Re-reading The Little House on the Prairie series as an adult

 

So, during the COVID-19 shutdown I had several books I had brought home with me from the library where I work. I also had several in my personal bookshelves that I hadn't read yet. But, as the shutdown was continuing I was concerned about running out of stuff to read. I had gotten the paperback collection of the Little House on the Prairie series and decided with all the uncertainty and stress of COVID it would be a good time to re-read that series. This series and Anne of Green Gables were the two main book series that I LOVED as a child. I was younger when I read the Little House on the Prairie books though. Even though there are 9 books in the series they are children's books and relatively short with illustrations, so I thought I'd fly through the books in a week or two. But, it took me much longer to get through the whole series. I ended up spending the entire month of June on books 3-9. Not that they are hard books, but it just took me longer to get through them. I also started working full time again at the beginning of June and didn't have as much time to read. 

As an adult I've read a lot about Laura Ingalls Wilder and how now it's more widely acknowledged now that her daughter likely wrote the series, but still based on Laura's stories and memories from childhood. I've also read that Rose bent the books to her personal Libertarian views and I can see that re-reading the books as an adult. I also knew that in 2018 the American Library Association renamed the Laura Ingalls Wilder book award to the Children's Literature Legacy Award over "racial insensitivity" in her books. So, I had that on my mind as I was re-reading these books as well. Ironically in my opinion, the most racially insensitive part from all the books was in Little Town on the Prairie when there is a scene with men in blackface. That was completely bizarre to me and could have been cut from the book without noticing any change. Throughout the books, especially the earlier ones, there are stereotypes about Native Americans. I personally feel like there is nothing horrific or overly hateful and what was in there was likely toned down from how people felt at the time. Obviously the way white Americans treated Native Americans was terrible and horrific and some of that is slightly highlighted in the book when the Ingalls family has to move because they were illegally squatting/building on Native land assuming the government would push out the Native Americans and didn't. But, as the series is based on Laura's memories I think it reads true for the time. She expresses curiosity and some fear of the Native American people. I think she would feel the same way toward seeing anyone that different from her own culture. I personally don't feel like the books are full of animosity and stereotypes of Native Americans, I think they are a product of their time. 

There were a lot of details I didn't remember in the series that stood out to me more now reading them as an adult. The books got a little more mature in topic as they go on and Laura grows up. I didn't remember the suicidal/homicidal woman Laura lived with at the first school where she taught in These Happy Golden Years - that was sadly very likely due to the isolation and hardships the settlers faced. I also didn't remember just how terrible her first few years of marriage were - children dying, plagues, their house burning down, etc. in The First Four Years. Also in The First Four Years Mr. Boast, their long-time family friend, trying to buy Rose because he and his wife couldn't have children. It was also hard to read about how even living in town the family almost starved to death in The Long Winter. All of these issues were real for the time, but as a child I think the seriousness of it goes over your head. As an adult I also thought a lot more about Caroline/Ma and what this was like for her. To the children everything was an adventure, but more than once the family moves away from a house/garden/etc. that they spent years building with little mention of all that work wasted and left behind. That had to be hard to have so little and walk away from it. Reading the series as an adult those kind of things stand out more.

I'm not sure how I feel about the re-naming of the award. While I appreciate that as culture changes we try to reflect that in who is highlighted and celebrated. But, I think Laura Ingalls Wilder can still be celebrated for her stories and books despite the few negative descriptions of Native Americans. In the past few years MANY things have been renamed as we suddenly realize the person who was celebrated was really a pretty terrible person or did terrible things. But, I still feel like there is a fine line between recognizing someone who shouldn't be celebrated and re-writing history. I feel like the Laura Ingalls Wilder books could still be used in school alongside the Birchbark House series by Louise Erdrich (that was written in response to the Little House on the Prairie series to focus on what life would have been like for a Native American child during a similar time period). I think if something is not blatantly racist or hateful it could be used to show how culture and views change over time and how hindsight is 20/20. Overall, I'm glad I re-read the series and it was definitely very different reading it as an adult than when I read them the first time as a child.

June 2020 Reviews

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

In Little House on the Prairie the Ingalls family leaves their house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin and move to the prairies of Kansas. Pa feels like the Big Woods are getting too crowded, so they start heading to the wide open prairies and also into Indian Territory. Once they find an area Pa likes they settle in and build a cabin, stables for their horses, and start breaking up sod for gardens. They have a few neighbors on the prairie and that helps them get everything built a little quicker and gives them company from time to time. The prairie is very different than the Big Woods and while it often seems flat, the scenery can be deceiving. This is the first book that really expresses negative views of Native Americans - not as much from Pa, but from Ma and definitely from their neighbors. They do have a few scary interactions with Indians taking food and other items from their house, but this is toned down to a children's story level - no violence takes place. In reality the Ingalls family illegally squatted on Osage tribal land and Pa likely knew it and just hoped that the government would cede to the white settlers. When that didn't happen the family has to leave the home they've spend a year building. In the book this happens EXTREMELY abruptly and in one chapter the family packs up their belongings and walk away from everything they had been working for like no big deal. They had literally just planted all their garden seeds that day and when Pa gets news that the US Army is coming to enforce the Osage tribal land agreement he decides seemingly on a whim to just pack up and move the next day. As an adult, this seems insane and it would be maddening to be married to someone like that, but for Laura this is just another adventure. I did feel like this book really had an abrupt ending and the story just stopped - maybe they were going for a kid's version of a cliff-hanger? I'll be curious to see how the next book starts and if it explains more of their abrupt move.

