I recently read The Wilder Life which talks about the authors absolute love for every thing Laura Ingalls Wilder. She rediscovers the books when she's older and rereads them, researches them, reads every book about Laura and visits all of the homesites. Okay.. seriously guys I was the biggest Prairie nerd ever when I was young!
I mean I was Laura for Halloween like three years in a row.
I played Little House on the Prairie all the time. By myself, with friends, in my head. Whatever. I freaking loved that series of books. I read all of the spin off series' I could get my hands on too. The ones about Rose's childhood, Caroline's childhood, etc.
I watched the TV show fairly often although I always knew that it wasn't very faithful to the books. Oh well... it was still PRAIRIE! Which was the point.
Seriously we all know Pa didn't look like that...
Look, I was so obsessed with these books that I used to bring a sunbonnet to school in third grade and play with it with my best friend. Uh yeah, and I wonder why I was seen as a bit of a freak. I also had the best lace up boots that I imagined looked a lot like Laura's. (When she actually wore shoes.)
They were a lot like these except they didn't have the zipper on the side and they were a lighter brown. But oh man I loved those shoes. I don't know where they came from but they were the perfect Little House shoes in my mind.
Anyway I've recently read Alison Arngrim's biography Confessions of a Prairie Bitch which I found fascinating and I'm currently reading Melissa Gilbert's memoir Prairie Tale. I'm just reveling in all of it. Little House was such a big part of my childhood.
Another series I especially loved reading that I was just thinking about today is the Betsy-Tacy books. I loved this series when I was younger. I still remember going to the library downtown when I was younger to borrow a bunch of the books from the series. So now my goal is to own the whole box set soon. I'm just going to have to find one I like. I already have the Little House box set.
I'm not sure what it is about these books (and many others I read in childhood like Nancy Drew, The Boxcar Kids, etc.). I just feel such a desire to possess them all. I'm not sure I'd reread all of them again. Although I have been working my way through the Little House books this winter break. I guess I just feel like an obsessive need to collect books. Which I already do a lot of... but I want so many children's books lately. I know that it will be great to have them for my kids to read eventually. And I want to be able to share the books I loved so much with them.
When the heck did I get so sentimental about books??
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