The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairieby Wendy McClure
Riverhead Books, 2011. 336 pgs. Nonfiction
Obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder and her Little House books, McClure attempts to recapture her childhood vision of "Laura World." Her wacky quest includes hand-grinding wheat for bread, buying an authentic butter churn, and traveling to sites where the Ingalls family attempted to wrest a living from the prairie. Along the way she comes to understand how Wilder's life and work have shaped our ideas about girlhood and the American West.
The Little House books were a major part of my childhood and so I really enjoyed this book. It’s an interesting combination of travelogue, memoir, and history, and it almost made me want to go on my own quest to the Midwest to visit some of the sights of “Laura World.” If you were a rabid Laura Ingalls Wilder fan as a kid, or you just like to read light-hearted memoirs about reading obsessions, you will love this book.
JC
No comments:
Post a Comment