Coming This Summer: Too Good to Be Altogether Lost by Pamela Smith Hill

Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the well-known Little House series, wrote stories from her childhood because they were “too good to be altogether lost.” And those stories seemed far from being lost during the remainder of her lifetime and through most of the twentieth century. They were translated into dozens of languages; generations of children read them at school; and dedicated readers made pilgrimages to the settings of the Little House books. With the release of NBC’s Little House on the Prairie series in 1974, Wilder was well on her way to becoming an international literary superstar. Simultaneously, however, the novels themselves began to slip from view, replaced by an onslaught of assumptions and questions about Wilder’s values and politics and even about the books’ authenticity. From the 1980s, a slow but steady critical crescendo began to erode Wilder’s literary reputation.

In Too Good to Be Altogether Lost, Wilder expert Pamela Smith Hill dives back into the Little House books, closely examining Wilder’s text, her characters, and their stories. Hill reveals that these gritty, emotionally complex novels depict a realistic coming of age for a girl in the American West. This realism in Wilder’s novels, once perceived as a fatal flaw, can lead to essential discussions not only about the past but about the present—and the underlying racism young people encounter when reading today. Hill’s fresh approach to Wilder’s books, including surprising revelations about Wilder’s novel The First Four Years, shows how this author forever changed the literary landscape of children’s and young adult literature in ways that remain vital and relevant today.

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Book Review: The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure

I believe every fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder, whether that person is a fan of the books, the TV shows and movies, or both, has a Laura story: the moment when she discovered Laura, connected with her, and how it changed her life. Wendy McClure shares her story with readers in The Wilder Life:  My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie.

A senior editor for Albert Whitman & Company, McClure brings the reader through her journey as an adult of rediscovering these beloved classics from her childhood.

A year after the death of her mother, McClure's eye catches the yellow spine of Little House in the Big Woods in her apartment. She picks the book off the shelf and begins reading. Her boyfriend, Chris, brings home a new set of the Little House books, and together they read, explore "Laura World," and embark on a trip by car to visit the many Laura Ingalls Wilder homesites across America.

The Wilder Life is both touching and irreverent. The author's lifelong obsession leads her on this terrific journey into a world that is familiar, yet, altogether new. From tracking down a "crock and dash" churn so she can make butter like Caroline Ingalls, to wading in Plum Creek; from purchasing numerous sunbonnets, to meeting girls competing in the Laura-Nellie Look Alike Contest at the Wilder Pageant in Walnut Grove, Minnesota; and from a surprise during her trip to De Smet, South Dakota, to the meaning found in a visit to the Wilder farm in New York, readers will enjoy following McClure's travels.

This is the kind of book that you have to consider as a whole. There are moments when it feels like McClure is poking fun at the whole "bonnethead" obsession and some of the people she meets along the way. She occasionally uses words that were not made for family TV back in the 70s. She also has her own vision of what faith meant to the Ingalls family versus how it was portrayed on television in Little House on the Prairie and the 2005 mini-series of the same name.

But when you take those moments and blend them into the entire narrative, you come up with a funny, engaging, and moving look into the impact Wilder's books had on McClure's life, and how Wilder's legacy continues to touch the lives of people everywhere. I am thrilled to have The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure as part of my Laura Ingalls Wilder book collection.


Title:  The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie
Author:  Wendy McClure
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (April 14, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1594487804
ISBN-13: 978-1594487804
SRP:  $25.95 (Hardcover)

Will also be available in a Kindle edition and as an audio book.