r/LittleHouseBooks

Okay I just want to see if I'm as weird as my family seems to think for rereading these books so many times.

I was gifted my first box set (yellow covers) in the early 1970s as a kid. Friends, I have completely worn out 3 different box sets AND probably another whole set that I bought book by book from garage sales because I only wanted the yellow covers. Then I moved cross country and bought the ebook versions so there is no telling how many times I've read them since. I can safely say that I read each book at least once a year and my favorite ones more than that. Except the First Four Years...I rarely read that one.

I think by now I could probably quote most of these books word for word. My ebook version of one of the books is missing about half a page and it bugs me every time.

And yes...pretty sure I'm neurodivergent (undiagnosed).

So...how about you?

Of course Laura went into a lot of detail about food, after all the food insecurity of her youth. Farmer Boy is the real extravaganza. What was it, the Fourth of July or the county fair, where Father and Almanzo got unlimited food for fifty cents? "Then he drew a long breath and ate pie. When he began to eat pie, he wished he had eaten nothing else." Mr. Braun and I sometimes go to an AYCE place for Thanksgiving/Christmas. With Almanzo as an example, I try to pace myself, so I'll have room for dessert! And even when I was a kid, I never had to wait for twenty other people to be served before I could start on a holiday meal. Usually someone would say "Dig in!" and a half-dozen or so people did just that.

Then there's Big Woods, with the sugaring-off, and Christmas in July at the end of Long Winter, and the "wasn't a sociable. It was a New England Supper." What are your favorite food-porn scenes?

Least similar: Jane Austen. Austen wrote about the gentry, characters who had wealth and status. They had to worry about losing both, but they never faced dangers like the Hard Winter or grasshopper plagues. Without existential threats to worry about, Austen had leisure to snark about gentry-class foibles through her characters and her own narrative voice. Most of her main characters have a process of self-examination and correction, but none are tormented by the why-can’t-I-be-good concerns that Laura agonizes over. If Laura and Elizabeth Bennet met, they’d have trouble understanding each other’s concerns at first, but they would probably be fascinated at how different their worlds are.

Most similar: Thomas Hardy. Hardy challenges 19th century morals and religion in ways that would shock the Ingalls, but he understood the precariousness of farm life. Gabriel Oak, Pa, and Almanzo could emphasize with each other’s heartbreak over lost crops.

I'm just curious, since Laura is obviously the protagonist, and the one we are supposed to relate to. Is there anyone here who related more to Mary when they read the books? If so, why do you think that is?

I suppose the most comforting to me is Little Town on the Prairie because it’s such a happy book!

Hi all! I've finished two books on a biography of Laura along with reading the book Caroline, and I'm curious about Mary? Like her life after college and returning home, what did she do during her days with Ma, or did Mary have any diaries? I know she died soon after Ma :/

Ok here is a discussion I was working on. What was your favorite Christmas Gift, bought vs homemade and something that was received that you would love to have received.

Of the handmade gifts, my favorite was the frame given to Carrie during the Long Winter

Of bought gifts, the hairbrush and bag from Almanzo that surprised Laura

When I was a child, I would have LOVED the cape and muff

A friend and I are discussing a Little House trip for this summer. She lives in Toronto, I’ll be driving from California. So far we have a plan to start in Pépin, then to Walnut Grove and on to De Smet. I’ll probably head on to Mansfield solo when she heads back home.

Has anyone done this kind of trip? Any suggestions for us?