Pioneer Days

It's a lovely rainy Saturday where I am, so do you know what that means? It means I get to spend the whole day on the couch with a book (or books) and hopefully a cat or two - if they can stop being so adorably cute napping on the bed for awhile.

A good series for a rainy day, or any other day, for that matter, is the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. This series was my go-to commuter book a few weeks ago, and I made it through the whole series in a very short amount of time. As a child, these books were responsible for my ambition to be a pioneer when I grew up. And now, if the apocalypse happens and we go back to a world without electricity and automation, I feel that, with the help of these books, I'd manage to survive.

The Little House on the Prairie series is a fictionalized version of the life of the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Yes, Laura was a pioneer girl, but her story had a few more ups and downs than is portrayed in the series. That said, it is my understanding that the events in the stories did happen - except names have been changed at times, and some other events left out to streamline the narrative. Other than that, this is the story of Laura's life.

The books begin when Laura was a little girl living in Wisconsin in Little House in the Big Woods. You meet Laura, her Pa, Ma, and sisters Mary and Carrie who all live in a log cabin in the woods. Life was difficult, but you can sense the real love and commitment this family had. Laura comes across as a headstrong little girl who often just can't measure up to her perfect big sister Mary.

In the next book, Little House on the Prairie, Laura becomes a real pioneer girl when the family moves, by covered wagon, to "Indian Territory" (in what I gather is now Kansas). This book is where I realized just how poor the family was. They lived in a log house on the prairie with a dirt floor! It must have been so hard for the family to give up everything they knew and take a chance in a vast, open land, far away from friends, family, and anyone else who could help them if something went wrong. It is sad at the end when the family has to leave their little cabin and move on, as they had inadvertently settled in land the government meant to use for something else. I wonder how their lives would have changed if they'd been able to stay.

Farmer Boy takes a quick detour away from Laura's family to tell a tale about the childhood of her husband, Almanzo Wilder. The contrast between Almanzo's family and Laura's family is striking. Almanzo's family were prosperous farmers in New York and Laura's family were small-time farmers and game hunters. Almanzo's family still had the same responsibilities to store food before the winter, but they had been settled in New York for longer and had built up more stock and fields and were more prosperous. This is also a good book to read if you like descriptions of food - Almanzo was a hungry young lad and Laura writes the most amazing descriptions of the gigantic feasts this family ate.

On the Banks of Plum Creek picks up Laura's story again. The family has gone back North-East and now have settled in Minnesota. This is the first of the books where hard times befall the family and the reader gets a sense of the fine edge a farmer walks on. Laura's Pa built them a beautiful new house on credit, intending to pay for it with his first crop. But the grasshoppers ate the first crop - what is Laura's Pa to do? The reader feels sorry for the Ingalls family - being forced to start all over again after moving from Indian Territory, and having that fresh new start end badly, forcing yet another new start.

Laura's family starts all over again in Dakota Territory and it's back West for the family in By the Shores of Silver Lake. However, this western trip is different than the one to Kansas. The country is more settled, and while at times they are the only family about, the building of the railroad ensures that they won't be the only settlers for long. Secondly, there's a new baby sister, Grace, and Carrie is getting older. Finally, Laura's nemesis and older sister, Mary, has gone blind as a result of scarlet fever. This is where Laura's gift for description begins, as she becomes the "eyes" for Mary.

The next book in the series, The Long Winter, is a book about just that - the famous "Long Winter" of 1880-1881, when there were so many blizzards that the train with supplies could not get through and people nearly starved or froze to death. Certainly Laura's family nearly starved during that long, cold, dark, winter. The book does make for grim reading, but it is heartening to see the family pull together to survive the Long Winter.

The final two books in the series Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years, deal with Laura's teenage years in the little town of DeSmet, where her family had ended up in the Dakota territory. Her Pa had a claim near town, but the Ingalls family spent most of their time in town, especially during the winter. In town, Laura attended schools and socials, met friends and attended church. She also got her teacher's license and taught school, among other jobs, to help make money to send Mary to the College for the Blind in Iowa. While Laura did not want to teach school, she did not shirk from her duty in helping to provide for a better education for Mary. It is interesting to me that all Laura had to do get her teacher's license was to pass an exam. And after she finished a term teaching, she went back to being a student in the DeSmet school! Further, she never even managed to finish high school before leaving to get married.

