By the Shores of Silver Lake audiobook

Sniffs. Wipes away tear Laura knew then that she was not a little girl any more. Now she was alone; she must take care of herself. When you must do that, then you do it and you are grown up. Oh, they grow up so fast, don't they? I do wish that this series could stay with Laura as a young girl - running around and having adventures with Ma, Pa and her sisters. But, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote this as autobiographical and so her younger-self had to grow.Gone are the isolated cabins in Wisconsin and here is the bustling brand-new town of DeSmet. Laura and her family are living in a town now and with that comes quite a lot of differences. The girls have to go to school and behave like little ladies - but if you think that will stop Laura from letting loose, then you have another thing coming. Told in simple, plain language, this book manages to capture the beauty and the wildness of town life in the late 1800s. What a time to be alive!Audiobook CommentsRead by Cherry Jones and accompanied by Paul Woodiel on the fiddle - absolutely loved it!YouTube | Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Snapchat @miranda_reads

One of the things I love about this series is how the prose grows with the protagonist. Four-year-old Laura lives in a world with short sentences and simple feelings, and thirteen-year-old Laura, who has had to broaden her vocabulary to help describe things to her blind sister, inhabits a text that is intricately described and which gives a broader overview of events and situations.

Which lady did Santa ask to sit on his lap at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas party tonight? 
This lady!
And did he ask any other grown ass woman (or man) on the scene to do so? 
No friends, he did not. And it wasn’t even pervy. No mistletoe in the vicinity.We shared a few laughs, I gave him a big hug, and I left that party feeling like I’m sure to get exactly what I want for Christmas. …Also... which lady checked into the hotel afterward, and hit it off with the clerk who is also originally from California, and ended up hanging with her and eventually her two daughters in the hotel lobby, because they all somehow felt like extended family members?This lady! …In other words, it’s been a good night. And this is precisely what I love about traveling. You never know if it’s going to be one of those terrible, tire-popped-on-the-side-of-the-road kind of days (I've had too many of these), or if it'll be bursting with kind strangers who make you feel like you’re not alone. And perhaps that’s part of why our dear protagonists, the Ingalls, move around so much in this series. Yes, there are definite push and pull factors at work in the fore, but Charles in particular strikes me as a man who gets antsy if he can’t explore what possibilities may be waiting, just around the bend. Now, don’t get me wrong. In this fifth book of the series, the eldest Ingalls daughter goes blind, and the beloved family dog dies, and the new homestead in South Dakota wreaks havoc on an already storm tossed family. But they also find a lot of good that would never have entered their lives without a significant risk, and a significant change of scenery. Highly recommend this one, though I’ve decided to take a hiatus from the series. The Ingalls rock, but I need a literary change of scenery, myself. I’m thinking my next read should be something aggressively unwholesome, to restore balance in the universe (I'm open to book suggestions). I do believe these were decent folks, salt of the earth. But no one in real life is as cheerful and good as these people are all the time in Ms. Ingalls Wilder's rose-colored memory, and I don’t even know if it’s healthy to always be so “up.”Book/Song Pairing: I Still Haven’t Found (U2)

Alright... By the Shores of Silver Lake... You ready, Eleanor?E: Mm-hmm.Dad: Ok. Go for it.E: Um. Well. My favorite paaaarrrrt waaaassssss.... hmmmmmmm... hmmm. hmmm. hmmm. Chapter 8? I thiiiink. I think, daddy. I think... uh... My favorite part was when they went out in the shanty, and when they got- do you want me to tell you the surprising part that I liked, or the regular part that I liked?D: Start with the regular part.E: My favorite parts were the ones with the littlest sister, Grace! (Grace was introduced in chapter one. One of the first sentences says, "Mary, Carrie, and baby Grace..." Eleanor picked up on a funny thing though. They never actually say Grace is their sister. This was pretty frustrating for Eleanor, because she wanted to be CERTAIN that it WAS their sister before saying it. We talked about it being inferred, but that wasn't good enough for her. I had forgotten all about this, even though Eleanor brought it up quite a few times. It took all the way until page 180 before it was explicit: "And there on Ma's lap sat the littlest sister Grace, with her hair the color of sunshine, and eyes as blue as violets." When I read that part, El interrupted, shouting out "DAD! DAD!!! GRACE IS THEIR SISTER!!! Does this mean we don't have to infer anymore?")(I just read what I wrote to Eleanor...)E: Dad, I didn't mean to interrupt, I was just so surprised and shocked, I couldn't help it.D: Yeah, don't worry about it. I love it when you get into the story. What other parts did you like in the book?E: I liked when they talked about the Shepherdess, because they hadn't talked about her in a REALLY long time.D: Anything else?E: Something big happened to Mary, Laura, Carrie, Ma, and Pa! Men kept coming to their house, because theirs was the only house around. And they kept EATING AND EATING AND EATING. OH! DAD?!?!D: Yeah?E: It's the review now, so why do they keep moving and moving and moving?D: What do you mean?E: Well, because... when we read that book - you said not to ask that question, and wait until the review to ask it.D: Oh, yeah. It's a good question. They moved a LOT, didn't they?E: Yeah. Why did they? Did Pa like to move or something? Why did they keep moving and moving and moving?D: I think, if I were Ma, I would have been very frustrated about this. How many times did they move? Do you remember?E: They moved in Little House on the Prairie, from Wisconsin to... the Prairie. And then to Independence, Missouri. And then to the Creek. And to the Wonderful House - that was book 5 - remember, Farmer Boy wasn't about them.D: Yeah, yeah. You're right. Keep going.E: Then, to the Shanty. Then to the surveyor's house. And then to the one with cracks. Then to their claim. So, it looks like the one with the surveyors was 6 - which means they've moved 8 times so far.D: You are really good at keeping track of this. I'm not going to fact check you.E: What's fact check mean? And why are the Big Woods called Wisconsin?D: I'll get to that later. Give me a minute to be impressed with you. I would have forgotten a couple of those places.E: DAD! You still didn't answer my question! Why did they move so much?D: I don't know. But maybe it was because Pa was never content. Maybe he thought the grass was always greener on the other side. That means he thought life would be better somewhere else, even though it would have been just as good where they were. Like, Pa thought the wonderful house was going to be wonderful... but he didn't know about the grasshoppers... If they would have just stayed in the big woods, they would have had to dig out all those stumps, but they wouldn't have had to deal with the grasshoppers - you know?I think Ma's the best character in the books.E: Why?D: She's very self-less. And I think it's very admirable to be self-less.E: I like Grace more.D: Why do you like Grace more?E: I like Grace more, because she started out like a baby, like Carrie.D: So, you like youth? Young people?E: Yeah. I like them to start out young, and get older and get older and get older...D: Our family has 3 little girls and up until now, their family had 3 little girls. Do you think we need to have another little girl now too?E: I think so, because... who will be Grace? That's what I wanna know.D: Well, who are the other kids, and tell me why...E: Me, Gwennie, and Poppy. Poppy's is Carrie because she's 1. Gwen's Laura because she's 4. And I'm Mary because I'm 6 and the oldest and Mary and I are blind. And Mary sometimes bosses Laura around, and I sometimes boss Gwennie around. Will mom be mad if I put that in the review.D: I don't think so.E: And sometimes Gwennie tries to boss me around too. And sometimes Laura tries to boss Mary around too, even though Laura's younger.D: So this was another good Little House book?E: Mm-hmm. Lets add (laughs) The Long Winter to the currently-reading shelf.D: Ok.

