Puffin Covers 7
Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, illustrated by Garth Williams. Puffin Story Book: not numbered. First published 1941, this Puffin reprint 1981. There have been several Puffin editions of the Little House books. I prefer the Garth Williams covers and have collected a full matching set.
I love the Little House books because they teach you so much about America. I picked Little Town because it’s the cosiest in the series. Reading these books as an adult I find them quite frightening. In The Long Winter the whole family could have died, but for me Little House on the Prairie is the scariest. Those huge open spaces, the lack of neighbours, the wolves, the Indians: brr! I get annoyed with Pa, always moving the family on just when they start to settle and I feel so sorry for Ma, always trying to make a new home and clinging to the little china figurine which symbolizes home for her. I’m full of admiration for the courage of the pioneers but even so I still don’t understand why Laura married Almanzo and settled for a life as hard as her mother’s when with her brains she could have got away. I’ve never seen the TV series, which is probably a good thing.