Some quotes I liked:

[Laura is complaining one day while they are traveling from Wisconsin to Kansas] "Then Ma said, 'Laura.' That was all, but it meant that Laura must not complain. So she did not complain any more out loud, but she was still naughty, inside. She sat and thought complaints to herself." (p. 15)

Examples of racist language about Native Americans:
'Will the government make these Indians go west?' 'Yes,' said Pa. 'When white settlers come into a country, the Indians have to move on. The government is going to move these Indians further west, any time now. That's why we're here, Laura. White people are going to settle all this country, and we get the best land because we get here first and take our pick. Now do you understand?' 'Yes, Pa,' Laura said. 'But, Pa, I thought this was Indian Territory. Won't it make the Indians mad to have to-' 'No more questions, Laura,' Pa said, firmly. 'Go to sleep.'" (p. 236-7)

"'The only good Indian is a dead Indian,' Mr. Scott said. Pa said he didn't know about that. He figured that Indians would be as peaceable as anybody else if they were let alone. On the other hand, they had been moved west so many times that naturally they hated white folks. But an Indian ought to have sense enough to know when he was licked." (p. 284) [It seems like Pa is on the Indian's side until he's like 'well, they should just give up and let us have their land' as if he would ever do that if someone was trying to take his property.]

 

On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder

On the Banks of Plum Creek picks up where Little House on the Prairie left off. The Ingalls family has arrived in Minnesota and traded their horses for the land and their wagon cover and mule for crops and an oxen team. They are close to a creek and also a town. This is the first book where Mary and Laura go to school (although VERY briefly) and attend church in town. Their house is a dugout into the sod so three walls and their roof are dirt. But, soon Pa borrows money against his future wheat crop to buy boards, shingles, windows, and a wood stove so they have a real house to live in. As an adult I can see all the foreshadowing for the crop failure, but just before the wheat harvest literally a swarm of locusts/grasshoppers comes in and eats everything to the ground. They also lay eggs, ensuring that NEXT year's crop will also be eaten and worthless. This book seems to have the most disasters - the grasshoppers, prairie fires, Laura almost drowning, drought, blizzards, Pa being gone for weeks to get paying work since the wheat got eaten, etc. Of course the book ends on a positive note with Pa showing up after being stuck in a blizzard for 3 days on Christmas Eve. He also says that since the winter has been so hard their likely won't be any grasshoppers the next year, so the book ends with everything seeming to work out for the Ingalls family.

I felt like in this book the timeline seemed off. There would be several chapters on one season, then two or three chapters and suddenly it's another year. So this book covers almost two years and also introduces the infamous Nellie Oleson that anyone who ever watched the TV version of Little House on the Prairie well knows, but she doesn't play a huge role in this book. Overall, a solid book with LOTS of adventures for Laura and the Ingalls family.

A quote I liked:

[This is during the drought and the creek and their well have dried up and it's very hot] "'I wish I had a drink of well water,' said Laura. 'I wish I had an icicle,' said Mary. Then Laura said, 'I wish I was an Indian and didn't have to wear clothes.' 'Laura!' said Ma. 'And on Sunday!'" (p. 218)

By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder

By the Shores of Silver Lake picks up about 4 or 5 years after On the Banks of Plum Creek ends. By now Laura is 13 and after the family all get scarlet fever Mary is left blind and there is a new baby sibling, Grace. So, Laura has to step up into more of a helper role in the family. Once again the family is about to move further west into Dakota Territory. Pa has the opportunity to work in a store for a railroad town and that can help them financially get ahead. Plus, the government is giving away 160 acre homesteads if the family can work and improve it for 5 years. So, the family moves first to a railroad town where they spend the winter, then on to De Smet where they stake a claim and start building a home there.

This has been my least favorite re-read in the series so far. A lot of the story takes place in the railroad town and there is a lot less beauty and wilderness scenery and descriptions. You also see a LOT more expected of Laura. I know that would be true to the time period, but it still makes me sad to see 13-year-old Laura have to work like an adult and start to lose her childhood freedom. Jack also dies (although very conveniently) and that's pretty sad as he is such a part of the earlier books. Overall, I just didn't enjoy this one as much.

Some quotes I liked:

[After Jack's death] "Jack was not standing beside Laura to watch Pa go. There was only emptiness to turn to instead of Jack's eyes looking up to say that he was there to take care of her. Laura knew then that she was not a little girl anymore. Now she was alone; she must take care of herself. When you must do that, then you do it and you are grown up." (p. 13)

"On that dreadful morning when Mary could not see even sunshine full in her eyes, Pa had said that Laura must see for her. He had said, 'Your two eyes are quick enough, and your tongue, if you will use them for Mary.' And Laura had promised. So she tried to be eyes for Mary, and it was seldom that Mary need ask her, 'See out loud for me, Laura, please.'" (p. 22-23)

"Then Pa looked straight at Laura and said, 'You girls keep away from the [railroad] camp. When you go walking, don't go near where the men are working, and you be sure you're back here before they come in for the night. There's all kinds of rough men working on the grade and using rough language, and the less you see and hear of them the better. Now remember, Laura. And you too Carrie.' Pa's face was very serious. 'Yes, Pa,' Laura promised, and Carrie almost whispered, 'Yes, Pa.' Carrie's eyes were large and frightened. She did not want to hear rough language, whatever rough language might be. Laura would have liked to hear some, just once, but of course she must obey Pa." (p. 76)

[The most racist part in this book] "'I always heard you can't trust a half-breed,' Ma said. Ma did not like Indians; she did not like even half-Indians. 'We'd all have been scalped down on the Verdigris River, if it hadn't been for a full-blood,' said Pa. 'We wouldn't have been in any danger of scalping if it hadn't been for those howling savages,' said Ma, 'with fresh skunk skins around their middles.' And she made a sound that came from remembering how those skunk skins smelled." (p. 82)

