William Nicholson, our April 2010 Guest Editor, on The Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder: "My younger sister's favourite books (there's a whole series of them) and ignored by me until I was grown up. How wrong I was. Not soupy girly stuff at all, real gritty pioneer life, and intensely moving."
The sun-kissed prarie stretches out around the Ingalls family, smiling its welcome after their long, hard journey across America. But looks can be deceiving as they soon find that they must share the land with wild bears and Indians. Will there be enough room for all of them?
Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was born February 7, 1867, in a little log house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. Laura's childhood was spent traveling west by covered wagon, to Indian Territory in Kansas, to Grasshopper Country in Minnesota, and then to Dakota Territory, where she met and married Almanzo Wilder.
Laura's daughter Rose grew up listening to her mother's stories of those pioneer days. She urged her mother to write them down so that other children could enjoy them, as well. So in the 1930s and 40s, Laura recorded her memories of those days of long ago in a children's series known as the "Little House"® books.
Although Laura died on February 10, 1957, at her home in the Ozarks of Missouri, she and her family will live forever in the hearts of her readers.
