RAR #219: Yes, You Should Read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter

Sarah Mackenzie (00:00): You are listening to the Read-Aloud Revival, the show that helps your kids fall in love with books and helps you fall in love with homeschooling. I'm your host, Sarah Mackenzie. And today, I want to invite you to read one of my favorite books. It is, I think, one of the best books ever written for children. Speaker 2 (00:22): Make hay while the sun shines. The mowing machine's worrying sounded cheerfully from the old buffalo wallow south of the claim shanty, where blue stem grass stood thick and tall, and Pa was cutting it for hay. The sky was high and quivering with heat over the shimmering prairie. Halfway down to sunset, the sun blazed as hotly as at noon. The wind was scorching hot, but Pa had hours of mowing yet to do it before he could stop for the night. Laura drew up a pail full of water from the well at the edge of the big slew. (01:01): She rinsed the brown jug till it was cool to her hand. Then she filled it with the fresh cool water, corked it tightly and started with it to the hayfield. Swarms of little white butterflies hovered over the path. A dragonfly with gauzy wings swiftly chased a net. On the stubble of cut grass, the striped gophers were scampering. All at once, they ran for their lives and dived into their holes. Then Laura saw a swift shadow and looked up at the eyes and the claws of a hawk overhead, but all the little gophers were safe in their holes. Pa was glad to see Laura with the water jug. He got down from the mowing machine and drank a mouthful. "Aah, that hits the spot," he said and tipped up the jug again. Then he corked it and setting it on the ground. He covered it with cut grass. Sarah Mackenzie (01:58): So begins The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The Long Winter is the sixth book in the Little House on the Prairie Series. It was first published in 1940, and just like the others in this series, it's an autobiographical novel. Laura Ingalls Wilder, of course, based the series on her actual life as a child settling the west. And this particular story, The Long Winter, was set on the Southwestern Dakota territory during the severe winter of 1880 to 1881 when Laura was 14 years old. The book won a Newbery Honor, back then they were called Newbery Runners-Up, and even if you haven't read the rest of the Little House books, I think you want to read this one, and you can in fact read any of the Little Louse books as standalones. (02:48): You don't have to read them in order. They're all delightful standalone novels. I mean, you probably want to read them in order because I'm betting that if you give your kids a taste of any of them, they'll want to keep reading more stories from Laura. Truly, it's no wonder why Laura Ingalls Wilder is, to my mind, unparalleled as one of the finest novelists in children's literature ever alive. So let's go to late 19th century Dakota territory because I want to talk about The Long Winter, and that hot haying weather that we heard about in the opening clip, eh, it doesn't stick around for long. No, the first of many blizzards is blowing in and it's not a blizzard to miss. Speaker 2 (03:42): Laura woke up suddenly. She heard singing in a queer, slapping sound. "Oh, I am as happy as a big sunflower that nods end bends in the breezes. Oh, and my heart is as light as the wind that blows the leaves from off the tree says oh..." Pa was singing his trouble song and slapping his arms on his chest. Laura's nose was cold, only her nose was outside the quilts that she was huddled under. She put out her whole head and then she knew why Pa was slapping himself. He was trying to warm his hands. He had kindled the fire. It was roaring in the stove, but the air was freezing cold. Ice crackled on the quilt where leaking rain had fallen. Winds howled around the shanty and from the roof and the walls came a sound of scouring. Carrie sleepily asked, "What is it?" "It's a blizzard," Laura told her. Sarah Mackenzie (04:46): It was indeed a blizzard, the first of many. The winter of 1880 to 1881 was in fact one of the worst winters on record in the Dakotas. The first blizzard came in early October, and by Christmas the trains had stopped running. Speaker 2 (05:06): The blizzard winds had blown earth from the fields where the sod was broken and had mixed it with snow packed in so tightly in the railroad cuts that snow plows could not move it. The icy snow could not melt because of the earth mixed with it, and men with picks were digging it out inch by inch. It was slow work because in many big cuts they must dig down 20 feet to the steel rails. April went slowly by. There was no food in town except the little wheat left from the 60 bushels that young Mr. Wilder and Cap had brought in the last week of February. Every day, Ma made a smaller loaf and still the train did not come. Sarah Mackenzie (05:49): That blizzard kept those pioneers isolated in the West without trains until May. And the way Laura tells the story in The Long Winter is unmatched. Her pacing and storytelling are simply exquisite. You're hearing snippets of the audiobook here on the podcast that's narrated by Cherry Jones and produced by HarperAudio. And I want to tell you, those audiobooks are by far, in away, my favorite way to read all of Laura's books. I didn't actually read any of Laura's books as a child. I didn't know they existed, honestly. They just weren't a part of my childhood. They were not a part of my world as a young