"'Another thing, Laura,' said Pa. 'You know Ma was a teacher, and her mother before her. Ma's heart is set on one of you girls teaching school, and I guess it will have to be you. So you see you must have your schooling.' Laura's heart jerked, and then she seemed to feel it falling, far, far down. She did not say anything. She knew that Pa and Ma, and Mary too, had thought that Mary would be a teacher. Now Mary couldn't teach, and - 'Oh, I won't! I won't!' Laura thought. 'I don't want to! I can't.' Then she said to herself, 'You must.' She could not disappoint Ma. She must do as Pa said. So she had to be a school teacher when she grew up. Besides, there was nothing else she could do to earn money." (p. 127)

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Long Winter starts with the Ingalls family living on their claim outside of De Smet. It's early fall and they are working to get hay cut and dried before winter. When an early blizzard hits in October they think it's a freak early storm. But, shortly afterward an old Indian comes by the town store and warns them that this year's winter will be especially hard and cold - he indicates 7 months of winter! Pa decides to move the family back into town where their original temporary house is better built and closer to help and supplies if they need it - and they do. Blizzard after blizzard hits and they are barely able to survive the winter. All trains are stopped because of the record amounts of snowfall, so no supplies are coming in from outside. Their food stores run low and they run out of coal and resort to burning straw. In this book Laura and Almanzo Wilder's stories come together as Almanzo and his brother Royal have also staked a claim near De Smet and his brother owns a feed store in town. The brothers help Pa Ingalls out a few times and Almanzo and another young man in town make a dangerous trip to try to secure more wheat for the starving townspeople. While Laura and Almanzo only have one or two interactions in this book it's obviously setting up for their future relationship.

As an adult when I read this book I realize just how close the Ingalls (and other families as well) were to either freezing or starving to death even while living in a town. You can see Laura starting to realize the severity of their situation, but her parents try to downplay how serious things are. In this book you really see Laura growing more as a person and really becoming more of an adult even though she's only 14. And the book still ends on a happy note with spring arriving and the trains with Christmas gifts in May so everything ends with a happy feast and gifts and the promise of spring.

I always thought that pioneer families who went out West had somewhat less strict gender roles since it would take EVERYONE working hard in order to survive. But, at least in these books Ma is very much portrayed as a genteel woman who wants the same for her daughters. This was a very odd quote to me: [Laura is offering to help Pa with the haying] "'Well,' Pa said, 'maybe you can. We'll try it. If you can, by George! we'll get this haying done all by ourselves!' Laura could see that the thought was a load off Pa's mind and she hurried to the shanty to tell Ma. 'Why, I guess you can,' Ma said doubtfully. She did not like to see women working in the fields. Only foreigners did that. Ma and her girls were Americans, above doing men's work." (p. 4)

Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

A lot changes for Laura in Little Town on the Prairie, she gets her first job, Mary goes away to Iowa for college, she gets her teaching certificate, and Almanzo Wilder starts taking an interest in her. In the spring after The Long Winter where everyone almost died, Laura has the offer to work sewing shirts for a new store in town. She doesn't want to do it, but does to help bring in money for Mary's college. That fall the family moves back into town just in case it's another terrible winter. At first Laura doesn't want to be back in town, but soon she's made new friends at school and there are more social events in town now including a weekly Literary event and weekly church services. The only downside for Laura is that Nellie Oleson is back (and honestly what are the odds of this really happening?!) and is just as mean and conniving as ever. With Mary away at college things are definitely different in the Ingalls house, but everyone knows this is an amazing opportunity for Mary to become more self-sufficient as a blind person. One odd thing in this book was that toward the end, in two chapters it goes from April to fall with school starting again - that quick change in time was kind of jarring for me as the reader. But, I think they were trying to get Laura's teaching certificate included in the ending of this book to help set up the next book. This one does end with as much of a cliff-hanger as these books could have with Laura earning her teaching certificate and being offered a job, but also Almanzo offering to take her out sledding. So, it ends with Laura taking the job (of course bringing in more money for the family) and not knowing what will happen with Almanzo since she's moving for this new job. I liked seeing Laura develop more in this book and honestly without Mary at home she has more freedom to have friends and go to social events. It's also nice to see the beginning of her relationship with Almanzo starting and opening the perfect segue into the next book.

Some quotes I liked:

"In two more years she would be sixteen, old enough to teach school. If she studied hard and faithfully, and got a teacher's certificate, and then got a school to teach, she would be a real help to Pa and Ma. Then she could begin to repay them for all that it had cost to provide for her since she was a baby. Then, surely, they could send Mary to college." (p. 48) [This sentiment is interesting to me because nowhere in any of these books does that seem to be the expectation of her parents that she earn money to pay them back for the costs of raising her.]

"Everyone looked to see who had come tardily to school on this First Day. Laura could not believe her eyes. The girl who came in was Nellie Oleson, from Plum Creek in Minnesota." (p. 129)

[At the Thanksgiving Literary dinner] "Laura stood stock-still for an instant. Even Pa and Ma almost halted, though they were too grown-up to show surprise. A grown-up person must never let feelings be shown by voice or manner. So Laura only looked, and gently hushed Grace, though she was as excited and overwhelmed as Carrie was." (p. 228)

The chapter called "Madcap Days" (pg. 252-262) was probably the most disturbing chapter/content I've read in any of these books so far. For one of the Literary events several of the men dressed up in blackface as dancing and singing "darkies" complete with black faces, white circles around their eyes and red mouths painted on. As much as I don't think these books intended to be racist, this scene is disturbing today and likely could be cut out of the book with nothing being lost of the main storyline. I think some of the other negative references toward Indians could be explained today to a new, modern reader, but this scene defies explanation today.

