When I was 9 or 10 and confined to bed with some common childhood illness, my mother brought me a book from the library to read. It happened to be These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the last in the Little House series of books.

I was immediately charmed by and lost in this story of a young girl in the American West nearly one hundred years earlier than I was living. Perhaps I was drawn to that little girl because she thought “If I could live this way always, I’d never want anything more”. Maybe I just liked the glimpse into homemaking in the past. Whatever, for a kid who hated history in high school, I was captivated by Laura’s life and quickly sought out the rest of series.

At that time, Michael Landon was still cutting his teeth riding the range on Bonanza, and a long way from bringing Laura to the television prairies. The books alone were what taught me and enchanted me, so I picked this up for the Books That Made Me Love Reading Challenge.

Rereading as an adult, I’m stuck with the images of Melissa Gilbert and the rest of the TV cast in my head. But that didn’t diminish my enjoyment of this book since the show was particularly well cast. How could I not revel in passages like this one:
Before (the blackboard) stood the teacher’s desk, a boughten desk, smoothly varnished. It gleamed honey-colored in the sunlight, and on its flat top lay a large Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.

As an adult, I can appreciate more that the author was actually speaking of herself; I don’t remember being aware of that as a child. I can also understand that Wilder didn’t write these stories until she was in her seventies. Of course, that would tend to lead to a romanticizing of her circumstances when she young, but even so, I think she had a genuinely happy childhood.

I know, too, that Laura’s father had what he called an “itchy foot” and uprooted the family several times moving westward. In fact, in this book, on the claim in the Dakota territory where Pa & Ma did eventually settle, Pa still says “I would like to go West. A fellow doesn’t have room to breathe here anymore.” He had seen as Almanzo had that “This country is settling up fast. We have driven only forty miles and we must have seen as many as six houses.” He must have been a hard one to put up with, that Charles Ingalls. As an adult, I have a greater appreciation for Laura’s mother.

Yes, I’ve read the controversy about whether the books were actually written by Laura’s daughter Rose Wilder Lane who was in journalism, but they are Laura’s stories, and if she needed help getting them through the publishing process, then fine. But they are still her stories.

And I still love them as much as ever.

For Canadian readers:
These Happy Golden Years
The Little House Collection Box Set