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Searching... Bayport Public Library | J 921 WILDER | Searching... Unknown |
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Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | J 921 WILDER | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | J 921 WILDER | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | J 921 WILDER | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
This fascinating firsthand account of life and travel in the early twentieth century includes 24 pages of photographs.
"It is like a fairyland." So Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the beloved Little House series, described her 1915 voyage to San Francisco to visit her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. Laura's husband, Almanzo, was unable to leave their Missouri farm; her faithful letters home, vividly describing every detail of her journey, have been gathered here.
Perfect for supplementary classroom or homeschool research.
Author Notes
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)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Discovered after her death, these letters--written by Wilder to her husband when she left the Midwest to visit San Francisco--convey a vivid sense of the period, and a similar charm to that found in her classic series. Ages 8-12. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Historical setting by Margot Patterson Doss. 'West from Home' contains Wilder's 1915 letters to Almanzo while on a visit to her daughter Rose; 'On the Way Home' is her 1894 journal chronicling the Wilders' journey to their new home in Missouri as a young married couple. Both are interesting sidelights to the Little House books, as well as unusual bits of Americana from a beloved author. From HORN BOOK 1994, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.