Like many others, I first read this as a kid. I checked out the paperback version and eagerly remarked to the librarian, "I'm rereading this as an adult." She nodded. "I used to read these as a kid," she agreed. This...is written a style that children will enjoy. The writing is absorbing and yet restrictive in its amount of detail.

This is a book about cruelty to dogs. It's also super racist, and it's not so accurate. The book is stated to take place in the 1890s. People had been traveling in covered wagons long before that. 1847 in particular. People traveled alongside their wagons, which were jammed with their whole life's belongings. Children who were under the age of five stayed in the wagon, or if they were ill. Dogs walked alongside the humans, if the family took dogs with them. Or unless they were small dogs, again, in the wagon. There is little mention of illnesses, dirty water, and hardly any of mosquito bites. Ma conveniently sprains her foot when a log falls on it. Give me a break. I almost stopped reading then and there. But it healed super quick with only pretty bruising. No mention of stretches, no mention of her slowing down in any real way. Her foot would more likely be broken. Orrr maybe she was just super lucky. The way this was written, the author did not want any real hardship to come to her characters. This annoyed me as an adult.

There is just--an utter lack of knowledge in these books about how historical events and people really functioned, and what mattered to them. It came across as ignorance, not "I'm omitting stuff for the story." It wasn't "if I have them in the wagon, and they have a dog, this story will be more interesting." I understand that these books were based off of Ingalls' grandmother's journals, likely when she was a child. She was looking through the world from a child's eyes. Still, everything's so--sanitized.

Jack is stated to be a brindle bulldog. Pretty! I like bulldogs, so I warmed immediately. He is also pointless as a character. In the first book, he's barely mentioned. The family could have found him in the third book and nothing of note would be lost in the whole series overall. They make the dog walk under the wagon, a punishing distance. There is no mention of food or water for him until the family is already in the house really. Laura is worried about him, and her mother says "Jack can swim." Across an enormous lake. No. Realistically, he would be dead of heat stroke, starvation, drowning, or just plain run away. If he were a Newfoundland, I would be more forgiving. Or even a Jack Russell terrier--we had one and she calmly climbed a mountain and wasn't even tired. She slept well later that night. We gave her plenty of water on the hike, and even urged her to drink some when she was not thirsty. An English bulldog would be -unlikely- to hold up to all that.

AND THEN PA AIMS A GUN AT HIM.
It took all I had not to drop the book in disgust right then and there. AND THE BOOK KEEPS GOING. OH, HE'S FORGIVING? OH WOW. PLOT CONTRIVANCE. ANIMAL MISTREATMENT, I SAY. He spends the second half of the book chained up inside, repeatedly made to stay inside--did the family never fashion a leash out of cloth? They hardly played with this dog. He deserves a far more adoring family. I was more attached to a fictional dog in this book than I was the humans. I cared about them less and less. The racism was at first threaded through the book, then utterly blatant and pages upon pages in the second half of the book. It aged POORLY.

I know it's going to be recommended for a long, long time. It's a staple of many a childhood. I am not one of the people who will be doing that. ( )

Independent Reading Level: Grades K-2
Awards: Newbery Honor Book

Laura Ingalls and her family are heading to Kansas! Leaving behind their home in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, they travel by covered wagon until they find the perfect spot to build a little house on the prairie. Laura and her sister Mary love exploring the rolling hills around their new home, but the family must soon get to work, farming and hunting and gathering food for themselves and for their livestock. Just when the Ingalls family starts to settle into their new home, they find themselves caught in the middle of a conflict. Will they have to move again?

One of my favorite childhood books ( )

Family