Little Town on the Prairie

Little Town on the Prairie is the 7th of the nine Little House books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It takes place in De Smet, South Dakota (then just called the Dakota Territory.) The book follows The Long Winter and precedes These Happy Golden Years.

If you have not read any of these books before you might wonder why Laura Ingalls Wilder refers to herself in the third person. This is because when she originally submitted her book as a first person narrative, it was rejected by the publisher. When she changed it to referring to herself in the third person, it was then accepted.

As I said in yesterday's post, I like to read these books aloud to the children because they go back to a long ago time, and while doing so, I can teach values that are timely even for our modern age.

In this book, we see the return of Nellie Olsen, Mary goes to college, and also the beginnings of the Almanzo Wilder/ Laura Ingalls relationship which develops more in the next book. I love Almanzo and even though he only shows up once every 50 or 60 pages, I am always glad when he does.

One of the best parts of this book is Laura's determination to study hard so she can become a teacher. What is most interesting to me is that Laura does not even want to be a teacher. She only wants to do it so she can provide money to her family so Mary can go to and stay in a special college for the blind. Especially touching in the book is Laura and Mary's last walk together before Mary and her parents take the train to Iowa to take Mary to her college.

The book is also very humorous and especially fun for reading out loud. From Pa's dream of getting his haircut, to the exploits of Kitty, the Ingall's cat, who is a scourge to gophers and a nemesis of local dogs, this book is every bit funny as it is poignant. I guess that's why I like these books. Modern life is sometimes stressful, funny, miserable, inspiring and heartbreaking all in the same day. It seems that life on the prairie was no different.

In researching this review, I found biographical information on Laura and her family. One thing I read said that when Laura's daughter Rose died in October 1968,and that she was the last direct descendant of Charles and Caroline Ingalls. I am not quite sure if that is true. Thanks to Laura's fine chronicles of her family, I think that the descendants of Charles and Caroline include anyone who reads and absorbs these fine Little House books.

Next Time: The Lost Art of Reading

Thursday Two Questions, already?

I can't believe it's been a week since I posted last. I am at least 3 posts behind. I have 2 book reviews I need to write and I want to talk about the oh, so excellent Home School Conference I attended over the weekend.

Well a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. It actually now starts with an I-phone. They have an app for that. But since I don't have an I-phone I'll go with the single step approach. I liked participating in Self Sagacity's Two Questions Thursday last week I thought I'd give it a shot again. I'll have to put off the book reviews and the conference comments (That sounds like a kind of Celestial Season Tea) until next time.

The book I am going to review if I ever get to it is Laura Ingall's Wilder's Little Town on the Prairie. I love reading these books to my family as they really give good perspective to things. For instance in Wilder's the Long Winter which preceded Little Town, Pa and Ma make the following observations on "new" technology. . .

"If only I had some grease I could fix some kind of a light," ma considered. "We didn't lack for light when I was a girl, before this new fangled kerosene was ever heard of.”

That's so," said pa. These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraph and kerosene and coal stoves - they're good things to have but the trouble is, folks get to depending on.

What's most telling is 3 of the 4 items mentioned are basically obsolete in Western Culture. Trains are still around but nowhere near what they were 150 years ago.

This brings me to my first question: What new technology do you have the most trouble living without?

My next question also stems from a book I am eventually going to review. The book called the Lost Art of Reading is an essay about the state of the book. The paper, ink, binding variety.

My question is this. Do you have a nook or Kindle or other e-reader or do you read books the old fashioned way or do you just not read books?

Those are my questions. For other peoples questions click here.

Next Time: Little Town Review. (Yes, I know I have been saying that for awhile.)

Thursday Two Questions

I am trying out a new meme today. Called Two Questions Thursday. The basic gist (The central thought, the common idea, - It.s one of Spider droids vocabulary words). is that you ask 2 questions and your readers and those linking to you from the meme answer those questions. The meme is hosted @ Self Sagacity.

When I first started blogging I participated in Mnoga (Russian for many) Memes. I even hosted one for awhile after the original owner decided to let it go. Recently I participate in them less and less. I occasionally will post @ Friday Fragments or Six Word Saturday but it's definitely not an every week affair.

My two questions today are about memes.

1) How come the majority of memes start the day before? For instance here I am asking my two questions for Thursday on a Wednesday. Considering the relative ease on most platforms of predating your material. It is not hard to time your post to begin at midnight the day of your meme.

2) When not participating in a meme for the week, do you still read it? I faithfully submitted over 25 Works for me Wednesday submissions before I finally realized that hints from Heloise is just not my bag. I really enjoyed reading all the hints but noticed that once I stopped being a contributor I also stopped being a regular reader.

So those are my questions and I am sticking to them. To join in answer my questions as a comment and then click here for more questions.

Next Time: Little Review of the Prairie

Bribe your kids? Get on board!

Our kids are passionate about some of the same things we are passionate about. Amy and I love books and libraries, and so do the kids. Amy and I love going swimming at the local pool, and so do the kids. This is good because, otherwise, we'd have to get a babysitter while Amy and I played Marco Polo with other people's kids.

One thing our kids have not shared our passion about, is jumping off the diving board. Amy and I love jumping and diving off the diving board. Before we were married we would sometimes take her cousins swimming and be the only people over 14 in line for the diving boards. Our kids do have strong emotions abut going off the board: fear and dread. Puppy is still not ready for such an adventure. But the bigs are excellent swimmers and love spending hour after precious hour in and under the water.

So yesterday, I paired irresistible forces, Bunny's love for money, and Spider Droid's pathological need to do whatever his sister does, with an immovable object: fear of going off the diving board. I offered Bunny $5 American to jump off the board. I also offered it to Spider Droid, but knew it would have no impact unless I could get Bunny to budge. You should have seen the internal argument that her face betrayed. Five dollars....sink to the bottom of the pool. Buying what I want....not living long enough to buy what I want. (You get the idea.)

Finally, she decided my offer was too lucrative to pass up. She waited in line, climbed up onto the diving board, and jumped in. She didn't sink and swam right to the ladder. When she got out, she went back in line again. And guess who was behind her....Spider Droid.

Spider Droid waited in line, climbed up the ladder, climbed down the ladder, waited in line again, climbed up the ladder, and finally jumped in the water. He also did not sink. Nor did anyone sink the next dozen or so times the three of us jumped off the board.

You see, I knew that they would love the diving board if they tried it and I was right. I just needed to find a motivation strong enough for them to get over their fear. Each kid is motivated differently. Five dollars alone would never have been sufficient to get Spider Droid on the board. Don't get me wrong, he'll take the money. But he could not resist trying something that his sister said was fun.

So call it what you will: bribery, knowing your kids' triggers, speaking their love language, or just giving them an offer they can't refuse. Seeing my kids love something that I love and that we as a family can love together, wasn't exactly priceless, but worth a whole more than 10 measly bucks.

Next Time: Little Town Review