Today I got an email from my friend who right now is staying in USA. Actually she works in my country but taking 6 months off in every two year. She was a former student of mine. I taught her Indonesian.
In her email she told that before going back to Indonesia she will stay in Wisconsin. I haven't been in USA before but I know some of its States. And Wisconsin has called me up about a children book I've ever read and one of my favorite: The Little House series written by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Initially, I became acquainted with the story of a little girl named Laura was from old television drama series of "Little House on the Prairie". I was still in my elementary school that time. And my mom told me that she also watched the drama series when she was at the same age as me! I still remember the famous Michael London in it.
Until today I haven't known the ending of the story in the television series, but when I was in my third year of senior high school, I found the books at my friend's neighbor house. Later on I know that the story was a true story of the author and it has 11series. And after I can make some money of my own, I started to collect the books, every month I bought one book patiently until it's complete (although, fortunately, three of them were found by me in a second-hand book store).
To sum up, the series are telling a story about Laura and her Family, Ingalls family. The setting was around 1870-1889s when Ingalls family - as many other pioneer families - had their journey to open the land, riding their horse wagon, cropping, harvesting, etc. They roamed some territories of Kansas, Minnesota and finally Dakota, where Laura met and married to Almanzo Wilder.
For me, the story itself is very splendid and attractive. From the beginning we can follow the adventure of little Laura, living in the bg woods, helping mother with various yummy foods, playing on the prairie, sliding in a bobsleigh, Christmas's gifts, Pa's telling stories and playing violin, and many other things.
Also, there are some pictures illustrated by Garth Williams who did the research for 10 ten years, where he really followed the tracks had been traveled by Ingalls family.
Book 1 - Little House in The Big Woods
On 1872, there was a little lovely gorl named Laura Ingalls Wilder who lived with her father, mother, older sister, and younger sister, in a log cabin in the edge of The Big Woods.
They lived in outlying, remote from human settlement. They lived self-supporting, namely from wheat planted in space of felled treed, from animal, birds or fish caught by her father. Usually, meats from those animals were preserved by salt and smoked, properly stored for their stock in facing winter season.
Live was truly hard and difficult, but that did not meant there was no cheerfulness and joys at all. There was a time when family are gathering with relatives, making maple sugar, or in Christmas when they changed gifts to each others.
Book 2 - Little House on The Prairie
The Big Woods had been crowded by settlement. That was why Pa sold their little log house and made a horse wagon covered canvas cloth. They were going to move to Indian Land! They went through a very long journey from Wisconsin to a very distant region of Oklahoma. In this new land, Pa built a little house on the middle of prairie.
All year long, Pa, Ma, Mary, and Laura put all their energy and mind to their land and their little save and comfort house. However, the land they lived in was still belong to Indian people, and finally the government asked them to leave.
Book 3 - Farmer Boy
It was a childhood story of Almanzo Wilder, a boy who later on would get married to Laura.
Almanzo and his family did not do roving as pioneer because his father had owned his own land in the State of New York. But Wilders children also had to work hard - cattle and field needed to be handled all the year round, and they had to go to school if there wasn't an important work to do.
So, Almanzo and his brothers and sisters had to plow and spread seeds, and reap and whop wheats. Yet, he also enjoyed lots of excitements such as when Almanzo gave the raspberry and joke to his father when he was cutting lamb's wool, went to the Fair, take a trip on Christmas, and a very exciting week when four children of Wilder were let alone in the field to do what they like. Meanwhile, Almanzo always had pleasant things in his mind that soon after he finished all works in the field then he would get a col to be tamed by himself.
Book 4 - On The Banks of Plum Creek
Laura and her sisters should live in some peculiar places in their journey to the unknown West. But, the most strange of it was a little house made under the river embankment, which had made this story is even more interesting. Whomsoever read the books of Little House in The Big Woods and Little House on The Prairie must definitely know about he adventure of Pa and Ma and their little daughters accompanied by their dog named Jack, to their newest house here, with a very vast prairie under the sun beam. Because one-two other families also settled there, thus Laura and Mary went to school for their first time. Also, at that place they held a party for the first time.
However, the place was still a very ferocious one. There were lots of mantis folds that formed just like a very thick cloud and attacked almost-harvested field. And there came heavy snowstorm in the winter. And, What happened to Pa when he was away to get the Christmas gifts?
