Wendy McClureReseñas

89

I had pretty limited expectations going into this book. I didn’t read any reviews or really hear anything about it from other readers beforehand. I originally found it at Chapters, and added it to my to-read list. A couple months later I found it in my library’s ebook collection and decided to go for it!

I loved the premise of this book. I am someone who loves to revisit my old childhood favourites. One of my favourite authors to read as a little girl was L. M. Montgomery and her Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon series. My family spent many summers traveling to the maritime provinces, and we visited P.E.I. several times. I loved imagining Anne and Emily wandering the island. So, I could totally relate to McClure’s desire to reimagine Laura Ingalls Wilder and visit her haunts.

Read the rest of the review on Bookish Comforts!

Well written, funny and wry; about one woman's obsession with the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved the books almost as much as she does, and would have loved to travel to the heartland to see Laura's World, as she terms it in the book. LHOP fans will enjoy this book immensely.

Two siblings see a bird fly into glass and learn that many birds have died in the US recently. They do things like make the windows safe, put out bird feeders, and build shelter all in an attempt to help the birds.
4-8 years old
Informational
Timberland Regional Library

I listed to this on a road trip through the west and it was a perfect choice. We even made a stop along the way to see a place spoken about in the book. I felt like it would lose my attention at times and became a bit dry at parts. Overall, I loved it and it rekindled my love for Little House.

I am lucky enough to have a book-obsessed friend (another librarian, no less) who generously gifts my with books. I cackled with wild glee when I unwrapped this book. One woman's trek to visit all Laura Ingalls Wilder homesites dove-tailed nicely with my recently re-reading of the 9 books that are now considered the little house collection. I'm a sucker for non-fiction that combines a specific topic (all things Laura) with memoir (McClure's budding domestic life with future husband.) I learned a lot about other Laura obsessed groups, be they scholars or evangelical house schoolers. McClure is able to cast a critical eye at what she calls "Laura World," addressing racism and the enduring questions of authorship (Laura or her daughter Rose), and origins (how much of little house is fact vs. fiction) and the good and bad of each individual homesite.

I am roughly the same age as McClure, which sometimes helps memoirs resonate more vividly. I am also part of the cohort that can be considered "any girl born in the mid-sixties to late-seventies" who may have been learned about the little house books through the TV show. Interestingly, McClure never saw the series as a child, but she discovers its melodrama and charm, and extreme divergence from Wilder's text, as she watches it as an adult.
I highly recommend this for any Laura-obsessed fan.

Adult nonfiction. One author's attempts to explore and recreate "Laura World" lead her to buy an old-fashioned butter churn, make fieldtrips to Wilder's various homesteads, etc. I don't really have any interest in "Little House" stuff (don't even think I've ever read any of the books), but picked this the fact that I read so far into this (some 170 pages, before I decided I had to get back to the rest of my neglected pile of library books) is a testament to the writer's strengths. She's funny (she knows how ridiculous her obsessions make her seem) and makes the material really readable.

Totally enjoyed reading this book by another LIW geek, and identified so often with McClure. The book is not a LIW biography, which I think disappointed some readers--instead, it's about that experience of having so much of your childhood formed by the books, and then, as an adult, getting a chance to go back and figure out what it all meant.

“Little House on the Prairie” has long been considered one of the classics of children’s literature, and even today, amid the onslaught of fantasy and horror being published for young adults, is still held in high regard. Wendy McClure, a children’s book editor, chronicles her adventures in “Laura World” as she researches Wilder’s life, unravels the fiction from the fact in the stories, and makes multiple road trips to sites mentioned in the books. Along the way, she educates her boyfriend, Chris, in the ways of Little House, and he becomes her constant companion on trips to working farms, museums, historic monuments, and more. McClure proceeds somewhat chronologically through the series, beginning with explorations of “Little House in the Big Woods,” and attempting to match events in the story to the historical timeline. She finds many inconsistencies along the way, which becomes one of the main points of the book — determining the line between fiction and nonfiction, and deciding how much that influences her belief in and interaction with the stories.

Although I would consider myself a fan of the Little House books, I found myself growing tired of this particular exploration about halfway through. Visits to sites start to blur together, and even as McClure becomes disillusioned with her expectations, so the reader may become bored with her ramblings. I did find her encounter with the homeschoolers who idolize Wilder and her self-sustaining lifestyle to be quite humorous, especially since McClure herself is at such odds with their conservative and religious mindset. I imagine that this book might be interesting to a determined fan who already has a good grasp on the truth and fiction in Wilder’s novels; however, to a casual fan, the amount of information and reminiscing is overwhelming and admittedly, becomes a bit tedious.

