Series: Little House

Book Series:  Little House
Author: Laura Ingalls Wilder
Genre: Historical Fiction
Plot: Laura Ingalls and her family move to several different locations as American pioneers.  After living in Wisconsin, Kansas and Minnesota, they finally settle near a town in Dakota Territory.
Books:

1. Little House in the Big Woods
2. Little House on the Prairie
3. Farmer Boy
4. On the Banks of Plum Creek
5. By the Shores of Silver Lake
6. The Long Winter
7. Little Town on the Prairie
8. These Happy Golden Years
9. The First Four Years
10. On the Way Home
11. West from Home

Overall Rating: 3 stars

This is rather famous and iconic book series and I thought that I should definitely mention it on this blog because five of the books on this list received Newbery Honors.  The last three books of the series were published posthumously (that means after the death of the author).  The First Four Years was found as an unedited manuscript and On the Way Home and West from Home are based on letters and journals written by Laura. 

I found a few interesting on Wikipedia as I was researching a bit about the author.  I will have to see if I can verify these tidbits since Wikipedia can be very reliable yet also very very wrong.  The first is that Laura changed the order of events slightly from how they actually happened and omitted a few places where they resided.  Apparently, the family moved to Kansas when Laura was 2 and then moved back to Wisconsin so her age in the book may be slightly different from the actual age that Laura was when the events took place.  This is why I categorize the book as "historical fiction" instead of a "biography." 

The other tidbit is that there are a few theories of how the books were actually written.  One theory is that Rose Wilder Lane, Laura's daughter, was Laura's ghost writer and wrote the books herself.  Another theory is that Laura wrote the initial manuscript and Rose heavily edited it and submitted it to the publisher.  The second theory seems to explain why The First Four Years reads so differently from the first eight books in the series. 

In any case, this series is a classic and I highly suggest reading it at least once.  Boys who hesitate to read the series because it is focused on a girl, should start with Farmer Boy, a story about Almanzo Wilder (who will later marry Laura).  These books also make excellent read a louds, making them accessible to younger readers who may be more interested in the books' content.