Gal Smiley and I finally reached the end of Little House on the Prairie last week. She loved it, and I loved it, and we had many great conversations about the differences between life on the prairie and our life – and the remarkable similarities between Gal Smiley and Laura. I guess six-year-old girls are six-year-old girls, regardless if they live in surburbia or the open plains. There’s still the love of animals, the resistance to hair brushing, the rush to help your mother douse fires in the chimney. Well, maybe not that last one.
The whole book is about a year in the life of the Ingalls family on the prairie. In it, they build a house from scratch, furniture from scratch, a hearth from scratch. They cut through virgin soil with a plow and lay down all kinds of fruits and vegetables from carefully preserved seeds. They dig a well and one of their ponies has a baby and they forge and uneasy truce with the Indians nearby. It’s a whole year of work, work, and more work, just to establish the most fragile of homes.
And then – I really hope this does not spoil the book for y’all – in the very last chapter, they…MOVE ON. Seriously. They find out that the government is going to zone the land as an Indian reserve (the Ingalls were squatting there and did not own the land). So what does Pa Ingalls do? He just throws everything in the wagon and off they go. Bye bye house, bye bye stable, bye bye well and garden and fireplace.
I was so upset. I had BONDED with that prairie house. I felt every inch of work they did to build up that place. And then one day, POOF, it’s over. WTF, CHARLES INGALLS?
But while I was exclaiming and exclaiming about the horror, oh the horror, you know what Gal Smiley said?
She said, “Did they get to bring their special friends [meaning, their stuffed animals that they sleep with]?”
And I said, “I’m sure they did.”
And she said, “And did their Mommy and Daddy come, so they were all together as a family?”
And I said, “Yes, they were.”
And she said, “That’s okay, then.”
Ah, wise, wise Gal Smiley, That is okay, then.
TurtleHead 
i never read little house or watched the tv show. sounds like something i would like though.
i love the wisdom of kids.
I was OBSESSED with Little House, both the books and the TV show. On The Banks of Plum Creek, which is the next book in the series was my hands down favourite. I won’t spoil it for you, but the Ingalls’ new digs are just…well, you’ll have to read it to find out.
She gets it! YAY for Gal Smiley, that wise little girl.
I can’t wait to start reading real novels with the kids… Kiernan at 4 is still only moderately interested in anything more than shortish books.
You know they released all of little house on the prairie on dvd this year eh? 😉 (I’m sure the books are better, but I remember watching that show religiously as a kid)
Such a wise daughter you have! Just like Laura Ingalls. 🙂 I LOVED that series but cannot get my girls interested in it…yet.
I loved the Little House books and TV shows growing up. So far I have read Little House on the Prairie to my daughters, and while they liked it, they didn’t love it the way I did. I’m hoping that when they pick them up and read them on their own they may become more engrossed.
For me reading it as an adult, I could not get over how cheerful Ma was all the time. Women had so much to be responsible for and I don’t know how they managed it all.
How appropriate! My parents are moving out of the house I grew up in, the one they’ve lived in for 28 years. I had to learn this lesson too, and it wasn’t easy. Gal’s lucky to be so smart at so young an age!