Today I celebrate the completion of my 2011 New Year's Reading Resolution! Over the past eight months, I have read the nine books of the Little House on the Prairie series for the first time. It makes me wish that life could still be so simple--you build your own house (including hinges for the door), school is a one-room one-teacher affair for all ages, and a stick of candy and a penny are amazing Christmas presents.
Reading the Little House books has lead to several other books:
- Nellie Oleson Meets Laura Ingalls follows along with some events of On the Banks of Plum Creek, but since it's told from Nellie's point of view, you spend 2/3 of the book wanting to smack her. Yes, she learns her lesson in the last few chapters, but then she shows up in Little Town on the Prairie and hasn't changed a bit.
- I haven't read Old Town in the Green Groves yet, but I am looking forward to it. It covers the time between On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake that were left out of the Little House series.
- Only bits and pieces are mentioned abut Mary's time in college in Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years. Mary Ingalls On Her Own uses historical records from Mary's time at Iowa College for the Blind to piece together her story.
- I just ordered On the Way Home: The Diary of a Trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894 from PaperBackSwap.com, so hopefully it will be here soon. And now that I know that you can visit their Mansfield home and see artifacts from the lives of the Ingalls and Wilder families, of course I want to go!
- Young Pioneers isn't part of the Little House series, but it was written by Laura's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. The story is inspired by the trials and tribulations of her parents and grandparents.
