Well, and they lived in the surveyer's cabin at one point too.

Rose does fascinate me, apart from the libertarian stuff. She was a telegraph girl at age 18 (lived her with Aunt Eliza Jane in Louisiana from age 16-18 to finish high school since her school in MO didn't extend that far), one of the earliest real estate agents (or at least, one of the earliest female agents) in California, divorced her husband in 1916 when that Just Wasn't Done, and ended up reporting from Vietnam when she was in her 80s.

Oh my goodness I haven't thought about the Little House books in so long. I absolutely adored them as a kid. I left one in my uncle's car once and I never ever got it back; that always made me sad. My set is still incomplete.

zuisa, they really hold up! Just a few years ago, I went and bought Farmer Boy (Almanzo's childhood) and all of the DeSmet books (from On the Shores of Silver Creek to These Happy Golden Years, but I did skip The First Four Years just because it's so godawfully depressing). I reread them regularly because they're so good!

Actually, I'm going to use these books for my final project for my library class this semester. I'm taking Reference in the Humanities, and we have to do a paper combining multiple disciplines (literature, architecture, dance, music, movies, tv, etc.) on one topic. (Previous examples from earlier semesters include Agatha Christie, James Bond, the Arts and Crafts movement.) I know I can address the books and the tv shows (did you know they did a miniseries on the book Little House on the Prairie a few years ago? It was quite good!), and I've got a few CDs of music that she mentions in the books, and can also cover the houses/museums that exist, and the clothing she describes in such detail in the books as well.

Farmer Boy is the one I lost. I know I've read them all once, but I am pretty sure I've read Little House in the Big Woods 18467351 times. When I was a little kid that just seemed SO appealing to me.

(did you know they did a miniseries on the book Little House on the Prairie a few years ago? It was quite good!)

No! I'm horrified that I missed it!

There's also a relatively new musical adaptation! It was playing at the Guthrie in Minneapolis last time I was there, but I unfortunately wasn't able to see it.

You guys should also check out Wendy McClure's newish book. [link]

A live stage show? I must include that in my paper--thanks!!

I am pretty sure I've read Little House in the Big Woods 18467351 times

My community just had their annual pig roast this past weekend; every time I drove by the sign for it, I got flashbacks to the pig butchering chapter in LHitBW. Remember when they blew up the bladder like a balloon for the kids to play with?

Since I'm a Midwesterner, I keep planning on someday taking a long LIW-themed summer vacation and drive from Lake Pepin (WI) to DeSmet (SD) and then past the Little House in Kansas (which is on land owned by Bill Kurtis, BTW!) down to their farm in southern Missouri to see all of the houses. All but the farmhouse in MO and the old Surveyors House in DeSmet are reconstructions, not originals (the sod house in Minnesota finally collapsed into the banks of Plum Creek sometime in the 1950s, after Garth Williams was able to see it for his illustrations). The cottonwood trees around their homestead near DeSmet are still there, though.

That would be a really awesome vacation.

I do remember the pig bladder scene! I always thought that was neat. I was a weird kid.

I was so obsessed with all things Little House... (books and TV show) when I was younger that I ended up developing this obsession with the Amish, because when you're nine it's totally the same thing.

I find it amusing that people think the Amish and Quakers are the same. Once I had to explain that there was a difference to someone - I'd told him I went to a Quaker college and he was trying to imagine me going to classes in a long black skirt with apron and cap.

The internet has really revitalized my interest in the books. I love finding out all the "what happened to" stories, although some of them are very sad (Cap Garland, Laura's first crush, died in his mid-20s when the steam engine on the tractor he was working with blew up). Ida Brown got married to the guy she was engaged to at the same time that Laura got engaged to Almanzo and then moved to Sacramento. Lena, Laura's "wild child" cousin in On the Shores of Silver Lake, was an elderly woman in the early 1940s who happened to be reading that book when she recognized herself in the book and then contacted Laura's agent so that the two cousins were able to connect again for the first time since the events of that book.