Picked this up cause I'd followed, and loved, her blog for ages. Wasn't my favorite memoir type book ever, but it was a quick fun read. I think I like her snarky stuff at Television Without Pity and her blog better than her book length stuff. Maybe. Or maybe I should just read another one of her books.

7 stars: Good

From the back cover: Wendy McClure is on a quest to find the world of beloved Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder- a fantastic realm of fiction, history, and places McClure has never been to yet somehow knows by heart. She traces the pioneer journey of the Ingalls family- looking for the Big Woods among the medium trees in Wisconsin, wading in Plum Creek, and enduring a prairie hailstorm in South Dakota. She immerses herself in all things Little House - from TV shows to the annual summer pageants in Laura's hometowns. Whether she's churning butter in her apartment r sitting in a replica log cabin, McClure is always in pursuit of "The Laura experience." Along the way she comes to understand how Wilder's life and work have shaped our ideas about girlhood and the American west.

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I grew up on both the Little House books and the TV show. I definitely liked them and reread/rewatched, though I wouldn't call myself a fan who memorized everything or idolized it. When this book came up at a meetup, I grabbed and am glad I did. It was fun, humorous, and I learned quite a bit about what was and wasn't real in the Little House books. REcommended for anyone with more than a passing interest in the series.

Some quotes I liked:

You know Mary's the good one, right? ... Mary's goodness is like a big blue sponge so absorbent that it passively sucks up all the positive attention, so that all the compliments and the candy hearts with the prettiest sayings on them inevitably come her way. You have to wonder if her behavior keeps her hair golden as well. ... Mary cops the truth, 'I wasn't really wanting to be good. I was showing off to myself, what a good little girl I was, and being vain and proud, and I deserved to be slapped for it." Laura was shocked. Then suddenly she felt she had known that, all the time. Oh yes, and so did we.

I think ultimately what makes the Little House books so compelling is that they're real girls lives reimagined. Silver Lake hints that the kind of life Lena led was a rough and overworked one, but somehow it seems equally true that she was as free as those black ponies. Larua herself gets to see more of the world as a fictional girl than she ever did as a real one...in correspondance to her daughter she admits this.

Sometimes Laura World wasn't a realm of log cabins or prairies, it was a way of being. Really, a way of being happy. I wasn't into the flowery sayings, but I was nonetheless in love with the idea of serene rooms full of endless quiet and time, of sky in the windows, ... where all the days were capacious enough to bake bread and write novels and perambulate wooded hills deep in thought.

There's evidence that Rose considered writing a biography of Almanzo, to be titled "A Son of the Soil" but its believed that he was so reticent in interviews she abandoned the project. Or perhaps its because he lacked the optimism that Rose had likely hoped to portray. "My life has been mostly disappointments" he wrote in a letter to her in 1937.

Maybe the Little HOuse Books have always been a way to "unremember"... To me, unremembering is knowing that something once happened or existed by remembering the things around it or by putting something else in its place. Laura Ingalls Wilder unremembered being hungry by writing "Farmer Boy" and Rose Wilder Land unremembered her terrible childhood by helping her mother write about hers.½

Little House on the Prairie, Frontier and pioneer life in literature, Laura Ingalls Wilder appreciation

This won't be for everyone, but it was like crack to a "Little House" nerd like myself, or anyone else who dressed as Laura Ingalls Wilder for Halloween as a child. I enjoyed it very much.

Normally, I end up rounding up on bookclub books because of the interesting conversations I associate with them. This time, I am standing firm at "okay."

I did not read all the Little House books. I think I read three before I hit Farmer Boy, couldn't get through it, and refused to skip ahead in my box set (which was weird, because wee! me used to read series out of order all the time). So I was coming to this book as a non-Wilder fan, but I was more than half-expecting to be won over and convinced that I needed to go read them immediately, because I find enthusiasm contagious.

Instead I hit this line on page 28, "And I was still afraid to ask: what kind of person would I become if I just went with this, let my calico-sunbonnet freak flag fly?"

I would say a happier one.

If I could say one thing to the author, it would be this: Wendy McClure, embrace your geekiness. Seriously, I am more likely to judge you for admitting in print to not knowing what "ague" means than for being enthusiastic about something you think other people left behind in childhood. Other people don't care half as much as you think -- and anyway, why would you care about the opinions of the joyless people judging you?

I wish I could say she does come to embrace it -- after all, she goes on to write an entire book about "Laura World," pursuing that elusive place-slash-state-of-mind through research into the historical and biographical basis for the books, experiments in turn of the century homesteading and cross-Plains road trips. But right up to the final chapter, it feels like she's always holding back, always just a little embarrassed. And that's a shame.

