Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder (published posthumously in 1971) is the author’s “rough draft” of one more book about her early life, in this case the first four years of her marriage. Because it was only discovered after her death and was published in essentially the same form it was found it,
Little Blacknose: The Story of a Pioneer by Hildegarde Swift (published 1929) is a story for a young child about the creation of the first steam locomotive in New York State. The steam locomotive, eventually called the DeWitt Clinton Steam Engine, ran between Albany and Schenectady beginning in 1831. (Although that’s less than 20 miles,
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder (published 1933) was the author’s second historical fiction children’s novel. As with her first (Little House in the Big Woods; see review), Wilder has written a concise book detailing the daily life and experiences of a child in 1800s America. It differs from all the rest of Wilder’s book
I don’t remember having read These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder before (first published 1943). I believe that when I read through the series, my oldest daughter got “bored” because Laura was no longer a girl. This month my nine-year-old and I did enjoy it. While it isn’t a favorite of mine and
The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (published 1940) is a great tale of endurance and survival for the Ingalls family, pioneers in the brand new city of De Smet in the Dakota territory. During this historic winter, frequent blizzards lasting 3 or 4 days crippled towns and halted railway traffic, which means that De
Taking place about forty-years after the Ingalls family settled in the Dakota territories, The Jumping Off Place by Marion Hurd McNeely (published 1929) tells a similar yet fictional pioneer tale. In this Newbery Medal runner-up for 1930, four orphaned children travel to the claim in the Dakota prairie that their dear Uncle Jim has set
When the titular character was first carved in the 1820s in Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field (published 1929), the world moved at a slow pace and horse and wagon was the method of transport. By the time the now-antique doll is “writing” her memoirs (in the 1920s), she can see airplanes out
The Tyranny of Printers by Jeffrey L. Palsey (University of Virginia Press, 2001) is a scholarly history of, as the subtitle says, Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic. With an abundance of research and a readable set of examples in each chapter that focus on specific newspaper printers and situations, the book opened my
By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder (published 1939) is a difficult book in the Little House series for me, and certainly not my favorite, because it seems to be such a jump between Laura’s childhood and her maturing roll as young woma in her family. This jump is obvious from the
A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Robert Bulla (published 1981) is a short early chapter book ideal for introducing the concept of colonizing America through exciting historical fiction. It highlights one family of three children as they navigate 16th century London, cross the Atlantic Ocean, and seek out their father in the struggling colony
At first glance, James: A Novel by Percival Everett (Doubleday, March 2024) is a clever retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn but quickly proves to be much more. Huck Finn joins runaway slave Jim on an adventure down the Mississippi River, to be joined by con men and more. But that is only the
Rather than being a straight-forward biography, the sweet graphic novel Wildflower Emily: A Story About Young Emily Dickinson by Linda Corry (Godwin Books, October 2024) captures her uniqueness, her passion for botany and nature, and her different way of looking at the world. Teenage Emily learns botany at her school desk, but with her dog
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