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New York, 9:14 PM
Sun Nov 8
22 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/04/09
The entire series is about sharing what you have with others, from Laura's penny to Almanzo's ride for wheat for the whole community. While there's a lot of emphasis on self-reliance, it's more communal and familial than individualistic.
08/04/09
I agree. And also add a tired, sarcastic, "And libertarians NEVER share! We get kicked out of libertarian-land if we do."
08/05/09
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08/04/09
DeSmet remained a hard place to live well into my dad's childhood. Grandma suffered through the dust bowl. Dad went to school in a one-room schoolhouse. The family farm had no electricity and no running water.
08/04/09
In any case, while I see how these bits are offensive, I do think they present a good opportunity for parents to talk to their children about race in America. It is absolutely a fact that in the Ingalls' time, people were racist and ignorant and full of grotesque notions about "the other." I think it's a mistake to reject these books because they include those elements or try to whitewash the racism out of them. Hiding our problems doesn't help anybody.
I have a hard time believing that anyone, even a child, reading the books now would go, "Yeah! We should kill all the Indians! Minstrel shows for everyone!" If you are growing up in an environment where statements like those are seen as plausible in any way, you've got problems that are way bigger than Little House.
08/04/09
I think that with the right attitude, these can be very educational.
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She might have been frumpy, middle-aged and depressive when she helped her mother craft those indelible stories, but it's worth acknowledging she seems an intrepid, fearless journalist before then. I do have to respect that, she was successful at it, muck-raking or not. She knew how to spin a story, it seems. A complicated lady. Interesting, had a pang of remembrance, her birth in the "Little House" books! So that's what she went on to.. pretty great article.
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I started crying hysterically, and my mom was horrified that they included that in a children's book.
Needless to say, we moved on to Anne of Green Gables the next night. No more Little House stories for me!
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08/04/09
Screw that "that's what people thought back then" business, because in context of the phrase, "people" always means "white people" - even back then, there were whites who didn't villainise or exoticise Native peoples. There were whites who saw Indians as fellow human beings deserving of respect. There were white people who didn't treat "papooses" as some exotic little animal to spot on a scavenger hunt, and white people who didn't write about European-Native interactions as though the Indians were clumsy deer or bears wandering into town.
I'm also hesitant to append my political philosophy to the books, but in my case, you'd better believe I'm not reading them to my kids.
08/04/09
I think Rose tends to get a little too much credit. Laura was writing for newspapers years before the books were written. I know Rose did a lot of editing/polishing but I have a hard time thinking it is beyond the help a lot of novelists get from their agents, editors, and mentors.
08/04/09
It's getting to be a problem now that I'm getting older.
08/04/09
08/04/09
Yeah, what about Pa's beard, Landon?
Pa did have his family in mind as he moved them around. Granted, leaving the woods of Wisconsin for the prairie was not a terrific decision in hindsight, but they were dependent on fur trapping for livelihood/survival. And it was becoming a dying business because of other settlers moving in. So Pa decided to try his hand at farming. Which failed, but that wasn't his fault. It was the fault of the government for telling him it was okay to move there, despite the fact it was already occupied by Native Americans (who were territorial, and rightly so). As for living in town "not being all that bad," I cite The Long Winter, wherein everyone in town is starving/freezing to death because of blizzards and being too dependent on deliveries from outside sources. When they were in the woods, they were able to stockpile and were dependent only on themselves.
In conclusion, Almonzo Wilder for the win. WAY HOTTER than his TV counterpart.
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08/04/09
Trivia: After he died, Laura kept his pills just the way they were on the nightstand until she died. And they are still there and in the same formation now, except under glass. Sigh....
08/04/09
Until my mother informed me that Edward was her grandpa. Sigh.
(That's okay, you're still hot, Papaw!)
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