Laura and Mary restuffing the mattresses with fresh straw! Blowing up the pig's bladder as a balloon! Milking the cow (Daisy, I think?) in the spring. Laura on her own at her first job sewing. Laura teaching on her own. Laura rocking the desk until she was sent home from school.

I'm amazed how much I remember, to tell you the truth.

Oh, the maple syrup, and the candy they made by drizzling the syrup on a frying pan filled with snow. And the awfulness of Sundays, and tiny Laura gripping the sides of her chair in a fury at the misery of that Day of Rest. And Pease Porridge Hot, and the schoolroom where Laura first taught (she was only 13 -- unimaginable now).

eta: And the teacher who thought to ingratiate him(her?)self with Laura by asking her to memorize the shortest verse in the Bible because she was herself so small, and Laura's polite assent but silent scorn.

I've been to Walnut (whatever it was called) and the dugout and and and

The dugout is still there? Oh. Oh. Oh.

Yup, Amy. The whole Nelly Olsen rivalry! Lemonade at the..whatever it was. Sledding!

The one I remember most is The Long Winter because I really felt like understood how looong winter could be. and I was reading it in the middle of summer.

eta: I get LOTS of boys asking for her books at the library- eagerly, not just because they have to read them

JZ, I don't know. I know we went to a dugout house and knowing my mom, if it was the Ingalls, we went there. I was probably 9.

Laura getting a "fringe" cut before the social!

It was Walnut Grove.

Damn, I have to dig the books out NOW.

Damn, I have to go buy the books now. My parents have them, if they haven't gifted them off already (they do a lot of that, and I approve.)

Maybe I should try them again. I got the first four or five as a boxed set when I was, oh, nine-ish, and pretty well disliked them. I think I read 1.5 of them, tried again later, and gave them away.

the candy they made by drizzling the syrup on a frying pan filled with snow.

I read all the books and this is the only thing that sticks with me. Maybe because Mom let me try it but it wasn't cold enough that day so I ended up eating it with a spoon. yum!

I got rid of my set when I went to college, but several years ago, I repurchased all of the DeSmet books (On the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, and These Happy Golden Years) as well as Farmer Boy (Almanzo's childhood book). Those later books definitely hold up under adult reading eyes.

You really should read the early books just to get to know the family and backstory, but the later books are great and definitely not insipid.

Laura is presented as a truly flawed character, even as a child, which was a first in childrens lit for me as a kid. She's rambunctious, envious of her sister's perfect behavior and good looks (I love when Mary reveals her inner demons to Laura as an adult in the final book!), rebellious, and very much her father's daughter and fails to really relate to her mother as a result, at least until she becomes a young woman herself.

The books are a character study of Laura, and we get a complete view of her, from her opinions on religion (she's a believer, appreciates the poetry of the Bible, but evangelical fervor frightens her) to her obvliviousness to her appeal to young men around her (Almanzo woos her for a good month before she finally gets past thinking he's just being nice to her because he's a friend of her father's).

(Oh, and LIW as an author does disguise the fact that Almanzo first noticed her when she was only fourteen, and escorted her home from the revival when she was fifteen, and he was ten years older. In the books, she shaves at least three years off his actual age to make the courtship less unsavory.)