Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

I’ve been rereading Little House on the Prairie over the last few months with my five-year old daughter Penelope.  She goes in streaks where she wants a shorter picture book or is crying because we didn’t get to read “Little House” that evening.  Little House on the Prairie is one of my favorite all-time books and it is always a joy for me to read it again.

Little House on the Prairie is the account of Laura Ingalls and her family’s journey from the Big Woods of Wisconsin to the prairies of Kansas.  Too many people are moving to the Big Woods and driving out the game that Pa depends on for meat and furs to supplement the family’s income.  Hearing a rumor that new land will be opening up in Kansas, Pa takes the family and makes a claim.  They build a cabin, dig a well, and face a lot of excitement in the untamed land.

I love how descriptive Wilder is in the entire book.  Her passages are lyrical and make be believe I can see the vastness and beauty of the prairie.  For example, this passage:

“A hawk was sailing overhead.  It was so close that Laura saw its cruel round eye turned downward to look at her.  She saw its sharp beak and its savaged claws curled ready to pounce.   But the hawk saw nothing but Laura and Mary and round empty holes in the ground.  It sailed away, looking somewhere else for dinner.”

And this passage about wolves that have surrounded their cabin:

“Everything about him was big – his pointed ears, and his pointed mouth with the tongue hanging out, and his strong shoulders and legs, and his two paws side by side, and his tail curled around the squatting haunch.  His coat was shaggy gray and his eyes were glittering green.”

Penelope loves the story overall, but especially identifies with the little girls Mary, Laura, and Carrie.  She loves Mary because she has blond curls like herself and Carrie because she was a baby.  As a child I identified with Laura as she shared my name and shared a lot of my thoughts about life.  When I read this to my sons, they identified and loved Pa and how he spends this book constantly building things.  They loved the action sequences as well.  I think one of the secrets of why these books have remained favorites is that Wilder centers all of the action and thoughts through Laura as a little girl.  It helps children to really identify with her and the story.

Two of my favorite narrative sequences in this novel are when the family crosses the river and loses Jack at the start of their voyage.  Like Laura in the novel, this always makes me sad and it hooks the kids as well.   My other favorite part is when Mr. Edwards meets Santa Claus.  Mr. Edwards tells a great tale to the girls about meeting Santa Claus on his horse with a pack mule of presents and how he gave Laura and Mary’s presents to Mr. Edwards as he couldn’t get over the flooded river.  The girls are overjoyed by their gifts and that Mr. Edwards actually met Santa Claus.  Like Pa and Ma, I get choked up that Mr. Edwards went the extra effort and made it so the two little girls could have a happy Christmas.  Their simple gifts and the joy they had receiving them really puts to shame all that we have now in the future when it comes to Christmas.

Having read background accounts of Little House and Pioneer Girl last year, I can see the craft that went into this novel.  Laura was actually too small to remember going to Kansas as the family traveled there before she turned two from the Big Woods.  They returned to the Big Woods after Kansas and that is what Laura remembered for the novel Little House in the Big Woods.  Laura had to rely on memories of tales her family had told about living in Kansas and also visited the area as an adult to try to find where they had lived.

One part of the book that I luckily didn’t pick up on as a kid is Ma’s blatant racism when it comes to Native Americans.  This was the attitudes of people at the time and I am also glad that it wasn’t white washed from history.  I can understand why Ma is scared of the Native Americans, but I also read Pioneer Girl last year and discovered that the Ingalls actually settled in Kansas on the Osage Indian Reservation in hopes that the Indians would get kicked off their land and they could keep it.  It puts an entirely different spin on the book now.  Ma gets distressed that the Native Americans are always coming by and picking through things in the house.  . . But the house is on the Native American land!  No wonder they were upset about a new cabin being built.

“Ma said she didn’t know whether this was Indian Country or not.  She didn’t know where the Kansas line was. But whether or no, the Indians would not be here long.  Pa had word from a man in Washington that the Indian Territory would be open to settlement soon.   It might already be open to settlement.  They could not know, because Washington was so far away.”

