In a review in Bookman from December 1932, Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder is described as a "romance for twentieth-century girls." Anne Eaton in an April 1932 review for the New York Times Book Review statess that Wilder "writes of the life she knew and lived sixty years ago on the edge of the Big Woods of Wisconsin." Jessie Hirschl asserts that the story is, as a "real and treasurable a story," a "satisfying response" to the frequently uttered cry "Grandma, tell us about when you were a little girl!" in a June 1932 review for New York Herald Tribune Books.

When I first read Little House in the Big Woods, I was an eight-year-old in second grade and only two years older than the Laura in the story. In fact, she turns six in the chapter entitled "Sundays." However, I now realize that I missed a lot of the more subtle themes in the novel because I originally looked at the book as merely the story of a little girl living in the middle of a forest with her family. I wanted to be just like Laura and Ma — butter churning, cheese making, bears, and all — because of the wonderfully vivid picture Wilder painted of her childhood in the Big Woods. I could envision myself as a little girl growing up as a pioneer during the nineteen century.

As Nancy Evans writes in the June 1932 review for Booklist, Little House in the Big Woods is a story told through a "child's viewpoint [that] is preserved without limiting the story." As an eight-year-old, the simplicity of Wilder's language is what I liked best about the books at the time. She frequently uses short, simple sentences, which are easy for a beginning reader to understand. In her review, Hirschl agrees that the "simple sentences have a gentle cadence suggesting the plain and gracious prose-poetry" of other popular realistic novels at the time. For example, Wilder uses this simple sentence style to initially describe the Big Woods:

                              As far as a man could go to the north in a day, or a week, or a whole
                              month, there was nothing but woods. There were no houses. There were
                              no roads. There were no people. There were only trees and the wild
                              animals who had their homes among them.

Like most children, I also enjoyed Wilder's generous use of detailed descriptions. Evans praises the book as a story " filled with the intimate details that made up the family's workaday and independent life." In the aforementioned quote, she does not simply state that her family's house is secluded in the middle of a large forest. Instead, she shows her readers the isolation by describing what is both found and not found in the Big Woods. Because of Wilder's attention to detail, an element in the book I still appreciate today, I was able to more accurately envision the world in which she grew up.

As I already mentioned, reading a fictionalized account of a little girl close to my age growing up in the nineteenth century allowed me to envision myself living at the same time. As Eaton points out in her review, Wilder "understands children's tastes and interests and the story of Laura and Mary and their parents, who lived in a log cabin, miles from neighbors and a settlement, is full of incidents and accounts of daily doings that boys and girls will enjoy." After my first reading of Little House in the Big Woods, I wanted to be just like Laura and Ma. I even bought the Little House cookbooks as a child so I could learn to cook the same kind of food as Ma. In fact, I thought taking care of my own little house would be a lot of fun.

However, after rereading the books as a twenty-year-old, I more fully understand just how much work women in the nineteenth century were expected to do and the duties that had as the family caregiver. Every day began with the same routine for the Ingalls women. Ma first prepared breakfast for her family, and Laura and Mary helped her wipe the dishes dry. Then, the girls made the beds, and Ma pushed the trundle bed under the big bed. After all that preliminary work, the daily household chores finally began. After rereading Little House in the Big Woods as an adult, I am amazed by the thorough representation of female work roles Wilder includes in her story that I now more fully recognize. But, as Eaton reveals, the chores and "other memories of pioneer life...are described with zest and humor," which adds to the timeless appeal of the story.

As Hirschl asserts in her review, "[t]oo few, nowadays, can tell as real and treasurable a story" as Little House in the Big Woods. Reviewers after its initial publication in 1932 praised Laura Ingalls Wilder and her story. Eaton writes that "[t]his little story for [eight] to [ten] year olds has a refreshingly genuine and lifelike quality," which reflects Anne Carroll Moore's assertion in the Atlantic Monthly that "Wilder writes with such lively recollection and keen pleasure is her own childhood experience." Years and a century later, I too delight in homespun tale created in the pages of the story about a little girl named Laura growing up in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. But, Little House in the Big Woodss is not just a story but rather a timeless classic enjoyed by readers then and now.

Bookman 75 (Dec. 1932): 847.

Eaton, Anne T. New York Times Book Review 24 Apr.: 1932: 9.

Evans, Nancy. Booklist 28 (June 1932): 439.

Hirschl, Jessie. "Recapturing Rapture." New York Herald Tribune Books 12 June. 1932: 5.

Moore, Anne Carroll. Atlantic Monthly 150 (Nov. 1932): 26.

Moore, Rosa Ann. "Laura Ingalls Wilder's Orange Notebooks and the Art of the Little House Books." Children's Literature 4 (1975): 105-119.

Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Little House in the Big Woods. 1932. New York, NY: Harper Trophy, 1971.