE WOODLAWN when I was young! You’d think, being a Little House Nut, I’d devour everything similar about the time period; but to me, Little House was the bible. Little House was HOW IT WAS. Any different experiences were just – “all wrong”, the way Laura felt about her daughter’s novelization of her family’s struggles.
– I didn’t share Hill’s satisfaction with the Little House ending when I was an 11-year-old finishing up the series. I never warmed to Almanzo. I didn’t feel he was good enough for our Laura. When he was first driving her home from the teaching gig, she explicitly didn’t want to go out with him. Then she only started going sledding with him because she was jealous of everyone else out having fun. I never got the sense of her falling in love with him; it just seemed she ended up with him because he was around.
I combined this with a re-reading of The First Four Years, which, I agree with Hill, should never have been marketed as part of the ‘Little House’ series. I’m glad it was published; it’s just different and not part of the set.
Tytania 