Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

I'm going to lead off by saying this is the BEST BOOK I think I've read in at least the last two years! While I love my yellow set of Little House books, I've read and known enough over the years to realize all was not so pert and perky. This book was a freaking revelations though! I was pretty confused at first and kept checking the percentage reading on my kindle because by the time the author explained Laura moving to Florida and then Missouri I was only about 15% in.This book is not just about the actual life of the Ingalls family, down to Laura's obviously mentally ill and bizarre daughter Rose, and the guy and wife that took advantage of her conspiracy addled brain to bring us all shirtless Michael Landon as Pa. Caroline Fraser goes deeply into the history, social studies, economics and agrarian science to explain why the Homesteading and Farmer's built this country was a myth, mostly manufactured by the tycoon robber barrons and suitcase farmers plus the railroads.The other thing I couldn't look away from is the way Laura and her daughter both sound very much like one side of our current political debate. Not surprising since Rose was one of three women cited as starting the foundation of the Libertarian movement. This book gives so much incredible insight into what is occurring in the national discourse currently that I was completely blow away! I did my face NO favors by the number of times I realized I was frowning, squinting or scowling at what I read, both in regard to journalistic ethics, general disregard for morals and ethics, hypocrisy, and what seemed to be bordering on a very deep and sincere mental disorder (Rose, not Laura). Thought the nasty codependent mother/daughter relationship definitely contributed to some really astounded looks on my face. DAMN! Made the Edie's of Grey Garden's look delightfully wacky and charming!This multiple award winning book. including the Pulitzer! Is only $3.99 on Kindle. If you love a great, in depth, well written, well researched, wide spanning, meaty, thought provoking way to spend 20 or so hours? This is the best bang for your buck.

As a fan of the Little House books for well over 30 years, I recently picked them up again and fell in love with the stories all over again. The re-read had me curious to learn more about Laura Ingalls Wilder which lead me to Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser.The positives about this book: Carolyn Fraser didn’t excellent job researching the background of the Ingalls family and giving tidbits about their lives that I wasn’t aware of, such as the part that Freemasonry played in all of their lives. I also really enjoyed the deep dive into what was going on in America at the time - stuff I never learned in school but everyone should really know.The not so positives about this book include Caroline Fraser’s personal biases which bleed clearly through the second half of the book. If her goal was to complete a character assassination towards Rose Wilder Lane, she succeeded! Her assessments seem unfair and unkind to call her “weird”. Rose may have been a very difficult person, and yet she is not alive to defend herself. How about giving her more credit for her pioneering work as a journalist and writer?

It will be hard to find a book that more powerfully puts the reader into the realities of pioneer life than this biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Fraser is able to place the reader into situations that today are hard to imagine other than in science fiction – grasshopper hordes so thick that they eat the wooden handles off plows, dust storms so wide and strong that they remind us of Mars, winters so bitter and isolating that villages starved and people turned to making bread out of anything available. The first half of this book is unlike anything else I have ever read about the American frontier. This is the reality, not what TV shows or glamorized Westerns portray. Fraser shows Wilder and her family surviving in a way that will stay with the reader a long time.The second half of the book has a different tone. Fraser spells out the troubled relationship between Wilder and her brilliant, disturbed, and highly erratic daughter Rose. As much as the first part of the book brings the reader into the power of physical survival, the second part brings the reader into the struggles of Wilder with her writing and with her daughter who both helped her a great deal and very often manipulated and deceived her. It is a powerful family story that flows from but is much different than the earlier sections of the book.I left this impressive biography with a sense of sadness. For all the intense physical and psychological struggles that Laura Ingalls Wilder went through, she deserved more than what happened to much of her truly creative work after her death. Caroline Fraser brings to light the powerful reality of Wilder’s life and gives this uniquely American artist the full due she deserves. It is not a book soon forgotten.

I've been reading about Laura Ingalls Wilder since I stumbled upon Zochert's bio of her and this is the best one yet, highly detailed and factual. Not a fast read because there's so much information that you don't want to miss anything. Life was real, life was hard and nothing was easy. I'm so glad I bought the book.

The book gives an amazing insight into the life and times of Little House writer Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane. Fraser draws on a huge array of diaries, letters, newspaper articles, interviews and official documents to tease out truth from fiction in Wilder's famous books about pioneer American life in the 1800s and the role that Lane played in influencing and editing her mother's work. The story continues into the 20th century with Wilder's death in 1957, Lane's in 1968, the TV series 'The Little House on the Prairie' and the wrangling over the ownership of the books copyright after Rose died. In the Kindle edition the pictures which are included at the end are not very good quality but some are also available on line.Passages using pronouns such as, she said such and such to her, sometimes leaves the reader in doubt as to who is talking to whom.

Everyone who is made to think "The Little House on the Prairie"-books are a true account of what happened, needs to read this book.

This is a wonderful book, full of insight and interest, and written in such a way that it becomes a compulsive read. Well researched and insightful...I found it refreshing to read fact full details about Laura and her family, with the myths stripped away. Having read other works about her daughter Rose Wilder Lane...What I found in this book confirmed previous thoughts I had about her. I felt she was a deeply troubled woman her entire life, with unresolved mental health issues.

Lo consiglio a chi è interessato alla storia della famiglia Ingalls e al suo contesto storico.È molto dettagliato e spiega con avvenimenti storici e fatti realmente accaduti,le vicende della famiglia Ingalls narrate nei romanzi di Laura Ingalls Wilder.Bellissimo.

Comme d'habitude, rien à redire sur la livraison et l'emballage du colis avec Amazon.j'ai commandé ce livre récemment paru aux Etats-Unis, car fan depuis toujours de la série La petite Maison dans la Prairie, j'avais été quand même surprise de savoir que dans les livres écrits par Laura Ingalls, il n'y avait pas d'Albert ni de mariage de Mary Ingalls. j'ai donc décidé d'en savoir plus et suis tombée dans un premier temps sur Pioneer Girl, le recueil de souvenirs réellement écrit par Laura, sans les corrections réalisées ensuite par sa fille Rose. Le style est lapidaire, peu enjolivé et franchement rebutant; Mais ce sont les vrais souvenirs de Laura Ingalls jusqu'à son mariage avec Almanzo Wilder.Dans Prairie Fires, uniquement disponible en anglais, comme tous les ouvrages consacrés à la vraie vie de Laura , l'auteur raconte également l'histoire des pionniers en général. et aussi l'histoire des états du Minnesota, du Dakota et comment les amérindiens ont du sans cesse céder leurs terres, à cause des errements d'Abraham Lincoln. Je suis à la moitié du livre, et le mot qui revient sans cesse dans mon esprit est Pauvreté.Je recommande néanmoins ce livre pour tous les amoureux de la famille Ingalls, la vraie, et pour ceux qui veulent en savoir plus sur la vie des pionniers. Bémol évidemment, le livre n'est pas traduit, ça ne me pose pas de problème, mais tout le monde ne lit pas l'anglais, et ce serait quand même mieux si une traduction était envisagée.