"Pioneer Girl"

For those of you who, like me, are a little out of the loop, plans have been in the works for some time now to publish Laura Ingalls Wilder's original autobiography, which she titled "Pioneer Girl", in annotated format.  Background and details can be found at "The Pioneer Girl Project" blog.  The book is to be, thankfully, a "serious, scholarly work for adult readers" -- though not, if the blog posts are anything to go by, dull.  (I'm sure that the term "adult readers" doesn't mean what it does so often nowadays, but that it isn't written for children who are doing an "about the author" report!)  "Scholarly but accessible" is how editor Pamela Smith Hill describes it in her original proposal.

Most people know that events in Wilder's life were compressed and sometimes altered a little to fit her purposes in the "Little House" books, so that Pioneer Girl will shed I think a fascinating light not only on Laura herself but on her writing.  It will include the stories Wilder later felt were not appropriate for children, or which for one reason or another were not included in the "Little House" books -- I didn't know, for instance, that the Ingalls family had lodgers with them during the hard Long Winter, a young married couple and their infant son -- and the annotations will give background on various places, people, and historical details, not leaving out the controversies surrounding how much of a hand Rose Wilder Lane had in the "Little House" books.

The publication date is November 20, 2014.

(The image of Laura's manuscript is from the video in the post "A Pioneer Girl's Treasures".)

A July 2013 interview with Smith is here.

Comments

[marylou]

That is one of a zillion loops I am out of - but interesting news. I was such a fan girl as a kid. I look forward to reading this.

[Wendy]

I never read the full series as a child; I was a voracious reader and somehow they were not known to me. My Mom however read them to my brother (two years younger) who loved them.

My two sons were not interested when I tried to read the books aloud to them when they were young. I commented on this to a friend who is a librarian and she suggested that I try "Farmer Boy" with the little boy protagonist but even that did not peak interest!

That all being said I will buckle down and try to read them, and this biography looks very interesting! Naturally one does love reading any nonfiction or historical novel involving fiber!