These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

These Happy Golden Years starts with Laura at her new school. She is boarding with the school board president's family and that is a pretty tense situation. It's clear Mrs. Brewster doesn't want Laura boarding with them and doesn't want to be homesteading. She screams at Mr. Brewster every night when Laura goes to bed (behind a curtain, so it's not like they think she can't hear). She even threatens Mr. Brewster and herself with a butcher knife. Laura sticks it out because of the money, but also she's surprised that Almanzo comes out every Friday after school to pick her up and bring her home for the weekend. That is the beginning of their courting. Once Laura survives her first teaching job she is busy in town and on the Ingalls homestead. Mary comes home for the summer so that is great for the whole family. She and Almanzo get engaged and he goes back to his family home in Minnesota for the winter - but surprises her by coming back to see her on Christmas Eve. Laura teaches two more terms of school (at a different school) before she and Almanzo get married at the end of the book. This book definitely had a few more mature themes. I definitely don't remember the homicidal/suicidal wife from when I read these as a kid. But, also Laura is an adult now and about to start her own home and family with Almanzo.

Some quotes I liked:

"She did not really make Mrs. Brewster any work, she thought. She made her bed and helped with the kitchen work. Mrs. Brewster was quarreling now about the flat country and the wind and the cold; she wanted to go back east. Suddenly Laura understood; 'She isn't mad at me, she's only quarreling about me because she want to quarrel. She's a selfish, mean woman.'" (p. 23)

"After supper he [Johnny] went to sleep on his father's knee, and Mr. Brewster just sat. The air seemed to smolder with Mrs. Brewster's silence, and he sat, Laura thought, like a bump on a log. She had heard that said, but she had not realized what it meant. A bump on a log does not fight anyone, but it cannot be budged." (p. 47)

"Laura was silent again. Then she summoned all her courage and said, 'Almanzo, I must ask you something, Do you want me to promise to obey you?' Soberly he answered, 'Of course not. I know it is in the wedding ceremony, but it is only something that women say. I never knew one that did it, nor any decent man that wanted her to.' 'Well, I am not going to say I will obey you,' said Laura." (p. 269)

The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The First Four Year follows Laura and Almanzo in their first four years of marriage. Even though it's not brought up at all in the previous books Laura starts out just before their wedding telling Almanzo she doesn't want to be a farmer's wife and wants to live in town. That made no sense to me since in all the books she seemed to LOVE being out on a prairie or wanting to go further West like Pa. He says to give it three years and then they'll decide and she agrees. Their first four years are rough too. Being a farmer means being dependent on weather you can't control. In year one the wheat crop is killed by a hailstorm and Laura finds out she's pregnant. In year two the wheat is killed by a drought and their daughter, Rose, is born. In year three Laura and Almanzo both get diphtheria and Almanzo is almost paralyzed from it and Laura must help with more of the physical work and the wheat is again killed by drought. In the fourth year Laura is pregnant again and gives birth to a son who lives for only a few weeks. Then shortly after his death their house burns to the ground. I mean this is kind of a downer book, but likely a true depiction of the life of these pioneers. Yet, they decide to stick it out and keep trying to farm their homestead.

There is also a weird introduction from Roger Lea McBride who took over the Laura Ingalls Wilder legacy after Rose's death. Apparently Rose didn't want this book published until after her death. I'm not sure why other than she is in this book as a small child and maybe it was too hard for her to see what her parent's first few years were like. But, it's odd and again, not something I remember from reading these books as a child.

Some quotes I liked:

"The holidays were soon over and in February Laura's nineteenth birthday came. Manly's twenty-ninth birthday was just a week later so they made one celebration for both on the Sunday between." (p. 43) [In The Long Winter Laura is almost 14 and Almanzo is 19 because they reiterate that he isn't technically supposed to apply for a homestead claim until he's 21. So, if their birthdays are a week apart they might be 6 years apart in age, but here it says they are 10 years apart. Not sure which is correct (if either), but a discrepancy that stuck out to me.]

[Laura and Almanzo take Rose to visit long-time family friends Mr. & Mrs. Boast] "Mr. and Mrs. Boast lived by themselves on their farm. They had no children and could hardly make fuss enough over Rose. When at last the visit was over and Mr. Boast was standing by the buggy to see them start, he started to speak, then hesitated and finally said in a queer voice, 'If you folks will let me take the baby in to Ellie for her to keep, you may take the best horse out of my stable there and lead it home.' Manly and Laura were still in astonishment, and Mr. Boast went on. 'You folks can have another baby and we can't. We never can.' Manly gathered up the reins, and Laura said with a little gasp, 'Oh, no! No! Drive on, Manly! As they drove away, she hugged Rose tightly; but she was sorry for Mr. Boast as he stood still where they had left him, and for Mrs. Boast waiting in the house, knowing, she was sure, what Mr. Boast was going to propose to them." (p. 75)

May 2020 Reviews

 

Farmstead Chef by John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist

So, on Hoopla this book is described as a collection of essays, but in the introduction the authors call it a cookbook and it was definitely both. Basically, this is a cookbook geared toward eating and preserving local, seasonal food. But, it's also a collection of essays by the authors about their journey from city folks to full time farmers. I really liked the essays and pretty much agree with them almost 100% on their food philosophy and anyone who quotes Joel Salatin gets points from me. There were also several recipes I'd like to try. My only complaint is that being an ebook I didn't get to see all the pictures of the recipe food as you might in a print book. There were some pictures, but often the ebook is a different experience. Overall, I did like it and it was a solid cookbook and collection of food essays.