reader, but that didn't diminish the joy and love I have for them now as an adult or the relish of reading and diving into the entire series with my own six kids. I'm not sure how many times at this point we've listened to the audio books so many times. I love them so much and I am not alone there. Listen to what some Read-Aloud Revival premium members have to say. Speaker 3 (06:57): I have such fond memories of reading the Little House books as a kid, and I remember The Long Winter being the one that I stayed up late in bed reading it into the night because I just needed to know what was going to happen. And then years later I had a repeat on that as my son was growing up, I read the series with him out loud and when we got to that book, we were loving it so much that the rest of the family jumped in on it and we just had to keep reading. Rachel (07:27): Hi, Sarah. It's Rachel here. I'm in New Zealand. I was read all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a eight to 12-year-old. I'm the oldest of three, and I remember The Long Winter, and I particularly remember Almanzo's heroic trip in the snow to find the grain. It also felt like a really long read, and so it felt somewhat metaphorical as well, like we're in The Long Winter and we're stuck in The Long Winter for a long time. It felt a bit like that, so we were all very, very relieved to get to spring. Kyla (08:05): My name is Kyla. I'm from Lincoln, Nebraska. We have been reading the Little House books with our kids over the past several months. My husband does the reading aloud after dinner at night, and the kids eat peppermint sticks. We spent the last summer traveling to some of the Little House sites. We went to a little house in the big woods in Plum Creek, and our little girl put on her sun bonnet and ran through the prairie on the homestead outside of De Smet and that was so much fun. And my husband has the cookbook as well, and one of my little boys loves to cook, so they make Almanzo's donuts, and it's just been a really fun thing for our family. Sarah Mackenzie (08:50): This is something you'll hear often, actually. People love these books so much. They go to the places where the books happened. Jamie Martin at Simple Homeschool, she took her family on a little house road trip, and I'll link to it in the show notes because that article is really fabulous. She's got pictures and a description of her road trip, and I know that made some of your bucket lists as soon as I said those words. The books in the series are immersive. (09:17): They make you feel like you are right there on the prairie with Laura's family, and that's a testament to Laura Ingalls Wilder's writing. It looks simple on the surface really, but if you pull out any sentence or paragraph, it's very simple writing. It doesn't look complicated, which is actually really hard to pull off so well. You have to be an incredibly skilled writer and you have to be very clear in your thinking to write that simply, and yet also create such an embodied reading experience. That's what happens here. The readers, we actually feel like we're there with the Ingalls family. I'm telling you, read The Long Winter and you will feel like you are in the Dakota Territory blizzards of 1880 and 1881. Speaker 6 (10:07): We live in North Dakota, so there was no way we were going to read this story in the winter. So we're reading in the summer and we're driving, and I realize we're listening to a blizzard description like the three-day blizzard. I realized I am clutching the steering wheel, white knuckling it in the middle of summer because of the harrowing descriptions of the blizzard, and so in my mind I'm thinking, "It is a howling blizzard outside, but yet it's bright and sunny, and I'm clutching the steering wheel." Sarah Mackenzie (10:43): That is a believable setting for you. I mentioned only a very skilled writer with clear thinking can write in this way, and that's the truth. In fact, another one of our favorite authors here at Read-Aloud Revival, this one is living, Mitali Perkins. Mitali has written everything from chapter books like Rickshaw Girl to young adult novels like, You Bring the Distant Near, and then picture books like, Home Is in Between. She's written in every genre for kids, and she's coming to RAR premium this winter to teach our kids ages 10 to 18, how to weave the magic carpet of place. That is how to write believable settings. And she's going to use The Long Winter as a model because Laura Ingalls Wilder creates an amazing, believable setting. (11:34): Now, I want to go back to something I mentioned before. I said that I didn't read The Little House books as a child, but many of you did. And something I think is worth mentioning here is that, if it's been a while since you've read any of the Little House books and specifically since you've read The Long Winter, it'll probably be a different experience for you now than it was when you were a child. In fact, I bet it's also going to be a different experience for you now than it will be now for your own kids. Speaker 7 (12:13): I would specifically remember my mom talking about how The Long Winter made her cry every time she read it, and I could never understand why because for me, the Little House books were so idealistic and I dreamed of living back then at that time period. But now as a mom reading it to my girls, I cry every time I think about Ma and the sacrifices she made for her girls. Such a beautiful story and such courageous people, and I'm so glad that they were a part of my