Summary
Long hidden in archives, Laura Ingalls Wilder's original handwritten autobiography is a tribute to her family and her experiences as a pioneer. Written for an older audience, Pioneer Girl is her first-person narrative of the settling of Dakota Territory, the building of the railroad west, and life as a pioneer. The stories in this autobiography formed the basis of Wilder's international best-selling autobiographical novels, known as the Little House Series. For the first time, readers will have full access to the original manuscript that began it all.
Written in six tablets on lined paper, Pioneer Girl follows the Ingalls family through Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, back to Minnesota, and on to Dakota Territory over a sixteen-year period. Using revised Pioneer Girl manuscripts edited by Wilder's daughter Rose Wilder Lane, letters written between Wilder and Lane, photographs, newspapers, and other sources, Pamela Smith Hill and other editors of the Pioneer Girl Project lead readers through Wilder's early recollections and her first attempts at publication. While Laura Ingalls Wilder is a familiar figure, Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography re-introduces readers to the woman who defines the pioneer experience and gives new insight into her motivations and experiences.
For more information visit: www.pioneergirlproject.org
Wilder was born near Pepin, Wisconsin; attended school in DeSmet, South Dakota; and became a teacher before she was 16, teaching for seven years in Dakota Territory schools. She and her husband, Almanzo Wilder, farmed near DeSmet for about nine years and then moved to Mansfield, Missouri, where they lived out the rest of their days.
Wilder did not write her first book, Little House in the Big Woods, about her early years in Wisconsin, until late in life, on the urging of her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. It was first published in 1932. She followed this with Farmer Boy (1933), a book about her husband's childhood in New York State. She then completed a series of books about her life as she and her family moved westward along the frontier. Little House on the Prairie (1935) records the family's move to Kansas. On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937) describes the family's move to Minnesota. By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939) records the family's move to South Dakota, as do the final three books in the series: The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie (1941), and These Happy Golden Years (1943), which ends with her marriage to Almanzo Wilder. Three of Wilder's books were published posthumously: On the Way Home, a diary of her trip to Mansfield; The First Four Years, an unfinished book about her first four years of marriage; and West from Home, letters she wrote on a visit to her daughter in San Francisco, none of them up to the quality of her earlier books.
At her best, Wilder employs a clear, simple style, a wealth of fascinating detail, and a straightforward narrative style. Her tales of a strong, traditional frontier family that endures the hardships of the late eighteenth century are seen through the eyes of a child, which endears them to young readers. Her work is possibly the best example of historical realistic fiction for children.
(Bowker Author Biography)