Some quotes I liked:

"This cookbook redefines healthy eating in a way that reaches out to a more balanced worldview on food beyond calorie count and fat-free or 'meat-free' fake food. There's sugar, flour and salt in many of our recipes. Cheese and butter, too. No swearing off alcohol or caffeine..." (p. 14)

"This reality of third-party food providers, combined with a growing awareness of what's happening to the planet and how we treat our animals, the land and the farmers, has spawned a diverse range of declared dietary preferences, from omnivore to vegan to locavore to flexitarian - and now, there's someone we call the farmsteadtarian, a person who eats as much as possible from their own gardens, community and, when necessary, from carefully selected sources as close to the farmers, ranchers, food artisans, beekeepers, brewers or growers as possible." (p. 16-17)

Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson

Books were always a part of Sarah Clarkson's life. Her parents encouraged (and modeled) reading all kinds of books to Sarah and her siblings. Clarkson was so passionate about reading that she ended up studying how reading affects children and their development and ended up writing two books about that topic. When she became pregnant with her daughter she was reflecting on what books shaped her as a girl and what books she would want to share with her daughter - and this book was born. The book has 10 chapters that focus on one aspect of how reading shaped her and then two book lists that fit into that chapter's focus.

I LOVE reading and have enjoyed it since I was a child and also had parents who modeled reading as well (not quite to the extent of Clarkson's parents though). But, I read all kinds of books and as I've gotten older I have particularly come to love non-fiction. I felt like Clarkson had a lot of good points in this book, but it was very repetitive. She loves C.S. Lewis, Classic Fiction, theology books, Wendell Berry, and Elizabeth Goudge. If any of these are your favorites, you will LOVE this book, but for me it just got repetitive. If one or more of these was not in every single list in the book I would be surprised. This book is written as a Christian book to show how reading (not just the Bible) can help shape your life and faith, but I personally don't think just Christian books can do that. There was very little in any of the lists that weren't Christian authors or themes. And again, that's great and I do read those kind of books, but not exclusively. Overall, I didn't love this one. But, she loves L.M. Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables as much as me and quoted an Andrew Peterson song so I added an extra star just for that.

Here are some quotes I liked:

"Reading, whether you are four or twenty-four, provides you with the words and comprehension to encounter a new idea and understand it; to walk forward into new subjects, new facts, new possibilities, and thus a constantly expanding self." (p. 42)

"...I am convinced that great children's books, in their clarity of language, in the disciplined simplicity of their themes, bear as much insight into the workings of the human heart and its desires as the great adult classics. But they manage to do all that while being accessible to a child's wonder and innocence." (p. 72)

"What this suggested to the researchers is that reading allows us to place ourselves in another's shoes, seeing the world through another's eyes, empathizing with views different from our own." (p. 157)

"One of Andrew Peterson's songs ('Shine Your Light on Me') recounts the way his friends once were 'singing out my song / when the song in me had died,' and I often feel that this is the grace of memoirs. They sing and speak what needs expression, and sometimes rescuing, within us." (p. 171)

The Breakdown by B. A. Paris

Cass has been having a hard time ever since the night she took the shortcut home and saw a woman in a car on the side of the road. The next day she finds out that the woman was murdered and that she actually knew her. Cass knows she should have called the police when she got home, but she had promised her husband she wouldn't take the shortcut when she's alone. Now her guilt is eating her up, but then she starts getting weird phone calls and feels like she's being watched. Then she starts forgetting things both big and small and feels like she's losing her mind. Her mother was diagnosed with dementia at 44, so Cass is constantly worried it might happen to her, so is it now?

As other reviewers have said, with so few characters there are not a lot of options for who the killer is and/or who is targeting Cass. But, I will say I was surprised at who the actual killer was and their motivation. It's obvious from chapter one that her husband is involved in some way, but the ending was still a surprise for me as far as the killer goes. But, Cass wasn't a likable character and parts of the book did drag with her irrational fear and freak outs. But, I read the last 2/3 of the book in one sitting once she figured out what was going on and how she was going to handle it. Overall, it wasn't amazing - it was no Gone Girl, but it was entertaining enough.

Ghettoside: a true story of murder in America by Jill Leovy

Almost every day someone is killed in Los Angeles County and the majority of the time that person murdered is a black man. These murders rarely even make the news and are often left unsolved. Why is that? What can be done to change these terrible statistics? In Ghettoside one case is followed from start to finish and is actually solved and the murderers arrested, convicted, and imprisoned. The case follows Detective John Skaggs as he tries to solve the homicide of Bryant Tennelle - an eighteen-year-old young black man with no gang ties or criminal involvement, who is also the son of another LAPD Detective. Jill Leovy explores why there is so much violence in Los Angeles County and just how hard it can be to solve these everyday murders even when there are dozens of eye-witnesses. She argues that for disenfranchised populations the law is often more harshly applied for smaller crimes, yet less harshly applied for murders - a practice known as "victim discounting." And there is often a "shadow law" that has developed where instead of going to the police family members or friends "take care of things" themselves and the cycle continues - often killing innocent bystanders in the process. I found the first half of the book very interesting. Once the book started to focus more on solving the case of Bryant Tennelle it got a little repetitive and overly detailed. A lot of the book focuses on Detective John Skaggs and how his tenacious work ethic allowed him to solve most of his cases, but including 10+ pages on one suspect interview was a little much. You could get the feel for how he worked without so much detail and word-for-word dialogue.

This is a sad, hard book. While Bryant Tennelle's family got justice, they didn't get their son back. And him being the son of a police detective the odds were higher that the police would work to get that case solved. Other cases were discussed in the book, but as one person told Wally Tennelle (Bryant's father) when he was in training that every murdered person is "some daddy's baby" not a prostitute or gang banger, but a life that was tragically cut short. While there are no answers in this book, I think it was an interesting look behind the curtain of just how hard it is to solve these crimes in South Central LA and how complicated the violence is as well.

