Little House in the Big Woods

Both "Prairie Fires" and "An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States" gave me a much less rosy history of this era and ripped away many of the warm feelings of nostalgia I had for the Little House books, which I read over and over again as a child. So I was apprehensive about rereading this series.

This first book starts with the family before they started moving west, in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. It's a simple story, with long descriptions throughout of all the domestic homesteader farm tasks the family had to accomplish throughout the year, the planting, the harvesting, the hunting, the preserving, the cooking, but also includes joyful visits with family and the adventure of going into town. It goes along at a good clip and is never boring. I can totally understand why l loved it so much.