The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Frontier Landscapes that Inspired the Little House Books

by Marta McDowell Narrated by Donna Postel

Overview

The universal appeal of Laura Ingalls Wilder springs from a life lived in partnership with the land, on farms she and her family settled across the Northeast and Midwest.

In this revealing exploration of Wilder's deep connection with the natural world, Marta McDowell follows the wagon trail of the beloved Little House series. You'll learn details about Wilder's life and inspirations, pinpoint the Ingalls and Wilder homestead claims on authentic archival maps, and learn to grow the plants and vegetables featured in the series. Excerpts from Wilder's books, letters, and diaries bring to light her profound appreciation for the landscapes at the heart of her world.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

05/15/2017
McDowell (Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life) commemorates the 150th birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) with a captivating look at the beloved Little House on the Prairie author’s relationship with nature. Mining her subject’s novels and memoir for insights, McDowell traces Wilder’s interest in wildlife to the beginning of her childhood in the Wisconsin woods—the setting for her first novel, Little House in the Big Woods—and then follows the chronology of the autobiographical Little House novels, providing a historical account of each book’s setting. In describing the ecosystems along the prairies, McDowell catalogues the various wildflowers that Wilder likely encountered when her family traveled across country. Maps, illustrations (including the beloved Garth Williams drawings from Wilder’s books), and photographs add a touch of nostalgia and aid readers in identifying the plants and geography described. McDowell’s warm descriptions of the author, her times, and the plants she loved provide a wonderful companion to Wilder’s books, while instructions on growing a Little House–inspired garden add an interactive component. Gardeners, botanists, and fans of Wilder will love this book. Color illus. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

Winner of the Garden Writers Association 2018 Silver Medal of Achievement 

“This well-researched, sweeping book details the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder and those who came before her. It is clear that the different landscapes shaped them, particularly Laura and ‘Pa.’ The original are of Garth Williams and Helen Sewell deepens the poignancy and power of Laura’s prairie, since today only one percent of it survives. Laura’s work has preserved it for us. This book preserves it for us.” —Patricia MacLachlan, author of Sarah, Plain and Tall, winner of the Newbery Medal  

“Lavishly illustrated with photographs, drawings, maps, and, notably, a selection of Helen Sewell and Garth Williams’ illustrations from the Little House books. . . . the book is a feast of opportunity for dedicated Wilder fans and enthusiastic gardeners everywhere.” —Booklist

“McDowell commemorates the 150th birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder with a captivating look at the beloved Little House on the Prairie author’s relationship with nature. . . . McDowell’s warm descriptions of the author, her times, and the plants she loved provide a wonderful companion to Wilder’s books, while instructions on growing a Little House–inspired garden add an interactive component. Gardeners, botanists, and fans of Wilder will love this book.” —Publishers Weekly

“Readers who fondly remember Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books will delight in this biography. . . . A well-researched, beautifully illustrated title that entwines the natural world depicted in Wilder’s books with her life as a settler, farmer, and writer.” —Library Journal​

“[With] historical maps, photographs, botanical drawings, original illustrations by Helen Sewell and Garth Williams, and the ample descriptions of scenery in the series. . . Marta McDowell provides a snapshot of the gardens, plants and land that influenced Laura Ingalls Wilder's frontier life in the Little House books.” —Shelf Awareness

“A narrative that is accessible to advanced younger and seasoned readers alike. . . this work is a lovely gift for anyone who loves or has loved the Little House books.” —NYBG’s Plant Talk

“After reading the descriptions of ground cherries and green-pumpkin pie, you may be inspired to grow a pioneer garden in the 21st century.” —Country Gardens

“Marta McDowell’s charmingly enthusiastic glossary of the plants so integral to settler survival is just the kind of folksy vade mecum that book-loving Laura and her family would have relished.” —Country Life

“Like the ‘Little House’ books themselves, [this is] a story of a slice of garden history, and an evolving American landscape of the imprint the pioneers had on it, and it had on them too. A tale of their intimate connection with the natural world, and of what McDowell calls Laura’s wild and beautiful life.” —A Way to Garden

“A lively, detailed look at Wilder's plant, farm and garden interests in the many places she lived.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel​

“It's a beautifully produced book on quality paper. Marvelous illustrations, maps and photographs, illuminate McDowell's well-researched, engaging text. There are plenty of detailed descriptions of the plants and landscapes Wilder loved.” —New Jersey Herald​

“Readers have cause for real celebration. The book provides both beauty and substance. . . a treasure.”—South Dakota Historical Society Press

“Wilder buffs and nature enthusiasts will revel in the details McDowell reveals.”—Green Bay Press Gazette
 