This is one of Ma’s most disturbing remarks:

“Land knows, they’d never do anything with this country themselves. All they do is roam around like wild animals.  Treaties, or not treaties, the land belongs to folks that will farm it.  That’s only common sense and justice.”  Wow – Ma shows a complete lack of understanding and empathy with the Native American Way of life, but I’m sure this was typical thoughts at the time.  Luckily Pa has more empathy . . . but is still squatting on Native American land.

I’m also disturbed thinking about the vastness of the prairie back then.  The entire Ingalls family is stricken with a sickness and is saved by an African American Doctor, Dr. Tan, who is working on the Indian reservation and happens to pass by the cabin and notice the distress.  Mrs. Scott, a neighbor, comes to care for the family as “What are neighbors for but to help each other out?”  I want to know more about Dr. Tan – he is a pioneer of his own time!

Overall, Little House on the Prairie is a great classic novel that explores the trials and tribulations of pioneers in the 19^th century as they explored the west.  It has beautiful descriptive language and does a great job of captivating children by telling the story through a child’s point of view.  Ma’s racism is shocking to read now, but tells the tale of complete misunderstanding of the Native American people by White Americans at that time.

Book Source:  I received my first copy of Little House on the Prairie on my 8^th birthday from my Great –Grandma Kile.  Unfortunately age and much love have led to the books starting to fall apart.  I ordered a new set from Amazon.com to read with my kids.

Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice by Curtis Sittenfeld

I always love to read modern spins on classics, in particular, on Jane Austen novels.  Eligible is a modern rewrite of Pride and Prejudice and is the fourth in the The Austen Project which is a series in which all six of Austen’s novels are being rewritten by prominent contemporary authors.  I have read and enjoyed American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld in the past and was excited to be able to see how she treated Pride and Prejudice.

Liz Bennet is a 38 year old writer for the magazine Mascara in New York City.  Her 40 year old sister Jane also lives in New York City and is a yoga instructor.  Jane has given up on finding Mr. Right and has started a series of in vitro fertilization procedures to become a mother.  Both sisters head back to their home town of Cincinnati when their father suffers a heart attack.  At home, Liz finds that her family is in dire straits.  Her younger sisters Kitty, Lydia, and Mary are all unemployed and living at home.  Mrs. Bennet has a shopping addiction, an obsession with her country club, and a keen interest to marry all of the girls off.  They live in their family estate, but are almost set to lose it due to bad financial planning on their father’s part.

Liz has a complicated love life with her married boyfriend, Jasper. It gets even more complicated with she meets Fitzwilliam Darcy at a fourth of July BBQ.  He is a neurosurgeon and seems to disdain all that Cincinnati has to offer. Although she hates him, sparks seem to fly whenever they are together. Jane is smitten with Darcy’s friend, Chip Bingley.  Also a doctor, Chip has recently appeared on the reality TV dating show, Eligible (i.e. The Bachelor).  He was unable to find true love on reality TV, but may have found it with Jane.  When complications come around, Chip fast leaves town and both Jane and Liz are left to wonder was it really love?  

I thought that was a great modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice.  Sittenfeld captured the spirit of not only the story, but of all of the characters as well.  They were all true to their regency counterparts.  That being said, the one part of the novel I didn’t like was the blatant racism and homophobia of the Bennets.  Lydia is constantly badgering Mary about being a lesbian and makes a lot of cringe worthy comments.  This does seem true to the characters, but I didn’t like how we see their crassness through typical homophobia and racist jokes. I’m sure they could be crass in other ways. I thought the transgender character was a cool guy, but I don’t know how he would have been able to stand Lydia and the Bennets.

