Pioneer Girl!

[mala_14]

I'm so excited! I was at my local book store last night and, as I was leaving, lo and behold! There was Pioneer Girl, the recently published book containing Laura Ingalls Wilder's original manuscript. I've been planning to order it for a while, but it would have cost me about $60 USD (around $75 Canadian with our current, not-very-good exchange rate), so I kept holding off. It's a good thing I did! Because there it was waiting for me at the book store. For $58 Canadian. And I happened to have a big ol' gift card from a couple of years ago. So it was basically free! Yay!

I'm trying to restrain myself and only read a chapter at a time. I may have stayed up until 3am reading the first chapter. It is filled with notes and photographs and maps and pictures (original Helen Sewell illustrations and later Garth Williams ones). Positively delightful! I'm so happy and excited!

Comments

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

That is wonderful!!

[mala-14.livejournal.com]

I think so too! :)

[starlightmasque.livejournal.com]

Congrats! What a great find!

I just finished Little House on the Prairie-- I found all the racism so disheartening. I know it was a fact of life back then, but I just can't help being repulsed by it, and thinking about how terribly the Native Americans were treated. And when Ma forced Laura to give the Indian beads to baby Carrie I just wanted to smack her!

[mala-14.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :)

I totally understand that. It really bothers me too. Maybe that's why Little House on the Prairie has always been my least favourite of the series.

Ma is SO not likeable in the series most of the time! Apparently she was much more interesting and fun in real life.

[starlightmasque.livejournal.com]

I suppose I should cut her some slack. I mean, I'm a big jerk if I don't get my coffee after I roll out of my cushy bed in the morning--- I can't imagine living the way she did, with all the exhausting work, discomfort, uncertainty, fear and danger she lived with 24/7. Not to mention her husband selfishly dragging her all over the scary unknown, away from her family and friends. All that aside, reading the story through Laura's eyes was really quite wondrous, I loved the descriptions of the land and stars-- so amazing!

[mala-14.livejournal.com]

It's kind of weird though, because as a child she also spent a lot of time in frontier spaces. You'd think she'd be used to it. ;p The scenery descriptions are really beautiful. Kansas isn't really my prairie, though. When they head out to South Dakota in By the Shores of Silver Lake, I often feel like she's describing where I live, even though I'm so much farther north.

[ashamanja-babu.livejournal.com]

I've been waiting for it on backorder for ages! When I get my copy let's discuss.

[ashamanja-babu.livejournal.com]

The racist elements are hard for me, too. Little House on the Prairie is definitely my least favorite. I know times were different, but it's still tough to read. The absolute worst, though, is the blackface minstrel scene - it's in either Happy Golden Years or Little Town on the Prairie. Still, probably better they left it in than sanitizing it, if we're going for an accurate picture of history.

[mala-14.livejournal.com]

For sure! I hope you get yours soon.

[mala-14.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that I had no idea what was going on in that scene when I read it as a child. The whole concept of blackface was so foreign to me; I think I just pictured them as clowns. I prefer them to be left in too. Partly to discuss some of the ideologies in our past that are problematic and why and how they still influence us today.