Little House in the Big Woods

Review of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s First Book in her Series

Aug 6, 2008 Melissa Howard

Little House in the Big Woods is the fictionalized real-life experiences of a pioneer girl named Laura Ingalls, which is still read by both children and adults.

When Laura Ingalls Wilder was 63-years-old, she decided to write an account of her childhood. She could sense that a way of life was disappearing and felt the need to preserve it in writing. In 1930, Laura approached her daughter Rose Wilder Lane with a manuscript. The two women would shape the document into what would eventually be the first book in the popular Little House on the Prairie series, Little House in the Big Woods, which was published in 1932.

Written For Children

When Laura Ingalls Wilder began writing her stories, she intended them to be for children. She never intended for her audience to be an adult audience. It was her idea to share with children what the world was like for her when she was young. To suit her intended audience, Laura’s writing style in the books is simple, straightforward, and even plain. The perspective is that of four-year-old Laura. The themes and subject matter encompass daily life and family. As a result, critics argue that the books are not suitable literature for adults as the lessons in the book are not adult lessons.

However, the simplicity of the novel does not exclude an adult audience by being dull, unenjoyable, or childish. The nature and intent of the novel simply means that there are not complex themes or mature issues dealt with in the book. While the issues and themes in Little House in the Big Woods are not ones that are central in adult literature and are not ones that most adults need to learn about or understand, the sweet and direct presentation of those issues and themes help adults remember that the most important lessons in life are the ones learned when young.

A Descriptive Book

Little House in the Big Woods narrates the details of one year in a pioneer cabin. For the sake of narrative, Laura’s age is given as four-years-old and the narrative is written from her perspective. There is little suspense or action in the plot of Little House in the Big Woods, which means that for some readers it is not one of Laura’s more interesting books. However, for those who are interested in the day to day realities of pioneer living and how things were done, the book provides detailed descriptions of activities as diverse as making hickory-cured ham to making straw hats from oats grown in your own fields.

Simple and Timeless Themes

The book revolves around hearth and home. Laura’s writing waxes most eloquent when she describes evenings around the fire and the pleasure of watching Ma’s busy hands and of listening to Pa play the fiddle and sing songs. The end to a perfect day for Laura was always when Pa “took his fiddle out of its box and began to play. That was the best time of all.”

The axis of the story is time itself. Laura wrote Little House in the Big Woods in order to capture something that was already gone and that few remembered. The story starts out with a fairy tale beginning “Once upon a time, sixty years ago a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.” Just like fairy tales, the woods in Laura’s story are big, dark, and endless. In the middle of these mysterious woods lives a family in a little gray cabin and as we meet Laura and learn about her life it seems like a magical life suspended in time. But the adult Laura cannot forget time and she reminds her readers of time and civilization by telling us of the wagon track that passed the house. In a sense, the track represents the story of the woman who is writing the book but “the little girl did not know where it went, nor what might be the end of it.”

While the elderly woman who writes the story knows where the track led, the fact that she longs to preserve that time in present is clearly indicated by the ending of the book where the child Laura thinks to herself “‘This is now.’ She was glad that the cosy house, and Pa and Ma and the fire-light and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.”

For Those Acquainted with Nostalgia

Despite the primarily descriptive nature of the book Little House in the Big Woods it is a book for anyone who knows what it is like to realize that the time that makes them who they are has passed them by and who yearn for a simpler time. It is also, of course, an ideal book for acquainting children with a piece of American history and a simpler time.

Read more about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her books at Suite101

The copyright of the article Little House in the Big Woods in American Fiction is owned by Melissa Howard. Permission to republish Little House in the Big Woods in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Child In Pioneer Costume