# Something that's always bugged me about the book "Little House on the Prairie" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 9, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471 "2016-07-09T14:09:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/41 "2016-07-10T14:00:52Z")
> [@LVBoPeep](#): > > A little off topic but does anyone know why these books aren’t available on Kindle or even Audible? Seems like they are more than popular enough? They are on Kindle. [Little House on the Prairie.](https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_11?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Alittle+house+on+the+prairie+books&keywords=little+house+on+the+prairie+books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468159149&rnid=2941120011) StG ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/42 "2016-07-10T15:32:19Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Really? The books were intended for kids (little girls, especially) but I didn’t find them “namby pamby.” Are you getting them confused with the TV show–which I never watched? I never saw more than a few minutes of the show, but I know what you mean. It has been many years since I read the complete set and I may be misremembering. _Big Woods_ in particular seemed… namby in spots, but then, many book series Written For Children have weak beginnings. (Narnia comes to mind - the first book is almost nauseating in spots, and the later ones almost shocking in their adult themes and tone.) I guess I was just old and aware enough to realize how much was being downplayed in all the disasters and crises. That must linger in my assessment. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/43 "2016-07-10T15:50:29Z")
19th Century White People Problems. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/44 "2016-07-10T16:20:38Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > Briefly. Then he grew that goofy moustache. Better than the dry look he had on TV. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2016, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/45 "2016-07-10T17:31:57Z")
My great aunts were born in 1889 and while they grew up in rural Alabama it wasn’t the frontier, but their Christmas whey they were kids was oranges (1 or 2 each) and if the crops allowed a school dress. The house museums that are left from the 19th century give the idea of elegance and lace and lots of material posessions, but these were the homes of the top 10% if that. For the vast majority of people life was closer to subsistence and anything you didn’t HAVE to have was exotic. For House Ingalls, everything they owned had been pulled across Indian territory in a wagon that had about as much space as a King sized bed, and that had to include bedding, clothes, cooking pots, plow, and tools needed to,survive. IIRC Ma brought a small porcelain lady and that was about it for the family’s non-essentials. Mary and Laura would have had memories of more stuff in Wisconsin but it wouldn’t have been much more and it would have been fading. An idea of how few material possessions people had on the frontier can be gleaned from the fact that they often burned down their houses and outbuildings when they moved (if they didn’t have a buyer, of course) because it made it easier to recoup the nails, hinges, and other metal to take with them to the new place. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/46 "2016-07-11T00:02:11Z")
I remember another notable thing from that Christmas – they each got a white cake. A cake. Made with white flour. And white sugar. They just stared at them for a while. Good girl Mary kept staring, bad girl Laura took the tiniest bit, on the bottom, where it wouldn’t show. > [@](#): > > The Todd Denault biography of hockey great Jacques Plante says that he was one of 11 children growing up in Quebec during the Depression. Christmas at Chez Plante consisted of his father buying two bottles or soda pop and each child getting to sip their share. > > Plante always said that soda tasted better than any champagne he ever drank when his team won the Stanley Cup. See, the point is sweets are supposed to be a rare treat, not some civil right all people have on demand. Damn. I may stop drinking soda for a week just on general principal. I wonder how long it took them to eat those cakes. ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/47 "2016-07-11T00:17:05Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Socks wear out. Tin _lasts._ And yet my business making tin socks never went anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/48 "2016-07-11T00:51:22Z")
> [@Battle\_Pope](#): > > And yet my business making tin socks never went anywhere. You should have branched out into foil hats. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/49 "2016-07-11T00:57:30Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > I wonder how long it took them to eat those cakes. Take _too_ long to eat it and it would get moldy. Wouldn’t _that_ suck? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/50 "2016-07-11T01:38:56Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > I wonder how long it took them to eat those cakes. My mother grew up on a northern farm during the Depression and had many stories not too far removed from LHOTP. One was that if all the kids (seven, eventually) got a treat, like a Christmas chocolate bar, the game was to eat yours as slowly as possible, so that days after the others had finished theirs, you could sit in front of them and nibble and make them “licious.” ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/51 "2016-07-11T21:18:23Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > You should have branched out into foil hats. Or split the difference and make [tin top hats](https://a.1stdibscdn.com/archivesE/upload/8709/210/8709_1300559097_1.jpg). (No idea why I want one of these.) ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/52 "2016-07-11T23:06:04Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Or split the difference and make [tin top hats](https://a.1stdibscdn.com/archivesE/upload/8709/210/8709_1300559097_1.jpg). (No idea why I want one of these.) Because you’ve always wanted to be a Monopoly piece? ---
**Author:** ![fisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@fisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fisha)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/53 "2016-07-11T23:56:40Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > All true, but the tone of the books is very watered-down, even namby-pamby in spots, sort of like “Pooh goes to Auschwitz.” They really are a peculiar set of books, when you stop to think about it. Welcome to Minnesota. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/54 "2016-07-12T01:44:51Z")
Currently reading the series to my family of wife, 11, and 6. There’s some pretty dire straits. And as someone mentioned, I paraphrase or simply skip over the anti-Indian parts. We’re in the middle of The Long Winter…right before it gets take serious. Eta: It’s come up in a LHOTP thread before what a hard time Pa had. He did seem to fail at day near everything he tried, and only got ahead when he got a job from family. Not mentioned in the books is how he apparently skipped out on some debt in Iowa. Every time he buys something on credit ormg mentions how next year’s crop of wheat will fix all their problems, wife and I just groan and roll our eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/55 "2016-07-12T12:38:10Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > This thread is starting to sound like the Four Yorkshiremen. > [https://youtu.be/Xe1a1wHxTyo](https://youtu.be/Xe1a1wHxTyo) Monty Python? Luxury! Serious comment – 2nding **Catamount** ’s recommendation; it’s an amazing book. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/56 "2016-07-12T13:09:31Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Or split the difference and make [tin top hats](https://a.1stdibscdn.com/archivesE/upload/8709/210/8709_1300559097_1.jpg). (No idea why I want one of these.) Please tell me that was made from a stovepipe… ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/57 "2016-07-12T14:47:38Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > Currently reading the series to my family of wife, 11, and 6. Extra points if you suffer eyestrain from reading by a dim, flickering, smelly kerosene lamp. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/58 "2016-07-12T15:40:23Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Extra points if you suffer eyestrain from reading by a dim, flickering, smelly kerosene lamp. Unfortunately, there’s no kerosene left in town…trains snowed in, you know. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/59 "2016-07-12T15:49:15Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Or split the difference and make [tin top hats](https://a.1stdibscdn.com/archivesE/upload/8709/210/8709_1300559097_1.jpg). (No idea why I want one of these.) They’re cheaper and last longer than the silk/beaver/whatever models? :dubious: 😕 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471/60 "2016-07-12T15:52:58Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > I paraphrase or simply skip over the anti-Indian parts. What?!? You would bowdlerize US history to keep from offending your family’s sensibilities??? :eek: Tsk, tsk! ☹ 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-thats-always-bugged-me-about-the-book-little-house-on-the-prairie/759471.md?page=4)