I loved the setting of Cincinnati.  You could tell the author herself had a love/hate relationship with her home town and the love really stood out as well as the ability to make fun of it as well.  I also loved that Chip was on a trashy TV reality series – that stands in well for the new wealth and underlying crassness it entails in the original novel.

SPOILER ALERT

I also wasn’t a fan of Darcy and Liz’s “hate sex.” I know I’m old fashioned, but I’d really like the romance to develop before they tumble into bed for “hate sex.”

SPOILER END

My favorite quotes (most of them go to one of my all-time favorite characters, Mr.  Bennet):

“My dear,” said Mr. Bennet, “if a sock puppet with a trust fund and a Harvard medical degree moved here, you’d think he was meant to marry one of our girls.”

“I don’t suppose that any of you can appreciate the terror a man might feel being so outnumbered, “Mr. Bennet said.  “I often weep, and there are only six of you.”

“In recent years, Charlotte and Liz hadn’t spent time together beyond Christmas parties or lunches scheduled during Liz’s trips home from New York, but they still took immense pleasure in each other’s company.” – I feel this way about my best friend Jenn

“One of the virtues of the Tudor was the privacy offered by its capacious dimensions, and though Liz suspected that this fact reflected poorly on her, she was at times most able to enjoy her family members when she could sense their presences nearby without actually interacting with them.”  Ha – who doesn’t feel this way sometimes?

Overall, Eligible captures the spirit and humor of the original Pride and Prejudice, but be prepared to see the Bennet family display racist and homophobia tendencies.

Book Source:  The Kewaunee Public Library

Spotlight - You and Me Always by Jill Mansell (and Giveaway!!)

Jill Mansell is one of my favorite contemporary authors.  She writes wonderful multi-layer romance novels that involve fantastically written characters from an entire British village.  I am delighted to be a part of this spotlight tour of Jill Mansell's newest novel, You and Me, Always from Sourcebooks.  Look for giveaway information at the bottom of this post!

Excerpt from You and Me, Always:

There he was, sitting in the sun outside the Star Inn. Lily slowed and parked the van outside Goldstone House, next to the pub. Dan saw her and waved, and her stomach tightened at the sight of him, as it always did. There was just something about the languid angles of his body, those long legs in black jeans stretched out in front of him, the tilt of his head as he chatted on his phone and laughed at something that had been said.

The tightening didn’t mean anything, though. Lily knew that. It had evolved as a kind of Pavlovian reaction, a habit that had become ingrained over the years simply because Dan Rafferty was so physically attractive. The good thing was that he knew he was attractive and traded on it shamelessly with all concerned—-so the idea of an actual relationship with him was the very last thing anyone in their right mind would want.

And since she was in her right mind, thankfully she was safe.

“Lily, Lily.” Dan’s eyes crinkled, and he pushed his dark glasses to the top of his head as she jumped down from the van. “My most favorite girl in the world.”

See? This was what he was like. “And you’re the most annoying boy.”

“I’m not a boy. I’m a man.”

He was twenty--seven, two years older than she was. Technically, he might be a man, but when you’d known each other since childhood, the idea just seemed wrong somehow.

“You used to put frog spawn in the hood of my sweatshirt,” said Lily. “You’ll always be a boy to me. 

Where’s your car, anyway?”

“Over in Chipping Norton.” Dan had texted her earlier asking if she could give him a lift to go pick it up.

“Why?” As if she couldn’t guess.

“Best not to ask. The usual, basically. Good wine and bad women. Well, one bad woman taking shameless advantage.” He gestured to the still--full cup of coffee on the table in front of him. “Are you in a big hurry, or can I get you a drink?”

Lily checked her watch. It was twenty past six. She’d spent the last three hours delivering a marble--topped table and a set of Victorian chimney pots to a customer in Chippenham, but work was now over for the day, and the rest of her evening was free.

“Go on then. I’ll have a Coke.” She joined him at the table, unsticking the back of her T--shirt from her shoulder blades and flapping the front of it to cool down her rib cage while Dan disappeared inside to order the drink.