However, I do have to thank her for introducing me to Rose Wilder Lane, Laura's daughter, who sounds absolutely fascinating.

I was a **bit** disappointed. I appreciate the effort.

Full disclosure: if you did not spend a huge chunk of your childhood as a Laura Ingalls Wilder geek, if you never cajoled your grandmother into making a handsewn sunbonnet, never dreamed of eating snow candy or churning your own butter or making a nine-patch quilt, then this might not be the book for you. I adored Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved the books so much that my father regularly sat me down for lectures about daydreams vs. real life until he eventually forbade the books altogether. (Yes, I am the only person I have ever heard of who was actually forbidden to read wholesome stories about pioneer life. I still don't know what he was thinking.) A couple of years ago, when my daughter read the books for the first time, we visited the Wilder house in Mansfield, Missouri, and I--a grown woman who hadn't actually read the books in at least a decade, who should have outgrown sentimentality and hokum--caught myself tearing up at the sight of Pa's fiddle. (And after we toured the house, I insisted on going back to the museum for one more look at the fiddle.) The point I am making: I am the exact audience for this book, and I loved every last word of it. And now I just want to hang out with Wendy McClure and trade Laura anecdotes.

In her memoir, McClure explores her childhood love of the Little House books and details her travels to various historical sites connected to Laura Ingalls Wilder. Throughout the book, she also provides a fair bit of biography about Wilder. This was a very enjoyable, highly readable book for me, combining many things I love: memoir, books about books, and history. Recommended especially to anyone who grew up with Wilder's books but also to anyone who simply enjoys a good conversational memoir.

Surprisingly good and better than I thought it would be actually. I liked the Ingalls/Wilder family history and am glad to have learnt more about the 'real' Laura Ingalls, her childhood and later life. Its interesting how little I know but claim to be a fan. I'm sure like others, I've literally only watched the TV show so now I am on a hunt for the books.

Publisher’s Weekly says “readers don't need to be Wilder fans to enjoy this funny and thoughtful guide to a romanticized version of the American expansion west”.

A wonderful, fabulous, fantastic book. Wendy McClure inhabited the world of the Little House books in the same way I did, when she was growing up. Frequently I would say out loud "YES!" or "Me too!" or "I agree!" while reading. She clarified quite a few things about the series that had been bugging me (books, timing, characters, storylines, etc). I'm glad she did all the research so I didn't have to!

This is not a strictly scholarly work, by the way. She does do quite a bit of research but the book is about her physical and mental journies and what she learns along the way - about Laura, Rose, herself.

If you liked the Little House on the Prairie books, you should give this a try. I loved this book! I can't stop thinking about it. It will stay with me for a very long time.

This may be the my best non-fiction read of the year. wonderfully poignant and funny, right up to the end which made me cry.

Surprisingly poignant, not surprisingly fun to read and hilarious. From one Little House nerd to a million, a love letter to Laura Ingalls Wilder, her known and unknown lives, sadnesses and legions of loving, weird and earnest fans.

Full disclosure: if you did not spend a huge chunk of your childhood as a Laura Ingalls Wilder geek, if you never cajoled your grandmother into making a handsewn sunbonnet, never dreamed of eating snow candy or churning your own butter or making a nine-patch quilt, then this might not be the book for you. I adored Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved the books so much that my father regularly sat me down for lectures about daydreams vs. real life until he eventually forbade the books altogether. (Yes, I am the only person I have ever heard of who was actually forbidden to read wholesome stories about pioneer life. I still don't know what he was thinking.) A couple of years ago, when my daughter read the books for the first time, we visited the Wilder house in Mansfield, Missouri, and I--a grown woman who hadn't actually read the books in at least a decade, who should have outgrown sentimentality and hokum--caught myself tearing up at the sight of Pa's fiddle. (And after we toured the house, I insisted on going back to the museum for one more look at the fiddle.) The point I am making: I am the exact audience for this book, and I loved every last word of it. And now I just want to hang out with Wendy McClure and trade Laura anecdotes.

Mentioned in Parade magazine, looks like easy fun to skim.

If you grew up with the Ingalls Family then this is a must read. While it follows the sights from the books more so than the television series, it is a fun foray into Little House on the Prairie. I devoured these books as a child and loved the series on tv, so this was a must read for me. The author travels to the historical sites and meets many characters along the way, from Laura fans to survivalists. It is funny and historical at the same time. McClure is a Little House Book Geek so she spends most of the book sharing those memories and sites. She touches a little on the tv series, but discounts much of it. It seems like the lines have been drawn between the book lovers and the tv series lovers. Quite a good read. A true must for anyone who grew up with this family.½