Little House on the Prairie (book)

From Little House on the Prairie Wiki

Little House on the Prairie is the third children's book written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was published in 1935, and illustrated by Garth Williams.

[edit] Story

At the beginning of this story, Pa Ingalls decides to sell the house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, and move to the Indian Territory near Independence, Kansas, based on widely circulating stories at that time that the land (technically still under Osage ownership) would be opened to settlement imminently. So Laura, along with Pa and Ma, and Mary and baby Carrie, move to Kansas. Along the way, Pa trades his two horses for two western mustangs, which Laura and Mary name Pet and Patty. When the family reaches Indian Territory, Pa builds their Little House on the Prairie. Soon, the family meets Mr. Edwards, a "wildcat from Tennessee". During this story, the Ingalls family nearly dies from a disease called at that time "Fever an' 'Ague" (fever with severe chills and shaking) which was later identified to be malaria. However, Mrs. Scott takes care of the family while they are sick. Mr. Edwards gives Laura and Mary their Christmas presents from Independence. Pa builds a roof and a floor in their house, digs a well, and the Ingalls plant the beginnings of a small farm. At the end of this book, the government makes Pa Ingalls and his family move again.

Many of the incidents in the book are actual situations that happened to the Ingalls family at that time, as told to Laura by her Pa, Ma and sister Mary over the years. Laura was, in fact, two to three-and-a-half years old while her family lived in Indian Territory during 1869–1870, and did not remember the incidents herself. For this reason, Laura did more historical research on this novel than on any other novel she wrote, in an attempt to have all details as correct as possible. She is portrayed in the book as being six to seven years old, as she had already established a chronology in her first book Little House in the Big Woods, and had to stay with that chronology. In truth, the instances described in Little House in the Big Woods happened to the Ingalls family after their return from Indian Territory. This is also why Baby Carrie is portrayed as making the trip to Indian Territory with the family, when she was, in reality, born in Indian Territory in August of 1870 (as recorded in their family Bible) shortly before the family left to return to Wisconsin. With her fourth book, On the Banks of Plum Creek, Laura is, from that point on, describing her own age correctly, and most events as they actually happened.

[edit] Little House Books

• Little House in the Big Woods (1932)
• Farmer Boy (1933)
• Little House on the Prairie (1935)
• On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937)
• By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939)
• The Long Winter (1940)
• Little Town on the Prairie (1941)
• These Happy Golden Years (1943)
• The First Four Years (1968)