Yes, These Happy Golden Years deals with Laura's teenage years and Almanzo's courtship of her. As much as I enjoyed reading about the young Laura in the early books, I enjoyed reading about the older Laura more and seeing how her headstrong ways had been smoothed out, while not losing any of her essential nature. I enjoyed reading about the long-ago fashions and entertainment. The pioneers may have worked hard, but they also enjoyed a good time, just like we do now.

The series ends with Laura and Almanzo's marriage, and Laura's new life as a farmer's wife, instead of a pioneer's daughter. Those who know the Little House books know that the series does not really end there, but I will address those three remaining books in a separate post - these books are written for children and the remaining three books have a different audience.

Upon rereading these books, I realized just how much work is was to be a pioneer family, and just how much people were at the mercy of the seasons. Today we live in an essentially seasonless world, where we can get any kind of fruit whenever we want shipped in from anywhere, and wear whatever clothes we like because the inside is heated/cooled for our needs. Sure, snow in the winter is an inconvenience, but we don't have to worry about storing up enough food in the fall to ensure we don't starve over the winter.

I love the family dynamic in these books. Laura's Pa and Ma grew up in a different time, and so have some different notions of parenting, but their hopes and concerns for their daughters are not much different than people's concerns now: education, friends, and finding a spouse. Laura's Pa loved his daughters and was a gentle and affectionate father with his girls. Ma was stern, but kind and did her best to mould her headstrong little girl into a true lady.

I also enjoy the relationship between Pa and Ma (Charles and Caroline). You can tell that Charles is an incurable romantic, a born adventurer who always wants to be moving on - the eternal optimist who thinks that life just over the horizon must be just a bit better than what's here and now. That is tempered by Caroline's cool realism. While she did not always agree with where Charles went, she and the family followed him faithfully and she always did her best with what they had. Her practical management kept the family together when a less practical woman may have let the family fall apart after following Charles' dreams too often. And Charles accepted Caroline's need to have their daughters educated and settled in De Smet when he may have preferred to keep moving West. While the books are about Laura, the relationship between Charles and Caroline is the core of the series and one sense their deep respect and love for each other.

I loved the books as a child, and I enjoy them now more as an adult. The stories are still excellent, but it is interesting to read between the lines and see the situation the family was in, how poor and how desperate they were at times, but how they still managed to pull together somehow and make the best of everything. There was a sense of "duty" in those days that I think is missing now. These are good, wholesome books and enjoyable reads, for both children and adults alike.

Stories for All Ages

After recently rereading two novelizations of the classic fairy tale "Beauty and The Beast" (by the same author!) I decided to investigate other novelizations of classic fairy tales beyond the 500 Kingdoms Series by Mercedes Lackey. Robin McKinley does have a novelization of Sleeping Beauty called Spindle's End. I read it and seem to remember that it was pretty good. However, the novel I was really thinking about was one that was in my school library as a child, a novelization of "Cinderella", written by Eleanor Farjeon.

That novel, The Glass Slipper, is, as it turns out, the novelization of a Cinderella play written by Eleanor Farjeon, herself the product of a theatrical and literary family. Sadly, my local library does not have a copy but they did have a copy of another of Eleanor Farjeon's books which I used to own, but apparently don't anymore. Which is too bad, because it's an excellent book - for the young, and the young at heart.

The book is called The Little Bookroom, and it's a collection of various stories by Eleanor Farjeon - many of which I understand to have already been published in various other novels. They are stories for children to be read by children who are more advanced readers or to be read to children by a happy and compliant adult.

There are a wide variety of stories in this collection. The tales range from pure myth to fairy tale to more realistic options. Settings include Paradise, Ancient Greece, the land of Workaday, a country cottage, a train station, and the back lanes of London. Farjeon populates her stories with an entire world of characters: fairies, princesses, kings, little girls, little boys, a goldfish, a Clumber Spaniel pup, and one very special donkey. Farjeon is a master at drawing complete characterizations and stories in only a few precious pages. There are no sappy sweet Disney princesses here! Good characters do generally win out, and bad characters get their comeuppance; but not every time. Sometimes the stories have only the bare minimum of plot - in others the story comes fast and furious. I especially enjoy the rich and detailed descriptions of clothing, furnishings, and landscape in the book. As well, her descriptions of the poverty endured by some of England's children will make you sad. Some stories will move you to tears: see especially "The Connemara Donkey", "And I Dance Mine own Child", "San Fairy Ann", and "The Kind Farmer".

