Submitted by applesweaters t3_yhwkcj in books
I was obsessed with these books as a child. Anyone else? I’m currently reading Caroline Fraser’s Prairie Fires, which gives context to those stories and the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family. It’s kind of heartbreaking to learn the true story, but I don’t think it will diminish my love for those books.
Some of the history is too dense and I skimmed some, but it was such a pivotal time in American history that it truly is mostly fascinating. I was really into the swarms of locusts that mysteriously went extinct the same year that Laura’s father, Charles Ingalls died, after causing him years of crop failure and contributing to the families’ abject poverty.
It’s also incredible that once Laura’s mother Caroline died, Laura wrote to her aunt begging for pages of memories of times gone by. If she hadn’t done that, we might not have these amazing historical fiction books that basically raised me.
Tonight I raise my glass to this history (despite the foreshadowing that Laura and her daughter become libertarians late in life).
Edited to change republicans to libertarians.