If you want to read something a little more adult about that time period, read ‘Giants in the Earth’ by Ole Rolvaag.
I’m going to Laurapalooza this year at Minnesota State University in Mankato. I am so excited! I went to the planning meetings for the first one two years ago (I was the babysitter for the board members), but wasn’t able to make it to the conference itself. http://beyondlittlehouse.com/laurapalooza-2012/
I love the Ingalls’ story so much and have been researching their family for years!
When I was in grade school, the teachers would read various Little House books to the class, and I found them to be rather boring.
However, I picked up the first one on a clearance rack a few years ago. I was amazed. The difference is, I can appreciate what the people in the books went through now that I’m an adult. The writing and characterization are simplistic, but I’ve found that the books hold my attention now. It’s interesting to see how the American culture has changed in such a short time.
And yes, I want to smack Pa, even though I was exposed to the books as a kid. I keep wanting to shake him and tell him to stick with a place long enough to start getting some return on his work.
I’ve also wanted to smack Ma a couple of times, especially when Ma clearly favors her blonde, blue eyed daughter over her brunette daughter. But Ma does praise Laura for quickly obeying her when they encounter a bear, and for quick thinking when a fire starts in the cabin.
I disagree that they’re simplistic. They’re definitely simple and necessarily so, but they’re not simplistic.
I’d agree that adults can definitely enjoy them. I think they do a wonderful job of accurately representing a child’s point of view, in limited third-person, with the many things that entails. It especially entails that you will not see Pa as the hero he is to Laura through most of the series.
As an adult, the one thing I noticed above all else that I hadn’t noticed as a kid was the casual racism towards American Indians, what with the whole Manifest Destiny-ish theme. It jumps out and smacks me in the face as an adult.
I grew up reading the books & haven’t revisited them. (I left home before my sister & she got the collection!) It might be time to give them another look.
However, I would advise against watching the show. I think I only saw part of an episode, but Little Joe is not Pa!
Ummm, is it the Great Depression or the Long Depression? I was under the impression the latter was happening during the Little House books. Great Depression coming almost 60 years later.
Choie et al: ever read The Wilder Life?
Fascinating read for fans of the real Laura (rather than the TV show)
In this thread, I noted the following:
I just finished that last weekend! Excellent book, fascinating read.
The weekend with the survivalists was great…
The end-timers, yes! Her poor hubby..
Ironically enough (for those who’ve read The Wilder Life), my husband got into the Little House books this past Christmas. I asked for them on my wishlist and he hid them when they came to the house; but not before flipping through them and saying to himself, “Why didn’t anyone give these to ME when I was a kid??” Though they’re written from a girl’s POV I feel they’re perfect for boys, too.
Now we share the set. 
This is fascinating!
I read the Little House books as a child, well before the TV show. I thought Laura was lucky, because of all the moving. I’ve always loved new places, a different house (even if it was a dump), new neighbors. So I didn’t think “Hard times, another failure, so sad” but “Yay, Laura gets to see another new place!”
While never a big fan, I seem to recall an episode of the show that included a heated argument between one of the sisters and another student over the merits of each side and I believe that the Ingalls sister was actually arguing in favor of the Confederacy (or maybe just that the Union did not have a clear moral authority, as I recall the other student had lost a father or brother who fought for the Union, and viewed the conflict in terms of black and white). However, I wouldn’t put too much stock in anything from the TV show. As another thread points out, among other things, one episode implied that Colonel Sanders (who wasn’t even born until 1890) traveled to Walnut Grove to buy Nellie’s Restaurant and turn it into a franchise.
I came in to post about that episode. If memory serves, the girls had come across the James bros. holed up after the Northfield raid and over the course of several came to realize that the Union was just as bad.
Aha…I just realized that this is why I never saw Pa as a failure or wanted to smack him and tell him to settle down as some earlier posters do. We did a lot of moving when I was a child for my father’s job so I guess it just seemed natural to me that the Ingalls family should keep moving.
Also the books all show great affection and admiration for Pa and all his abilities–his resourcefulness, perseverance, cheerfulness, shrewdness. One of my favorite scenes is in The Long Winter where he outwits Almanzo and Royall Wilder and borrows some of the grain that he knows they have hidden in their false wall. And of course in Little Town on the Prairie he wins the spelling bee and “spells down” down the whole town. Even the episode in Little Town where he and some friends do a comedy routine in blackface is presented as evidence of his humor and talent. So I suppose my acceptance of Pa is based on Laura’s positive portrayal of him.
Michael Landon, on the other hand, I didn’t really find as likeable as Pa in the books–did anyone else find it odd that almost all the other grown men had beards and mustaches, but not him? And, he was almost prettier than Ma (Karen Grassle) which rubbed me the wrong way.
Laura was clearly a daddy’s girl, and Pa was a great deal more sympathetic to Laura than Ma was. Ma was concerned that Laura didn’t take proper care of her clothes, or her complexion, and was dead set against Laura doing boys’ work. Pa, on the other hand, obviously loved Laura very much, tomboyish ways and all. I wouldn’t say that Ma didn’t love Laura, but Ma found Mary to be a much more feminine and biddable daughter.
Lots of people move their families around a lot. But I think in the cold light of adulthood you’ll find that Pa moved the family for idiotic, selfish reasons every time. We had a thread called something like “Wasn’t Pa Kind of a Fuck-up?” a few years ago but I haven’t been able to locate it.
My bold…I think I read these for the first time in about 3rd grade. The ‘girls’ were reading them at the time, and I think I picked one up out of curiousity. I received the box set shortly therafter and have no idea how many times I read through them.
I plan on buying a new set for my son.
That’s a great thread! I cracked up on seeing this post:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6551899&postcount=48
There’s something about the series that prevents me from reading it in the cold light of adulthood, though–maybe having had a wonderful devoted dad who in some ways reminded me of Pa but who didn’t mess up.
OTOH my cousin loved the show, I think because Pa/Michael Landon was so different from her cold, absent dad.