Wendy McClure is on a quest to find the world of beloved Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder—a fantastic realm of fiction, history, and places she’s never been to, yet somehow knows by heart. She traces the pioneer journey of the Ingalls family— looking for the Big Woods among the medium trees in Wisconsin, wading in Plum Creek, and enduring a prairie hailstorm in South Dakota. She immerses herself in all things Little House—exploring the story from fact to fiction, and from the TV shows to the annual summer pageants in Laura’s hometowns. Whether she’s churning butter in her apartment or sitting in a replica log cabin, McClure is always in pursuit of “the Laura experience.” The result is an incredibly funny first-person account of obsessive reading, and a story about what happens when we reconnect with our childhood touchstones—and find that our old love has only deepened.
I had pretty limited expectations going into this book. I didn’t read any reviews or really hear anything about it from other readers beforehand. I originally found it at Chapters, and added it to my to-read list. A couple months later I found it in my library’s ebook collection and decided to go for it!
I loved the premise of this book. I am someone who loves to revisit my old childhood favourites. One of my favourite authors to read as a little girl was L. M. Montgomery and her Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon series. My family spent many summers traveling to the maritime provinces, and we visited P.E.I. several times. I loved imagining Anne and Emily wandering the island. So, I could totally relate to McClure’s desire to reimagine Laura Ingalls Wilder and visit her haunts.