life, and I'm thankful that I can make them a part of my kids' lives now. Sarah Mackenzie (12:50): This is something that came up in several voice messages that I received actually, just this huge difference. What a difference there is in reading a book like The Long Winter as a child and then reading it as an adult, which brings me to one of my favorite things to talk about, which is rereading. There are a lot of reasons why rereading is, perhaps, the best kind of reading. I have a whole episode on it. It's episode 141. But one of the reasons just one, the many reasons why rereading is so powerful is because you never read the same book twice. We're different people every time we come to a book. We've lived right, we've had experiences, we're thinking about different things, struggling with different things, we've learned different things. So reading The Long Winter as a child will feel like an altogether different experience than reading The Long Winter as a mother or a father. (13:45): And if you haven't read the Little House books in your adulthood, read The Long Winter and you'll see what I mean. As years pass, we gain a slew of life experiences and then we bring those experiences into our reading every time we open a book. The same thing is true with your kids. So every time they reread an old favorite, they're having a new experience. They're coming to the page as a different person than they were last time, even if the last time was only last week. In his book, The Pleasures of Reading In An Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs writes, "A first encounter with a worthwhile book is never a complete encounter and we're usually in error to make it a final one." I certainly think this is true with all of the Little House books. Also, just saying, if you've been in a reading slump lately, I've been there, you might just find The Long Winter to be, not only a narrative that pulls you in and sweeps you away, but it also might inspire you in your adulting day-to-day tasks. Brittany Bowen (14:53): My name is Brittany Bowen. I live outside of Atlanta in Georgia, and I have so loved reading Laura Ingalls Wilder with my kids. I read them as a child, but I have really tuned into the aspect of how Laura Ingalls Wilder elevates motherhood, particularly when she is talking about Farmer Boy and all the ways that Almanzo's mother prepared their home for cold winters and cleaning things out. It's always not so much beautiful when I go to clean out my pantry, but the way she describes them getting ready and cleaning out the cellar, and I think white washing it's so beautiful, the work of a mother, especially in hindsight. So it's a great encouragement to me as a mom that even though, and all of these tasks aren't so fun while we do them, they are building this lasting legacy of what motherhood is for our kids and how beautiful it can be. Sarah Mackenzie (16:02): Now, we need to talk about the elephant in the room or maybe you don't see the elephant in the room yet, but I promise you will as soon as you start reading this book. The elephant is racism and the fact is, it is present in all of the Little House books, some more explicitly than others. I can't really encourage you to read the Little House books with your kids without mentioning this because for some, the fact that there is indeed racist language and racist ideas within these books is enough to relegate them into the past and make people want to keep them in the back of the bookshelves away from our kids. There's this argument out there that books that contain troubling language and outdated ideas should not be read by our children unless they perpetuate those harmful ideas into a new generation. I disagree. Now, when you read the Little House books and specifically when you read The Long Winter, you're going to encounter racism, most notably in the way that Ma speaks about the Native American people, although there are other instances as well. (17:04): And in The Long Winter you'll run into this by the sixth or seventh chapter, it really cannot be ignored. So what do we do? We want to raise kids who are kind, empathetic lovers of God. So do we in fact relegate some of the best books in children's literature to the dusty shelves because of problematic scenes and ideas? I don't think that we do. What I want to play for you next is a few snippets from Meghan Cox Gurdon's excellent book, The Enchanted Hour, The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud In an Age of Distraction. I highly recommend this entire book, and I spoke with Meghan here on the show way back on episode 130, but because we're talking about The Long Winter today, I thought I'd pull a few bits from The Enchanted Hour regarding any uneasiness you might have as you read Laura Ingalls Wilder's books. So these are clips, I couldn't really play the whole chapter here for you, so I just picked a few relevant bits to help you think about this. Listen to what Meghan has to say. Meghan (18:07): We do children no service in cutting them off from transcendent works of the imagination even if it means introducing them to troublesome ideas and assumptions and to characters we would rather they not admire. Like life itself, literature is unruly. It raises moral, cultural and philosophical questions. Well, where better to talk about these things than at home? The human story is messy and imperfect. It is full of color and peril, creation and destruction of cruelty and villainy, prejudice and hatred, love and comedy, sacrifice and virtue. We