A LITTLE HOUSE RE-READ - Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder #Books #BookBlog #Reading #LittleHouseSeries #LittleHouseBooks #LauraIngallsWilder #FarmerBoy #MiddleGradeHistoricalFiction #MiddleGradeBooks

 

FARMER BOY

BY LAURA INGALLS WILDER

LITTLE HOUSE SERIES BUDDY RE-READ

I started a buddy re-read of the Little House series with Jolene, who used to blog at Jo's Book Blog. She has remained a good friend of mine on Facebook since then. We originally were Harry Potter fandom friends on Twitter before she started blogging, so we've known each other for years and have participated in group buddy reads before.

•

We read Farmer Boy first, even though it's series book two, because it is first chronologically. The story is about Almanzo Wilder, Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband, as a young boy living in Upstate New York.

I found these two hardcover special editions, from Book Outlet, I thought they would look good for photos. I was thinking maybe they had just published the first two in this cover style; however I saw the third book, Little House on the Prairie, with this cover art on Better World Books. The BWB book was only in used "good" condition and more expensive than the new condition cutouts from Book Outlet so I passed on it. I did leave it on my BWB wishlist hoping a used like new shows up, and I'll keep checking Book Outlet. I was hoping this meant the entire series had been released with this art, but sadly it's only these three. The big drawback to these editions is they have no illustrations.

GOODREADS

Jolene read her original 1933 edition with illustrations by Helen Sewell. She found it on Ebay for a decent price because it was a former library book.

The 1953 Harper & Row Edition

Jolene has been to all of the prominent book sites. Here are some photographs she took of the Wilder farm in New York.

A front view of the Wilder home and a portrait of the family.

The book leaves out two of Almanzo's siblings: Perley and Laura. That's why he called his wife Laura, Bess. A bit of Little House trivia from Jolene.

•

Jolene has a lot of photos, so I will be publishing a post entirely about her love of the books and the sites she has visited at the conclusion of our series re-read.

GOODREADS

•

We also decided we would make some of the foods we read about in each book from The Little House Cookbook. This is Jolene's copy. She had to send photos of the list of foods and the recipe for the pie I chose to bake. I now have my own. I found one on Better World Books.

PUMPKIN PIE

•

I made pumpkin pie; well actually pumpkin custard because I hate pie crust. 

No white sugar was used by either of us because it was too expensive in the 1860s; the recipes called for brown sugar. The pumpkin pie recipe replaced vanilla extract with maple syrup because vanilla was also extremely expensive in those days. I had never put cloves in pumpkin pie filling before and even just the "pinch", as per the recipe, gave it a distinctly new taste. I might try this recipe again but also add vanilla extract and my usual half teaspoon of cinnamon, and quarter teaspoons of ginger and nutmeg, instead of pinches. I'll leave the cloves at a pinch, ha ha.

•

I have a set of novelty measuring spoons which have pinch, drop, dash, tad, and smidgen. I grated my own nutmeg and put the spice grater in the photo, but forgot to put the nut in. Oh, and isn't my little barn cat bookmark adorable? Almanzo loved their barn cats.

APPLE TURNOVERS

•

Jolene made apple turnovers. Almanzo's mother is described as an "amazing cook" and one of his favorite treats is her apple turnovers, "...plump, flaky crusts filled with warm, spiced apple filling." I will also be posting a cookbook post and sharing more food quotes from the books and Jolene's preparation photos. I also have food illustrations from her 1933 edition to add.

THINGS REMEMBERED

Even though I only read this book twice as a child, unlike reading the others four times, I remembered Almanzo racing to carry the bundles of shorn wool up to the loft and coaxing the last unshorn sheep up the stairs to trick his father. I also remembered him training his young oxen team, the wallpaper incident, and bits about the county fair.

ISSUES

There has been a call in recent years to ban the Little House series from school and public libraries, and in some instances groups have suggested taking the books out of print, because of insensitive and disrespectful content in reference to Native and Black Americans. My sentiment is that a mix of in-text citations ("footnotes" within the body of the text), footnotes, and parent/teacher guidlines and discussion sections in the back of the books, giving extra information and historical context about certain words, ideas, and beliefs would be a better option. I think the American history recounted in these stories is still relevant. In other books a light editing process might help make the stories more appropriate: with an acknowledgement that they have been edited, and why, at the beginning of the book.

•

Rye'n'injun bread was one of the culprits in this story: "injun" being a debasing term even during the 1800s. There was also an instance of Almanzo viewing the popcorn made by the Wilder family as superior to that of the "indians" because they put butter and salt on it; and he went on to say the indian popcorn was probably cold and tough after being carried around in skin bags. The truth is that popcorn was carried unpopped and was popped as needed and the Native Americans did have salt.

•

Later on in the book Almanzo relates that the Colonists made Native American food better. A section in the back of book explaining that he wouldn't have foods like pumpkin for his mother's delicious pies and sweet corn, made more palatable for human consumption, if it wasn't for thousands of years of cultivation practices by Native Americans. These indigenous peoples also taught the Colonists these farming practices. There are a multitude of crops that were originally only found in the Americas. Maple syrup is also a Native American originating food.

There was so much more to include as to our memories about this series, the foods, Jolene's history site photos, and our personal experiences re-reading these books that I will also be publishing a Little House and Me post for each of us, a post about Jolene's Little House Travels, a Little House Foodie post, and a post about Laura's annotated Pioneer Girl autobiography at the end of our series re-read.