Some quotes I liked:

"Many critics today complain that the criminal justice system is heavy-handed and unfair to minorities. We hear a great deal about capital punishment, excessively punitive drug laws, supposed misuse of eyewitness evidence, troubling high levels of black male incarceration, and so forth. So to assert that black Americans suffer from too little application of the law, not too much, seems at odds with common perception. But the perceived harshness of American criminal justice and its fundamental weakness are in reality two sides of a coin, the former a kind of poor compensation for the latter...our criminal justice system...hauls masses of black men through its machinery but fails to protect them from bodily injury and death. It is at once oppressive and inadequate." (p. 9)

"Yet the statistical truth was undeniable, and most Americans understood it intuitively even if they didn't talk about it polite company. There was something in the way the nation acquiesced in shooting and stabbings among 'inner city' black men that suggested these men were expendable - or, worse, that perhaps the nation was better off without them." (p. 11)

"It was often not in the news. 'I remember a banner headline in the Los Angeles Times one weekend,' recalled a detective named Paul Mize. 'A bomb in Beirut had killed six people. We had nine murders that weekend, and not a one of them made the paper. Not one.'" (p. 38)

"This practice of using 'proxy crimes' to substitute for more difficult and expensive investigations was widespread in American law enforcement...They would hear the name of a shooter, only to find the couldn't 'put a case' on him because no witnesses would testify. So they would write a narcotics warrant - or catch him dirty. 'We can put them in jail for drugs a lot easier than on an assault. No one is going to give us information on an assault,' explained Lou Leiker, who ran the detective table in Southeast in the early aughts. To them, proxy justice represented a principled stand against violence. It was like a personalized imposition of martial law." (p. 141)

"It might not seem self-evident that impunity for white violence against blacks would engender black-on-black murder. But when people are stripped of legal protection and placed in desperate straits, they are more, not less, likely to turn on each other. Lawless settings are terrifying; if people can do whatever they want to each other, there are always enough bullies to make it ugly." (p. 155)

"That change perhaps has been aided in part by a related development - an increase in public benefits paid to poor black people, particularly men, primarily in the form of SSI (Supplemental Security Income, a payment available to people with disabilities). One reason for this is prison reform. The federal Second Chance Act in 2005 inspired new efforts to provide SSI to prisoners upon reentry; many prisoners qualify, since a third of the state's inmates have been diagnosed with mental illness. As we have seen, autonomy counters homicide. Cold cash paid out to individuals is a powerful thing: this author has watched SSI transform many aspects of life in South Central Los Angeles over about a decade, but the change for indigent black men has been especially dramatic...An eight-hundred-dollar-a-month check for an unemployed ex-felon makes a big difference in his life. The risks and benefits of various hustles surely appear different to him. He can move, ditch his homeys, commit fewer crimes, walk away from more fights." (p. 317)

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

In the 1870's the Ingalls family lives in the deep woods of Wisconsin. Laura, her older sister Mary, and her younger sister Carrie live with their Ma and Pa. Pa hunts, traps, and farms while Ma keeps the house, kids, cooks, and cleans. Laura and Mary spend a lot of time playing outside except in the winter. While there are lots of dangerous animals in the Big Woods, the girls feel safe in their cabin with Ma and Pa. Most nights they fall asleep to Pa playing his fiddle and singing at the end of the day.

Little House in the Big Woods sets the stage for the Ingalls family that is followed in the rest of the series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I read these books as a child and LOVED them and my Mom actually made me a Laura Ingalls Wilder costume for Halloween one year. In recent years there has been some controversy over these books, namely that Laura's daughter, Rose, was the real author of the series, and that there is racist language especially toward Native Americans in some of the later books. My opinion may change as I keep going, but I feel like the tone is consistent with the time period it was written, not overtly racist on purpose. Overall, I'm excited to re-read these childhood favorites and I think children today could still enjoy this introduction to Laura and the series.

A quote I liked:

"Mary was bigger than Laura, and she had a rag doll named Nettie. Laura had only a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief, but it was a good doll. It was named Susan. It wasn't Susan's fault that she was only a corncob." (p. 20-21)

Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Farmer Boy follows a year in the young life of Almanzo Wilder, who will marry Laura Ingalls when they are adults. Almanzo has a very different upbringing than Laura. His parents own a large farm and seem fairly well-off for the time and place. But their everyday life is WORK. While the book is written in a way that makes it seem like fun and Almanzo definitely loves most of the work he does on the family farm, it highlights how much easier we have things today. But, I remember reading these books as a child and being fascinated with how they did everything back then. And reading it again as an adult I'm amazed at how this much detailed work is written to make it sound fun. That is really talented writing for children.

My favorite two scenes in this book are 1) when the stray dog shows up and ends up keeping the family from being robbed and 2) when the children spend a week at home alone and Almanzo throws blacking on the fancy parlor wall and his sister patches the wallpaper to cover it up for him.

I don't know if the series numbers changed at all since I read them as a child, but I remember reading Farmer Boy closer to the end of the series when I read these books the first time. But, I do like "meeting" both Laura and Almanzo in the first two books, I think that actually does work better as it's more chronologically correct.

April 2020 Cookbooks

 

The Asheville Bee Charmer Cookbook by Carrie Schloss

I've been to the Asheville Bee Charmer store in Asheville, NC several times and it's an amazing store. So, I was excited to check out this cookbook all about using honey. But, the Bee Charmer store offers lots of varieties of honey that have specific flavor profiles and that is how the cookbook is focused. I don't know how the recipes would do if you used honey other than the varieties/flavors specified. I felt like it was a little too specific in the flavors/types of honey needed for the recipes. Maybe if you live in Asheville and could buy some of the specific varieties to use with these recipes, but for the average person I felt like it was too specific. But, if you're ever in Asheville definitely check out the Asheville Bee Charmer store!