In summary, then, this is a beautiful and precious book and there should be a copy in every home where there is a child, and, indeed, in homes where there are no children! I very much regret giving away my copy: I did not realize what a jewel this book truly is. Among Farjeon's heroes and heroines there is tremendous scope for imagination for even the least imaginative of children. The book deserves a place on every bookshelf beside the more well-known fairy tales. A true children's classic for all ages.

A Sad Tale

CBC News reported today that Emma Thompson has been hired by the publishers of Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit story to write a new Peter Rabbit story to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the Peter Rabbit tale.

What a horrible idea.

Now, don't get me wrong - I love Emma Thompson. She is a fabulous actor and those who like literary film adaptations should check out her radiant turn as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing and Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility. I believe she's even won an Oscar writing so she has the chops. But she is not Beatrix Potter! It's not that I'm mad about Emma in particular writing a new tale - I would be mad about anyone writing a new Peter Rabbit story.

Beatrix Potter wrote beautiful tales about animals for children. Published in small books with extraordinarily lovely illustrations, they were a comforting and familiar part of my childhood. I used to fall asleep to book tapes of The Tailor of Gloucester, The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher, and The Tale of Jemima Puddleduck.

Beatrix Potter wrote 23 lovely little books. Can't we just leave her legacy as it is? No, of course not. The publisher isn't interested in preserving literary heritage: they just want to milk more money out of the Peter Rabbit story and have some other author demean the original creation by trying to write her own story. If Emma Thompson and the publishers are such fans, why don't the publishers have Emma Thompson write her own Beatrix-Potter-inspired story, instead of taking Beatrix Potter's original characters and putting them in situations that Beatrix Potter never would have intended for them to be in. Beatrix Potter created Peter Rabbit - Emma Thompson should create her own characters and write her own book - not use some other author's characters in a story not their own.

It just makes me mad that we can't leave well enough alone but have to go back to other authors' original creations and characters and use them just to increase the profit for some publishing house. Beatrix Potter isn't here anymore, but she left her legacy in book form. Don't tamper with it on the grounds of "celebration" when all you are doing is trying to make more money. Let children enjoy her stories as they are, without adding "knock-offs" to the mix.

Lost Favourites

When I was little, my favourite thing was going to the library (okay, so not much has changed). We would go without fail every 3 weeks to take back the books we'd read and take out a whole pile of new ones. Sometimes, we'd even stop for a chocolate bar on the way home. Now that was an evening out!

I read all kinds of books as a kid. I liked classics by Lucy Maud Montgomery and Laura Ingalls Wilder, but I also read Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley Twins/Sweet Valley High (probably when I was a little older.). I also read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy - my tastes are still the same today. I was surprised when I was looking at my library's holdings for Monica Hughes (one of my favourite Canadian sci-fi authors) - they were missing a substantial part of her works. This made me sad. I have always counted on the public library to have copies of the books I don't own. If they're not going to maintain a collection of Hughes' works, I am going to have to find the copies I want to read. I suspect I will have to get out in the second hand bookstores to find some!

When I was working on the gardening post a few posts back, I was reminded of one of my favourite books as a child. The protagonist is a girl named Gertie. She finds a wishbone and makes a wish - that her house would turn into a garden. Little does she know that this is a magic wishbone and that her wish comes true! First, there is grass growing in the hallway. Then plants and flowers begin to sprout in other corners of the house. Finally, her house turns into a beautiful forest/jungle. I loved the book and wished that the same thing would happen to my house. Sadly, I had no magic wishbone.

Armed only with the knowledge that the protagonist's name was Gertie, I searched the internet for the book. Voila, I soon found it. It's called Gertie's Green Thumb and it's by Catherine Dexter, illustrations by Ellen Eagle. I quickly went to the electronic catalog of my local library. I was devastated to find that they didn't have it. I do realize the library can't have a copy of every book in the world in it, but this is an excellent book for kids. Well, not just for kids - I would like to read it again! I guess it means another trip to the used bookstore for me. Or maybe e-bay?

So, faithful readers, what books did you read as a child that you can no longer find? If you could read it again, would you? And do you think the book would be as good now as it was back then? I'm curious to find out your lost favourites so we can find them together.

[Postscript: According to all the publishing information I can find about the book it was published in 1996, which would make me definitely no longer a child when I read the book. However, some books are good for all ages! Also, it may be a second edition or republishing, because I'm pretty sure I remember reading this when a kid. Although I did read lots of kids books still when I got into my teens and beyond.]