Yeah, I never saw the show, but from the books I certainly think of Laura as more rebellious than cheerful. Maybe not sullen, but stubborn and independent.

The books are so completely different from the tv show that I do not know where to begin. The books contain a lot of traveling and moving around, and the number of secondary characters is far smaller. And even though they were a bit didactic, it is nothing like the "message in every show" sensibility of the tv series.

Also, eat before you read Farmer Boy or you will end up devouring the world. That book has more food porn than Like Water for Chocolate!

Completely different, Connie. They are really immersed in the experiences of frontier life with detailed descriptions of everything from the clothes to the food to the travails of every day. As for the characters, they are just fantastically drawn, from Laura and her sisters to her parents and all of the secondary characters.

Cloying is not a word I'd use for the books (although ITA I would use it for the TV series). Riveting, wonderful, funny at times, and gripping at others (The Long Winter is an amazing account of the killer winter of 1880-1881, and the chapter when Almanzo and Cap risk their lives to get enough wheat to feed the town and save it from starvation is edge-of-your-seat nailbitingly written).

I remember in the TV show, towards the end, they had like 4938261 children in the house and none of them were really theirs. Grace, maybe? Was there really a Grace?

There was really a Mary, Laura, Carrie and Grace. All those other kids came from god knows where!

the books are a lot less cloying and a lot more matter-of-fact about what was going on.

Oh, cool. TV shows with Important Life Lessons don't appeal. And I'm stopping by the library anyway to pick up the latest Harry Dresden.

I think that Grace was in the tv series, but she was Laura's sister IRL, born after her brother died before he was two years old--he's never mentioned in the books just because the whole experience of his loss was so heartbreaking to the family. There's a reason there's a two-year gap between On the Banks of Plum Creek and On the Shores of Silver Lake--that's when Freddie was born, they moved briefly to Iowa, moved again, and Freddie died on the trip back.

After Ma died in 1924, Mary moved into Grace's house until she died four years later. Neither Grace nor Carrie ever had children of their own, and Mary never married IRL, so Rose was the only grandchild of Pa and Ma who survived to adulthood.

All those other kids came from god knows where!

And there were SO MANY.

Well. At least three. There was that boy they may have obtained when they lived in town and Ma worked at a restaurant for a minute there? And then he burnt down the blind school? And there were the two kids whose parents died in a wagon accident and somehow ended up in Casa de Ingalls.

Connie, I've never read the books as an adult, but they were very, very captivating reading when I was a kid. Now that we're talking about them, I'd like to give them a reread as well. Ooh! I wonder if I could obtain copies in any of the foreign languages I pretend to speak. That would be excellent practice!

from the books I certainly think of Laura as more rebellious than cheerful. Maybe not sullen, but stubborn and independent.

There's a great photo of Mary, Laura, and Carrie taken right after the Long Winter that shows them perfectly as Laura describes them in that book and the following one. Carrie is as frail-looking as Laura says she was after the hardships of that year. Mary is as indomitable a figure as she always appeared to me post-blindness (look at how firm and resolute she appears!). And Laura's eyes are flashing and her hand is clenched in a fist at her side, just as I always saw her in my mind.

All those other kids came from god knows where

Central Casting? (sorry, couldn't resist)

I did watch the show in its first few years, but not much sticks in my mind. I do remember one show when Laura and a friend - a boy? - had either been reading penny dreadfuls, dime novels, or had been listening to stories about someone lurking around. They got so overly terrified about it that at some point they nail Pa with a bucket or something of paint. (ah yes, I remember it well)