Book 5 - By The Stories of Silver Lake
During the development of railway and the last stages of West settlement, Ingalls family left Minnesota - On The Banks of Plum Creek - and went to Dakota. While waiting the chance for seeking and occupying, and getting the land that had been promised by government, thus Pa temporarily worked for railway company. Ingalls family spent their winter in a sumeyer's house, where their closest neighbor was about 75 kilometer in distant. Thrilling moments came when Laura and Mary for their first time on the train. Also, the incident of robbery to the salary that had been trusted to Pa to hold them. Their Christmas day of that year was very wonderful. In Spring, Pa built the first wooden building in the place of a future town near their land. Two weeks later the new town was born.
Book 6 - The Long Winter
An Indian warned Pa that the winter season of 1880-1881 would be the hardest and worst winter ever occurred in Dakota. Therefore, Pa brought his family to move to the town from their work-on land. The town was badly hit by the snow and the communication with outer world had broken off.
Laura and Mary could no longer go to school. When Christmas passed by and the need of food increasingly came to a head, Almanzo Wilder and one other young man made bold to cross the snow-covered prairie to seek for the food (wheat).
Ere on May the snow melted and the train could come. Hence, Ingalls family got their Christmas presents, and the Christmas on this May was the most beautiful Christmas they've ever had.
Book 7 - Little Town On The Prairie
Little group of houses and settlement that been suffered by the long and worst winter during 1880-1881 now becoming a very rapid-growth one.
There was held The Independence Day of July 4th, and Laura also went to attend a social night.
Also, the easily-becomes-jealous Nellie had moved from the banks of Plum Creek to the town. She became more discomforts for Laura.
Ingalls was very well. At last, Mary was success in enrolling a university special for blind people.
The most wonderful thing was Almanzo Wilder asked permission to walk together to see back Laura from the church, and the changed name card. Laura was fifteen years old now, obtaining her certificate to teach in school.
Book 8 - These Happy Golden Years
Laura was not 16 years old yet and should for the first time to teach in a school. Her first school as teacher was a decrepit building on an abandoned field. Despite the homesick, Laura she was determined to finish her teaching phase in order to help Pa financing Mary in the university.
Laura only could see Mary's education progress during school holiday. Also, in this time she could be very happy enjoying sleigh rides, and best of all, helping Almanzo Wilder drive his new buggy.
The next year Laura taught in a new school. She got engaged with Almanzo, and the next spring they got married and moved to their own land.
Book 9 - The First Four Years
Laura Ingalls Wilder is beginning life with her new husband, Almanzo, in their own little house. Laura is a young pioneer wife now, and must work hard with Almanzo, farming the land around their home on the South Dakota prairie. Soon their baby daughter, Rose, is born, and the young family must face the hardships and triumphs encountered by so many American pioneers.
And so Laura Ingalls Wilder's adventure as a little pioneer girl ends, and her new life as a pioneer wife and mother begins. The nine Little House books have been cherished by generations of readers as both a unique glimpse into America's frontier past and a heartwarming, unforgettable story.
Book 10 - On The Way Home
A journey diary from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri in 1894.
With additional note from Rose Wilder Lane.
This book tells about a pioneer family began their journey from drought-suffered South Dakota to a new land - a new beginning - in Ozarkas. This family was Almanzo, Wilder, Laura Ingalls WIlder, the wife, and their 7-years old daughter Rose.
Here can be found some pictures of the author, the family, etc.
Book 11 - West From Home
Letters form Laura Ingalls Wilder to Almanzo Wilder, San Fransisco, 1915.
There are also some pictures can be found here.
The Girl of Little House
Nickname: Half-Pint, Flutterbudget
Birthday: February 7, 1867
Birthplace: Pepin County, Wisconsin
Parents: Charles Phillip Ingalls & Caroline Quiner Ingalls
Brothers & Sisters: Mary, Carrie, Grace, Freddie
Likes: Churning butter, Pa's stories, fiddle playing, going barefoot
Pets: Jack, a bulldog; and Black Susan, a cat
By the time she was thirteen years old, Laura had moved from the thick Wisconsin woods to the wide-open Kansas prairie, out to the fertile Minnesota plain, and finally to a brand-new town at the end of a railroad line in Dakota Territory. True pioneers, Laura and her family faced everything, from severe droughts and bone-chilling winters to crop failures and grasshopper invasions, in their long search for a new life on land of their own.
Laura was a spirited and courageous girl from the start, and her life on the frontier was a nonstop adventure. She worked hard helping Ma and Pa in the house, and on the family's farm, but there was always time for fun—which meant climbing trees, riding horses, sledding, playing with her three sisters, and singing along with Pa's fiddle. Laura also loved school, and at age fifteen, she became a teacher like her mother. Three years later, she married a quiet farm boy from northern New York named Almanzo Wilder.
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