These Happy Golden Years
Laura Ingalls Wilder
HarperCollins, 304 pages
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Two weeks ago, my husband and I went to see Little House on the Prairie: the Musical which was based on the last five of the nine “Little House” books that Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about her pioneer girl childhood. I’ve been a fan of the books since dirt, and on a trip to that part of the country earlier this year, had, while killing time, discovered this wonderful website Beyond Little House, which was hosting on their blog a read-along of The Long Winter. I didn’t participate, but I read along, falling in love once more with a world where no one wrote nuphedragen reviews, or bought Canadian viagra over the internet, or had cell phones glued to their hands, or, or or…

After the musical, I wanted to go back and read the final book, because I was so pleased that the play had used Laura’s actual words in the proposal scene, and I spent a happy couple of hours revisiting both her childhood, and my own.

I was never a pioneer girl, though I did have braids and a sunbonnet (my mother made it for me) when I was young, but I know what it is to have restless feet, or a restless mind.