needn't be afraid of it. It's foolish to cover it up and pretend history never happened. It is far better to talk about what we think of these matters with our children using books as a starting point for the conversation. We are not stranded on a desert island with a single book to occupy the rest of our days. (19:07): We can mix it up. We can read our children Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods, and we can read them, Louise Erdrich, The Birchbark House, and let them see, let the authors show them at once how similar life is when you're a little girl with annoying siblings who lives close to the land and must engage in yucky tiresome chores, and how different westward expansion appeared depending on the type of house and society you occupied. The solution to problematic passages in any particular book is not fewer books, but more of them. No single book has to scratch every itch. If the problem is that some literature expresses old-fashioned views, the solution is to read our children more books of every kind. The more reading, the more voices. The more voices, the more imagination. The more imagination, the more opinions, the more opinions, the more freedom of thought, and the more children engage in freedom of thought, the better. Be not afraid, let the stories flow. There are simple and sensible ways to convey optimism and open-heartedness while acknowledging the limitations, as we regard them, of people who went before us. Sarah Mackenzie (20:28): Okay. So I recommend reading Meghan's whole chapter, and in fact the whole book, we'll pop it into the show notes. It's called The Enchanted Hour. It's fabulous. But I want to zoom in on something specific she said there. The more reading, the more voices. The more voices, the more imagination. The more imagination, the more opinions. The more opinions, the more freedom of thought, and the more children engage in freedom of thought, the better. Okay, so is there racism in The Long Winter? Yes, it is impossible not to see it or hear it as you read this book, so read it and hear it, and then talk about it with your kids. We don't make the world better by ignoring the past. We make it better by learning about it and talking about it, and by understanding that Laura, when she wrote these books and in fact when she lived them, was a product of her time as we all are. (21:27): Meghan says later in The Enchanted Hour, "To defend classic literature is not to defend prejudice. It is to argue for sympathy and an openness to the past as well as to the insistent present. It is to recognize that as we judge the people of former times, so shall we be judged by future ones." So when you come to those difficult spots as you're reading The Long Winter, or actually as you're reading any book, anytime you're reading a book that contains problematic ideas or problematic language, stop and talk about it with your kids. Ask questions like, what do you think about the way that was written? Should the author have written that? Why do you think the author wrote that? How is this scene or this character or this scenario, how is it similar or different from our lives today? Talking about it is always a better solution than pretending like it didn't happen. (22:20): Also, I just want to note here that you are the parent. So you can skip whole parts, you can change words and edit on the fly as you're reading aloud. You can pause the audiobook at any time and talk about it, but if you're reading it aloud, you can skip it. You know what's best for your kids. You know what they're ready to discuss, what they're ready to be exposed to, what they're ready to know about, and you are the best person to help them navigate it. So feel confident in your ability to talk about hard things with your kids, to avoid things until you feel like they're ready. And don't let fear keep you and your kids from reading the treasures we have in the Little House books, and they are treasures indeed. Speaker 2 (23:02): Pa stretched his arms above his head. He opened and closed his hands and stretched his fingers wide, then ran them through his hair till it all stood on end. "I believe this warm weather has taken the stiffness out of my fingers," he said. If you will bring me the fiddle, Laura, I'll see what I can do. Laura brought the fiddle box and stood close by while Pa lifted the fiddle out of its nest. He thumbed the strings and tightened the keys as he listened. (23:32): Then he rosined the bow and drew it across the strings. A few clear, true notes softly sounded, the lump in Laura's throat almost choked her. Pa played a few bars and said, "This is a new song I learned last fall, the time we went to Volga to clear the tracks. You hum the tenor along with the fiddle boast while I sing it through the first time. A few times over and you'll all pick up the words." They all gathered around him to listen while he played again the opening bars. Then Mr. Boasts tenor joined the fiddle's voice and Pa's voice singing, "This life is a difficult riddle for how many people we see. With faces as long as our fiddle that ought to be shiny with glee. I am sure in this world there are plenty of good things enough for us all, and yet there's not one out of 20, but things [inaudible 00:24:52]..." Sarah Mackenzie (24:54): Oh, this book. Read it, would you? I think you'll be glad you did. You can probably find it at your local library, either as a print book or an e-book or an audio book. We'll also have links in the show notes at readaloudrevival.com/219. And if you're