It's Not Too Late to Experience These

We just got some more dusty books down from the attic, among them most of Laura Ingalls Wilder's series I knew I had around somewhere. Since I'd already read the first one to my older daughter, we embarked on the second one, Little House on the Prairie. This time my three-year-old is more tuned in, wondering whether the family would ever get their dog Jack back after he was lost at a creek crossing and happy to find that they did.

I am thankful that Wilder recorded her childhood on the frontier so eloquently for us. Her books became a part of my mental landscape first when my mother read them out loud to us, then when I read them to myself. I reread them a few years back, before the kids were born, and now I'm reading the books again to them.

As a child, I didn't conciously appreciate how well-done these stories are. Read aloud, the language is spare and the words well-chosen. The sentences flow gracefully and the events unfold like real life. Now we know how it felt to sit in a wagon day after day while the horses plodded on through the grass of the never-ending prairie. We witness through vivid writing how meals were made in primitive conditions, and how families like Laura's tried to live as properly as they could in the circumstances.

Adding to the historical value of the books is the fact that Mrs. Wilder recorded details of pioneer life in technical detail. Her thousands of young readers know, for instance, exactly how pioneers took care of their guns and made bullets because Laura talks about her Pa's regular ritual with his gun. They understand how and why Laura's family smoked meat, how they built furniture and houses and how they got maple syrup. And Laura's primary emotions in looking back--at least in the early books, I haven't reread the other ones yet--are feelings of contentment and safety. They're brilliant books.