April 2020 Reviews

 

Chase Darkness With Me by Billy Jensen

Billy Jensen was always interesting in crime stories and ended up becoming a journalist writing about unsolved crimes. After the unexpected death of his friend Michelle McNamara (author of I'll Be Gone in the Dark) he decided to change his focus and started working to solve crimes himself. He used social media to send targeted posts to areas where the crimes occurred with photos and video of the suspects. He was able to solve several cold cases this way. He also helped finish McNamara's book on the Golden State Killer after her death and the final chapter of his book covers the night he found out the Golden State Killer had been arrested by police - the perfect way to end this book. Jensen is a great writer and once I started reading this book I did not want to put it down. While he covers a LOT of cases and information, the book still flows and reads well. I will definitely be on the lookout for more by him - he should start working on a book about Terry Rasmussen (one of the cases he covers here) who could be linked to dozens of unsolved murders. If you're a true crime fan, this is a must read!

Where I Come From: life lessons from a Latino chef by Aaron Sanchez

I was familiar with Aaron Sanchez from seeing him as a judge on Chopped, but I didn't realize his history with both cooking and on television. Sanchez's mother was a pioneering Mexican chef who made a name for herself in New York City long before most people were familiar with Mexican food. Early on Sanchez realized food was his calling and he started in the cooking world pretty young. He worked in several restaurants and several different cuisines before opening his own restaurants. He gives a timeline of his restaurant experience and how hard it can be to open your own restaurant. I felt bad for his short-lived marriage and that he didn't get to be with his son all the time, especially since that was his own experience with his dad too. I really appreciated the last chapter of the book about the #metoo movement and how that has impacted the restaurant industry. I also appreciated his openness about his depression and how he did get help - that is something that needs to be talked about more openly as well. There are recipes included throughout the book as well. Overall, I liked it, but didn't love it. But, I do want to see if I can find the episode of Iron Chef America where he tied with Morimoto!

Yale Needs Women: how the first group of girls rewrote the rules of an ivy league giant by Anne Gardiner Perkins

In 1969 Yale University opened it's doors to women students for the first time. Yale was known for it's dedication to graduating "one thousand male leaders" each year, so admitting women was a huge step forward in women's equality in education. But, the first group of women admitted had a very different experience from the men - they were isolated, vastly outnumbered by men, seen as sexual objects and oddities, and barred from many of Yale's extracurricular activities. But, these first women at Yale were determined to change Yale from the inside out and make a place for themselves. By the time the freshmen enrolled in Yale in 1969 graduated in 1973 more significant strides had been made, but there was still a long way to go for women to be seen as equals on college campuses, workplaces, and the world. As the author points out today we hear the sanitized version of equality like it happened overnight, but as this book shows the first women at Yale had a very hard struggle, but they knew it was worth fighting for and Yale Needs Women shares their stories.

This book was AMAZING! Reading a book like this from today's perspective it's crazy to me to see just how blatant sexual harassment and assaults were and how the women were just used it - not happy, but used to it. Despite their struggles, it was so uplifting to hear the stories of how these women made huge changes to the culture of Yale just by their persistence. Yet another book of trailblazers and pioneers of feminism and women in America.

Some quotes I liked:

"The Film Society's decision to hold the porn fest at the same time as the Free Women Conference, just like the timing of its previous porn fest on the first day of Coeducation Week, was intended as a hilarious joke. Women's lib conference? We'll show them.." (p. 132)

"Despite all the challenges the women students faced, they had outperformed their male classmates...Women sophomores and juniors received Honors, Yale's highest grade, in 31 percent of their classes, compared with 23 percent of the men. Freshmen women got 22 percent Honors, on par with freshmen men, but outflanked men 49 percent to 41 percent in High Pass, the second-highest mark." (p. 142)

"But one power that Brewster [Yale's President] did not mention was perhaps the most important of all: the power to do nothing. As Kit McClure wrote in her diary after the Corporation's March 1970 vote to leave Yale's gender quota unchanged, 'The campaign for full coeducation has been stopped by the Yale Corporation's decision to ignore it.' If the goal is protecting the status quo, the best move by those in power is no move at all." (p. 188)

"The work of leading coeducation at Yale carried with it a terrible sameness. Wasserman had to battle for each inch forward, and sometimes she even lost ground. But Elga Wasserman was a fighter, and even if the title at the bottom of her memos had not changed since 1969, she had increased her power at Yale and beyond...At a time when most Yale women employees were assigned invisible roles as secretaries and dining hall workers, Wasserman showed women an alternative. 'She was a female leader in a place where there were few of them,' said Linden Havemeyer. 'We were proud of her and glad she was there.'" (p. 249)

"And on June 23, 1972, Congresswomen Patsy Mink and Edith Green got the victory they had long worked for. In one simple sentence, Title IX of the 1972 Educational Amendments to the Civil Right Act prohibited the gender discrimination that was rampant in U.S. colleges and universities when the first women undergraduates came to Yale: 'No person shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program receiving Federal financial assistance.' No one paid much attention to Title IX at the time it was passed. Few yet understood the extent of gender bias against women in America's colleges and universities. But in the decades that followed, Title IX would halt the gender quotas in admissions that had robbed women of their place in the nation's top schools." (p. 251)

"Title IX began with its one elegant sentence, but then it included a list of institutions that were exempt from its provisions...But the very first exemption went as follows: 'In regard to admissions to educational institutions, this section shall apply only to...public institutions of undergraduate higher education.' In other words, private institutions of undergraduate higher education - Yale, for example, were exempt from Title IX's prohibition of discriminatory admissions policies...'Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, and Harvard...were able to get a narrowly worded exemption for private undergraduate admissions.' The letters to Congress from these four powerful institutions, written in the fall of 1971 during the initial stages of the legislation's development, had succeeded...by the time Title IX passed in 1972, Congress had deferred to Yale's outrage over Edith Green's call for sex-blind admissions, and the final version of the law exempted Yale and the others from that one provision. The exemption still stands today." (p. 251-52)

