Friday, June 5, 2009

A Little House Update


A few weeks ago, or maybe it has been more than a month now, I posted about reading the Little House books to my girls before bed. At that time we were working on On The Banks of Plum Creek and planning to add in the book by Cynthia Rylant that chronicles the years Laura chose not to write about. Since then we have managed to read By The Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, and are now a good way into Little Town on the Prairie. I have loved the Little House books since I was growing up reading them to myself. I usually ended up reading and re-reading the first three or four in the series and not these later ones that the girls and I are now into. So, reading these books is sort of new to me, too. I honestly don't recall a thing about Little Town on the Prairie from previous readings. This past week and a half I have been so amazed by parts of this book that I have told many, many people about it. When this book takes place the Ingalls are living in the country, having moved back to their claim during the summer months. At one point Laura writes about mice being in the cupboards and getting into their food supply. This was obviously a problem for everyone at the time because the mouse population was out of control and there were few cats to keep it in check. One night Pa and Ma were sleeping and Pa began talking out loud. Ma kept telling him he was dreaming. In fact, Pa's dream was not a dream at all...he actually had a mouse eating his hair in order to make a nest with it. He felt something up on his head, grabbed it with his hand and threw it against the wall. When they woke up in the morning there was a dead mouse by the wall. Needless to say, after that Pa managed to fork over the whopping 50 cents it cost to purchase a cat. Sounds like a fine investment to me.

I thought by now the girls would want to take a break from Little House and read some of the other books that are stacking up. This does not seem to be the case, however, and we are still going strong...just last night we started the chapter in Little Town in the Prairie where Nellie Oleson shows up at school. It was so fun to see the girls' reaction and hear their groans when they realize that Laura will have to put up with more of Nellie.

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