Laura Ingalls Wilder--an Author

August 24, 2012

Do you recognize this family? It is the Ingalls Family from the Little House on the Prairie television show starring Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon, popular from 1974—82. Laura Ingalls Wilder was a real author who wrote stories about her life, starting with Little House in the Big Woods. See what you remember about that book by answering the following trivia questions.

1. What is Pa’s nickname for Laura? ("My little half-pint of cider half drunk up.")
2. What does Ma use to curl Laura and Mary’s hair before they go to town? (rags: she divided their long hair into wisps, combed each wisp with a wet comb and wound it tightly on a bit of rag. In the morning, their hair would be curly.)

Find more trivia in The Little House Trivia Book, a juvenile nonfiction selection.  
   
Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1867-1957, lived the last part of her life in Mansfield, Missouri, which is close to Springfield. She wrote the Little House series of books based on her childhood and family, and they are available at MCPL in children’s fiction. Try reading these, or if you already have read them, take another look and remember some wonderful memories of olden days.

Besides the children’s books, there are two fabulous books in adult nonfiction titled Laura Ingalls Wilder Country by William Anderson and Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: the Woman Behind the Legend by John E. Miller. In Laura Ingalls Wilder Country, there are pictures from her books mixed with real pictures, past and present. One picture shows the frame house that Pa built near Plum Creek that stood until the 1940s, and there are several pictures of her homes in De Smet, SD and  Mansfield, MO.

Amy T.
Raytown Branch