Library Journal

08/01/2017
Readers who fondly remember Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books will delight in this biography from McDowell, who teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden, which examines the natural world from Wilder's point of view. Moving from the big woods of Pepin, WI, to the De Smet prairie in Dakota Territory to Wilder's adult home at Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, MO, as well as numerous other locations in between, McDowell follows the beloved author from childhood, when she explored and chronicled plants and animals, both wild and domestic. A chapter describes the New York boyhood of Wilder's husband, Almanzo. Charming line drawings along with both color and black-and-white photographs lavishly illustrate the lives and surroundings of the Wilders and their daughter, Rose, as they settled and farmed land in wildly different landscapes. An appendix lists the plants that Laura knew and grew and identifies the books in which they are mentioned. VERDICT A well-researched, beautifully illustrated title that entwines the natural world depicted in Wilder's books with her life as a settler, farmer, and writer.—Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove P.L., IL

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171159436
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	12/18/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Preface
Some decades ago when I fit the criteria of Young Adult reader, I was Laura Ingalls. That is, when I wasn’t Nancy Drew or, somewhat later, a foot-stamping Scarlett O’Hara. Laura spoke her mind, rode black ponies bareback, helped Pa with the haying, and pushed off her sunbonnet. Besides, I had the genetic creds for Laura. My mother grew up in the middle of the Illinois prairie, became a teacher, and taught in a one-room country schoolhouse, just like Laura and Ma Ingalls. Her family inspired my love of gardening and my confidence with canning jars. My father was a farm boy from Henry County, Kentucky, whose stories included the Christmas crate of oranges—the single gift shared among his family of nine—and walking to school unless the creek was too high, in which case they rode the mule. It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood that I realized that the first family car of my memory, a mammoth black Hudson sedan dubbed “Old Jenny,” had been named after a mule of his youth.

Born in 1867, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote a bumper crop of books for young readers. Farming, gardening, and nature were backdrops and key plot elements for every volume in the series. Originally published between 1932 and 1943, the eight novels chronicle growing up in the Wisconsin woods and on the prairies of Kansas, Minnesota, and South Dakota over a twenty-year period starting in the late 1860s. It was a coming of age story for a girl and reflected the coming of age of a nation, as homesteaders spread west from the Mississippi.

Beyond history, her books were about natural history. Laura discussed weather and land forms. She observed plants and the animals that depended on them. She foraged wild berries and picked wildflowers. And long before she was a writer, Laura Ingalls Wilder was a gardener and farmer, growing food for the table and raising crops for sale. She lived the farmer’s covenant with the wider natural world, tending soil, plants, and animals to sustain herself and her family.

For many of us, Wilder’s books introduced us to a life in and dependent on nature. Never was germination so eagerly awaited or crop failure so devastating. Her stories, predating reality TV by decades, often read like some sort of Survivor: Prairie Edition. Yet despite grasshopper plague, drought, fire, twister, and blizzard, her love of nature shines through, buoyant with optimism. Nature, in her world, is its own character, one with a definite if sometimes unstable personality.

It isn’t too much of a stretch to group Laura Ingalls Wilder with America’s nature writers. Nature was her home, as well as little houses. Readers of her books become budding naturalists. The actions of the Ingalls and Wilder families take place in different parts of the country with different ecosystems, and the stories demonstrate the results of changes to the land. The series sows a deep appreciation for the world outside one’s own door. Now that I am approaching the age at which Laura Ingalls Wilder started writing her memoir and novels, I found that exploring her works became a personal time machine. She opened a portal into my own melting pot of memory as I explored the places
and plants of her life.

I’ve organized this book in two parts. After a short prologue, “A Life on the Land” follows the trail of Wilder’s plant, farm, and garden interests intertwined with her life story. If you’re a Wilder fan, you will find a familiar order, as it follows the sequence of the Little House books chronologically and geographically. I urge you to read or reread them alongside. Three additional chapters cover the Wilders at Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri, and the other places that her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, gardened. The second part of the book, “Wilder Gardens,” is for the traveler who wants to hop into the wagon and travel to Wilder and “wilder” gardens across America, and for the gardener—aspirational or experienced—who would like to grow the plants that Laura grew and knew, with a catalog of specifics including botanical names.

And speaking of “Laura,” I hope she would excuse the familiarity. In her day, even Almanzo did not address her by her first name until after they were engaged. After that, Miss Ingalls became Mrs. Wilder. But because she shared herself with so many who got to know her character first-hand, a chapter at a time, Laura is the name I will use when referring to her as a person, reserving Wilder for her professional name as a writer.

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