"On December 9, the Yale Corporation voted to abolish the gender quota that had shaped the first four years of coeducation at Yale. The announcement came with a simple statement: 'We believe that the gender of the applicant should not be the deciding factor in a candidate's admission.' Within five years, the percentage of women at Yale more than doubled to 46 percent. Other battles, both at Yale and beyond, still remained. But all through that year, 1972, the mountains had moved. Someday, they would do so again." (p. 263)

"Two months after the Yale Corporation adopted sex-blind admissions, [Elga Wasserman] learned that she no longer had a job at Yale. Brewster terminated her special assistant position and gave all four of the new jobs she expressed interest in to other. Wasserman was left with nothing...Yet once again, Wasserman proved resilient. She enrolled at Yale Law School and received her law degree in 1976 at age fifty-two. Wasserman practiced family law in New Haven for the rest of her career and in 2000 wrote her first book, The Door in the Dream: Conversations With Eminent Women in Science. She died in 2014." (p. 274)

The Month of Their Ripening: North Carolina heritage food through the year by Georgann Eubanks

Georgann Eubanks fondly remembers knowing it was September when her grandfather took her out to pick scuppernong grapes. Food, memory, and season are linked in our minds and in this book Eubanks explores 12 seasonal North Carolina foods that were highly anticipated and available only for a short season. Today it can be hard to remember that all food is not available all year round thanks to shipping produce around the world. But, anticipating a favorite seasonal food and savoring it while it's around is an experience more people should have. Many of the foods Eubanks highlights are too fragile to ship around the world, so they become part of the region's history and culture. Eubanks travels all over North Carolina to sample these seasonal foods and talk to experts and people who are working to keep these North Carolina food traditions alive. I definitely learned a lot and it makes me want to explore more of my home state than I already have. In the Acknowledgments Eubanks explains that she was inspired to write this book after listening to the audiobook of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I wish that she had explained that in the beginning of the book because I think that would resonate with her readers as probably anyone interested in this book has probably read Kingsolver's too. Overall, as a native North Carolinian, I thought this was a great book that highlights part of our state's native food culture.

Some quotes I liked:

"Willy Phillips was four years old when he first saw battalions of small fiddler crabs coming out of the salt marsh and marching toward his childhood home on Hewlett's Creek in New Hanover County. Those crabs were not responding to the moon, however. They began climbing the exterior walls of his parents' house to find purchase on the roof. In that fall of 1954, long before Doppler radar and sophisticated weather prediction was possible, the surge of crustacean refugees was the only sign the Phillips family had that Hurricane Hazel was barreling toward Wilmington." (p. 114)

"Evans says he is one of the last farmers in the area to hire local folks exclusively for the weeding and hand-harvesting of his melons. He does not want all the paperwork and regulations that come with hiring migrant workers. He is proud of providing jobs for his neighbors. 'Everybody in this area at one time or another has worked in the fields. It's a rite of passage,' he says. Lifting melons, especially watermelons, is backbreaking labor. 'One thing about it,' Evans says, 'whatever job a young person gets after doing this work is going to seem like a breeze.'" (p. 166)

Golden Girls Forever: an unauthorized look behind the lanai by Jim Colucci

I'm so glad I hadn't read this book until now. It was the perfect book to read during the COVID-19 quarantine time because Golden Girls is such a comforting show. I watched The Golden Girls on TV when I was a kid and most of their jokes went right over my head, but I still loved it. As an adult it's really my comfort show that I watch when I'm upset or home sick or just to have a comforting, familiar show on. This book really gives you a lot of background about the show, the actresses, guest stars, and lots of other fun facts. The only thing I wish had been included was a listing of all the episodes by season. Chapter 5 covers all 7 seasons, but only highlights some of the episodes, usually ones with guest stars or something unique. I wish there had been just a few pages of episodes by season given. The last chapter showed the lasting impact of the show, not just on other TV shows, but just in people's lives. The show is still being shown on TV in reruns and still gaining new fans which is really rare in television. If you are a fan of The Golden Girls this book is a must-own!

Some quotes I liked:

"Having popularized the Golden Rule of Four, The Golden Girls is the thematic ancestor of many shows that followed. Only one year after the Girl's premier, along came the Southern version (Designing Women), followed in the 1990s by the black version (Living Single) and the urban version (Sex and the City)." (p. 24)

"Richard Vaczy: Shortly before this episode [177 &178], my hometown of Sayville, Long Island, had experienced a series of arson fires that had burned down half of Main Street. So to help the town rebuild, we auctioned off a walk-on part on The Golden Girls, with airfare and hotel. And in the end, the man who played the prom king paid twenty-four thousand dollars for that experience." (p. 311)

[Which of the Girls is Your Favorite?] "Dorothy - Because she did more with one eyebrow than most people can do with an entire script. - Maile Falangan, Actor." (p. 347)

"By the summer of 2006 - fourteen years after The Golden Girls ended its original run - the show was still drawing eleven million viewers per week and thirty million per month on the Lifetime cable network, its home from 1997 - 2009. Although up against much newer sitcom competition, any given one of the show's seven daily airings still ranked among the top three 'off-network' sitcoms shown by Lifetime, and among the top seven on any cable channel. 'There aren't too many shows from 1985 which hold up like that,' notes television historian Tim Brooks...Tim explains that the steady viewership of The Golden Girls, barely changed from 1997 to that point in 2006, was very unusual...'But The Golden Girls has turned out to be a long-distance runner.'" (p. 348-49)

"Right from the beginning, young people liked the show. I thought and thought about why and I finally realized it is because the show may have been about older ladies, but it was still very antiestablishment. - Bea Arthur" (p. 363)