a 10 to 18-year-old and would like to learn to write the kinds of settings Laura has managed to write in these books, join us for our Wow Writers on Writing Workshop next month with Mitali Perkins. We're going to learn from a published author, how to weave the magic carpet of place, so join us. You just need to become an RAR Premium member by going to rarpremium.com. Or you can simply text my name Sarah, S-A-R-A-H, to the number 33777, and I'll text you a direct signup link. Now, let's hear from some Read-Aloud Revival kids about the books they're loving. Shall we? Maggie (25:53): Hi. My name is Maggie. I'm five years old and I live in Utah. My favorite book is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Why I like it is the magic and the spells. Nora (26:11): My name is Nora. Speaker 13 (26:13): How old are you? Nora (26:14): Three years old. Speaker 13 (26:16): And where do we live? Nora (26:18): In Utah. Speaker 13 (26:19): And what's your favorite book? Nora (26:21): Margaret's Unicorn. Speaker 13 (26:24): And what do you like in the book? Nora (26:25): She feeds the flowers. Speaker 13 (26:28): She feeds the unicorn flowers? Nora (26:29): Yeah, and she saw the steam unicorn. Speaker 13 (26:33): She rescued the unicorn. Nora (26:34): Yeah, that baby unicorn, she [inaudible 00:26:38]. And feed it some water. Speaker 13 (26:41): What's special about the water? Nora (26:44): [inaudible 00:26:44] by moon light. Speaker 13 (26:45): It has been touched by a moon light. Hudson (26:49): My name is Hudson, and I'm five years old, and I live in Virginia. And my favorite book is Leave Me Alone because I like when the bears didn't know English. Violet (27:00): Hi. My name is Violet. I'm six years old. I live in Virginia. My favorite book is Fiona's Lace because the older sister is brave and ever. They're trying to find their mom and dad. Anna (27:14): My name is Anna. I'm three years old. Speaker 11 (27:18): And what's your favorite book? Anna (27:18): [inaudible 00:27:26]. Speaker 11 (27:25): Why do you like it? Anna (27:29): And I like it because it has [inaudible 00:27:30] in it. Eli (27:32): Hello. My name is Eli. I'm seven years old, and I live in Illinois. I love The Hobbit because they have silly songs. Madison (27:40): Hi. My name is Madison. I'm 12 years old and I live in [inaudible 00:27:44] Kentucky. My favorite book is A Cup of Cold Water by Christine Farenhorst. It has taken place in World War I when Edith wanted to become a nurse and overcame obstacles to become one. Omar Drubby (27:58): Hello. My name is Omar Drubby. I live in Waukegan, Illinois. I am nine years old. My favorite book is 1776 by David McCullough. I like it because I love the Revolutionary War and I like the design and detail in the words and chapters. Rosalie (28:18): Hi. My name is Rosalie and I'm eight years old. I live in Virginia. My favorite book is The Green Ember Series by S.D. Smith. I like it because it's so adventurous and I like [inaudible 00:28:31] fighting. Sarah Mackenzie (28:33): Thank you kids for your recommendations. Thank you, RAR premium members for adding your voices to this episode of the podcast. And also thanks to HarperAudio for the clips of The Long Winter and The Enchanted Hour. Both books, I highly recommend. This episode of the podcast was written and narrated by me, Sarah Mackenzie, and produced by the team at Yellow House Media. I'll be back in two weeks with another episode. This time the rest of the RAR team is going to join me to talk about, how to focus on what's most essential in your home school. It's a good one. You don't want to miss it. Until then, you know what to do. Go make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through books. (29:27): So many of us feel overwhelmed in our home school. There's a lot to do and it feels like every child needs something a little different. The good news is, you are the best person on the planet to help your kids learn and grow, and home is the best place to fall in love with books. I'm Sarah Mackenzie. I'm a homeschooling mother of six, the author of Teaching from Rest and the Read-Aloud family, and I'm the host here on the Read-Aloud Revival podcast. (30:05): This podcast has been downloaded over 8 million times, and I think it's because so many of us want the same things. We want our kids to be readers, to love reading. We want our homes to be warm and happy havens of learning and connection. We know that raising our kids is the most important work of our lives. That's overwhelming, right? You are not alone. In Read-Aloud Revival Premium. We offer family book clubs, a vibrant community and a circle with Sarah coaching for you, the homeschooling mom so you can teach from rest, homeschool with confidence and raise kids who love to read. Our family book clubs are a game changer for your kids' relationship with books. We provide you with a family book club guide and an opportunity for your kids to meet the author or illustrator live on screen. (31:09): So all you have to do is get the book, read it with your kids, and make those meaningful and lasting connections. They work for all ages, from your youngest kids to your teens. Every month, our community also gathers online for a circle with Sarah to get ideas and encouragement around creating the homeschooling life you crave. They're the most effective way I know to teach from rest and build a home school life you love. We want to help your kids fall in love with books, and we want to help you fall in love with homeschooling. Join us today at rarpremium.com.