The World of Little House

I read this book at the end of January/early February, and will link it to Barbara's wrap-up post at the end of the month for her Laura Ingalls Wilder reading challenge.

This is actually a children's book -  an older child, that is.  But it's also interesting for an adult to read.  It tells many things about the Little Houses that may not be known, and gives interesting additions to the books themselves.  For example, recipes are included for Almanzo's Buckwheat Pancakes (from The Long Winter), and Pulled Molasses Candy (from Farmer Boy).

Some of the entries cause this book to seem like many of the other books about Little House that are out there these days - written to capitalize on the popularity of these classic books.  Even though the recipes given above (and others) were interesting, they fall into that category.  They are no doubt just representative recipes of the foods Laura wrote about in the books.  Some of the crafts in the book (for example, how to make name cards) are the same thing - not really from the book, but just representative of the era.

One thing I really did appreciate about the book was the schematic drawings given for each Little House.  They were really informative and showed clearly how tight the living quarters were.  This is Pa's store building that the Ingalls family lived in during the Long Winter, and the following winters in Little Town on the Prairie.

Of course this book did not contain any of the unvarnished truth about Laura's relationship with Rose, or the other unhappy information that has come to light in recent years.  It is a very happy, simple book written for children, but I did enjoy it because of some of the good information in it.