• These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

    I finished reading These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder to the girls recently.  They have really enjoyed reading this series together; These Happy Golden Years is the eighth book in the series.  The only thing they are disappointed about is that we only have one book left and it is a short one.

    In this book Laura Ingalls gets her first teaching job, at the age of fifteen, in a school twelve miles away from home.  Since it is winter time she will not be able to live at home while she is teaching.  She wants to work to help pay for her sister Mary’s tuition at the college for the blind, but the place she is boarding while teaching is unpleasant and she is very homesick.  The time spent in another family’s home makes Laura appreciate her Pa, Ma, and sisters even more.  Laura begins to look forward to hearing Almanzo Wilder’s sleigh bells ringing as he arrives to pick her up from school on Fridays and take her home so she can spend time with her family.  While Laura was not teaching she was spending time with family and friends, studying, taking singing lessons, and going for rides in Almanzo’s new buggy.  It is in this book Laura’s friendship with Almanzo blossoms into love.

    I am so excited that the girls have loved this series as much as I did as a kid.  It has been a lot of fun reading through these books (and others) with them.  They look forward everyday to reading the next chapter.  Thankful for some time to spend enjoying the simple things in life with my girls.

  • The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

    Recently I finished reading The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder to the girls.  The Long Winter is book sixth book in the Little House series.  The girls LOVE reading these books.  I try to read at least a chapter to them every night and they always want me to keep on reading! Glad the girls are enjoying this series as much as I did as a little girl.  This was probably one of the hardest ones to read because the Ingalls family went through a lot of tough things during this winter season (from near starvation, freezing, and more).  The book teaches a lot about being creative with the resources around you, helping others, and working together to get through the rough season.

    Laura Ingalls and her family continue their adventures in the town of De Smet, South Dakota.  They got their homestead, but didn’t have time to winterize the little shanty before winter so they moved into the town of De Smet to live in the building that Pa had built last year.  Thankfully they had a place to stay in town because blizzard after blizzard hit the little town and cut off all the supplies for several months, including anything that was suppose to be arriving on the train.  Pa, Ma, Laura, Mary, Carrie, and baby Grace did their best to enjoy each day.

    It was a hard winter for the family with low food supplies and the cold from the  blizzards.  The book introduces many new characters into the series from their interactions with people in town during the winter months.  Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland made a dangerous journey to find wheat so the families in town would not starve.  Even though it was a tough season many good friendships were established during these months.   The Ingalls family was creative with their cooking, heating the home, and finding ways to stay entertained while they were stuck inside during the blizzards.