When he returned, she took the glass and said, “Cheers, thanks. Why couldn’t Patsy give you a lift back to your car?”

“She’s out. Gone on a date. With a mystery man off the Internet.”

Lily perked up. “Ooh, what’s he like?”

“No idea.” Dan shrugged. “That’s the whole point of him being a mystery. She didn’t want me to meet him.”

“Well, after last time with the chap from Chepstow, who could blame her?”

“Welsh William.” He shrugged. “That wasn’t my fault. He was the one who challenged me to an arm--wrestling match. He was just showing off, trying to prove how strong he was.”

“You could have let him win,” said Lily.

“Me?” Dan looked horrified. “Why? He was an idiot. Patsy wouldn’t want someone like him anyway.”

Which was true enough. Ah, well, maybe this new one would be an improvement. Lily swirled the ice cubes in her glass and took a gulp of Coke, then paused as her attention was drawn to a stocky man on a bicycle heading down the street toward them. He was wearing an orange cycling helmet that clashed with his red face and turquoise Lycra leggings. As his legs pumped the pedals, he appeared to be talking to himself.

By this time Dan had turned and was watching him too. It wasn’t until the man had drawn closer that they realized he wasn’t riding an ordinary bike. It was a tandem. Nor was he having a conversation with himself; he was loudly addressing his cycling companion behind him.

“…and in September of 2013…or it might have been October, come to think of it… Anyway, that was when I cycled from Ravenglass to South Shields alongside Hadrian’s Wall, and that’s one hundred and seventy--four miles in total, so it’s quite a trek, but the views were phenomenal… Then the following March, I did the Devon coast--to--coast, from Ilfracombe to Plymouth…”

“Whoops,” Lily murmured as the tandem drew nearer still and they were finally able to see who was on the back of it. Dan sprayed coffee and rocked forward on his seat. Clearly mortified as her companion continued at top volume, poor Patsy saw them watching and made an Oh God face.

And then she and the cyclist were passing the pub, their legs moving in unison as the pedals turned and the tires made a dry, swishing noise on the hot, dusty pavement. Patsy’s date was still facing forward, talking loudly for her benefit as he informed her of the importance of keeping up a nice, steady rhythm.

Which made Dan, predictably, crack up with silent laughter. As the tandem moved on, Patsy glanced over at them for a moment, shook her head in despair, and mouthed the words: Help me.

Oh dear, but it was hard not to laugh. At the junction at the end of the main drag, the traffic light turned red, and the tandem dutifully slowed to a halt. Lily and Dan watched as Patsy put her feet down and turned back to give them a look of mortification and misery, while her date continued his loud monologue.

“How does she get herself into these situations?” Dan marveled. He gestured to his sister and mimed diving sideways off the bike.

Up ahead, taking her weight on her feet and raising her bottom from the saddle, Patsy let go of the handlebars. The traffic light changed to amber, then to green. Her companion pressed down on the front pedals and the tandem moved off, leaving Patsy standing in the road behind it. Evidently still entranced by the sound of his own voice, and oblivious to the fact that he’d lost his pedaling partner, the man who’d been her date continued on down the road.

Dan took a quick photo on his phone before the tandem completely disappeared from view. He grinned at Lily and said, “Ha, brilliant. That’s this year’s Christmas card.”

****

Patsy stood in the center of the road and watched as Derek energetically cycled off without her. She couldn’t quite believe he hadn’t noticed she’d gone.

Why did this kind of situation always seem to happen to her? Derek had sounded so nice in his emails. He’d given her no cause whatsoever to suspect he was a secret cycling fanatic with a deep and detailed knowledge of every single bike path in the UK and a passion for sharing all this information with her in a maximum--volume, never--ending monotone.

If she’d known, the entire relationship could have been nipped in the bud before it even had time to become a bud. Some women might not mind the idea of sailing through life on the back of a tandem, but Patsy definitely wasn’t one of them.

She sighed and brushed away the loose strands of hair that were sticking to her forehead. And now Dan and Lily were beckoning her toward them, no doubt finding her predicament hilarious. What she should have done, of course, was to tap Derek on the shoulder, politely explain that they might as well give up now, then shake hands, say good--bye, and wish him better luck next time.

That would have been the normal way, the dignified way to go about it.

Oh God, poor Derek. She really shouldn’t have done that to him.

Then again, poor her.

Giveaway

 One lucky winner will receive a copy of  Jill Mansell's novel published in April, The One You Really Want.  If you would like to win The One You Really Want, please leave a comment on why it sounds interesting.

 

As part of your comment, you must include an email address. If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner. 

 

For an additional entry, blog about this giveaway or post it on your sidebar. Provide a link to this post in your comment.

I will be using random.org (or a Monte Carlo simulation in excel) to pick the winners from the comments. 

This contest is only open to addresses in the United States

 

The deadline for entry is midnight on Friday July 22nd!

 

Please make sure to check the week of July 25th to see if you are a winner. I send emails to the winner, but lately I've been put in their "junk mail" folder instead of their inbox.

 

Good luck!

The Painter’s Daughter by Julie Klassen

Sophie Dupont has found herself in a great predicament.  She assists her father at his art studio in Devon, and there meets the handsome artist Wesley Overtree, the heir to the Overtree estate.  When Wesley abruptly leaves to paint in Italy, he leaves without knowing that Sophie carries his unborn child.  As an unmarried woman in the Regency period, there are not many options for Sophie.  When Wesley’s younger brother, Captain Stephen Overtree comes searching for him and learns of Sophie’s predicament, he does the honorable thing and offers to marry Sophie.  Will this marriage of convenience lead to love between Stephen and Sophie?  Will Wesley return?  What will both families think of this romance?

I love Julie Klassen’s novels.  The Painter’s Daughter is set during one of my favorite time periods, the Regency period.   It also has many references to characters reading Sense and Sensibility and other remembrances of Jane Austen.  It also has the threat of Napoleon on the horizon and has a riveting battle sequence with Captain Overtree in the infantry.  This is one of the best battle sequences I’ve ever read.  Klassen writes wonderful characters with three-dimensional personalities and actions that are believable.  The plot was very engaging and surprised me at the end.  I also thought it was a fascinating look into what a marriage of convenience would be like.  I also love that while it is a romance, it is a chaste romance with plenty of passionate feelings, but no vivid descriptions of actions.  The Painter’s Daughter is also a Christian romance and Captain Overtree in particular uses prayer and faith to guide his actions.

The Painter’s Daughter contains a great author’s note that explains how the book was written.  Discussion questions are also included that could be used by a book club or just for your own remembrances of the novel.

My favorite quotes:

This quote is about a small portrait of Sophie that Stephen had rescued from the garbage, but this quote could be construed to be about Sophie as well.

“His brother had discarded it, after all.  But Stephen had saved it from the flames.”

In this passage before battle, a soldier is asking Stephen how he’ll know that he’s right with God.  This is Stephen’s reply.

“I am not a good man, not by any measure,” Stephen replied.  “And thank God I don’t have to rely on my own merit.  I’d never be good enough to deserve to live forever with a holy God.  But Christ is, and He already died to cover my sins.  He sacrificed His earthly life for my eternal one.  And for yours, and for everyone willing to accept Him.”

This quote is great advice for newlyweds everywhere.

“This is real life, Master Stephen.  Happily ever after takes effort.  But you two will triumph.  I believe it with all my heart.”

Overall, The Painter’s Daughter is a riveting Regency Christian Romance.  It has many elements of my favorite writers including Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and even some of the mystery of Daphne Du Maurier or Victoria Holt.  I highly recommend this novel!

Book Source:  Review Copy from Bethany House.  Thank-you!