These books give such a view into the psyche of America back when the land was being settled. The pace is slow compared to today's literature, but there is something here. One of the best parts of the book is toward the end. The Ingalls family are living out on the prairie alone during the winter. The spring comes and droves of men begin coming through. The Ingalls have the only house so they all stay with them. The town literally is put up in two weeks. I was shocked. I can't believe how that happened. The most intense part of the book is the day Charles goes to claim the homestead and 15 men come through and need to spend the night. Ma and the girls have locked themselves in their bedroom while the drunk men are fighting downstairs. It was a deeply unsettling piece to read. I could feel the tension. Very well written. It is a window into our past for sure. I did enjoy this or parts of this. It is a much more innocent time. Ma kind of gets me down. She is a killjoy in the book. She is always saying that seems heathen and she can't simply laugh at Pa's jokes. I have a modern perspective. We really have changed as a society. I will read more of these.

Like every book in the series this one is filled with moments of poignant hardship (Mary going blind) and sweet levity. Pa’s wanderlust hasn’t rested, but he’s agreed for Ma’s sake to stay put. About time, is what I have to say to that. She put up with a lot, that woman.

Listened to this volume with kids, in car, over supper. And it, the whole series, is an old classic I might have been tempted to dismiss. I had three sisters and all these books were in the house and I read everything, so I knew these stories decades ago, and it is surprising to return to them and find what a good writer Wilder is. This book was written in 1939, and is meant to reflect 1880 U.S., and it is a sort of fictional treatment of Ingalls's own experiences growing up, with herself as the main character who would write these books. It is impossible for me to read these books without images of the TV show in my head, Michael Landon as Pa Ingalls taking his family west to the unsettled wilderness of the Dakota Territory. And now we own the DVDs and we are watching them. I can recall coming home from school in the sixties and sometimes joining my mom and my sister watching episodes of this show, and almost every show, crying over some thing. The death of a dog, a close member of the family, takes up three pages or more, for instance.After a series of moves, Pa heads to what will become DeSmet, South Dakota. When Ma, Mary, Laura, Carrie, and baby Grace join him, they become the first settlers in this town. They file a claim for the settlement they choose. And Pa begins work on the first building in what will soon be a brand-new town on the shores of Silver Lake. Mary is already blind, Laura is urged to be the family teacher (against her will, since she wants to be more independent than this), and much of the book is focused on just surviving a hard winter. We see how hard they have it economically. How close they are to losing everything. But then there's Christmas, and we get a portrait of this American holiday, circa 1880. My favorite scenes include the railroad trip west, the family's first. Wilder captures the absolute magic and thrill of this trip, and the feel of the Future for all of them. Laura's watching some of the building of the railroad is fascinating. You realize this is what it must have been like, and she captures it with precision and detail and awe, and you feel that, the thrill of "progress".You also get to observe what we learned in school is Manifest Destiny, the idea that this was the white settlers's land to take. The Ingalls family don't really question this. This is land they will claim and build on. Ingalls is not unaware of this problem, as she sees the Native American tribes are all cleared out. One "half breed" friend of theirs is a positive character. But the very fact of injustice is only hinted at and not really discussed in this volume; nor do I recall, growing up, reflecting much about it, though in elementary school and later in high school we did spend some time on how the hopeful "westward ho" movement also entailed the destruction of the Native American way of life. Which is a devastation you don't really get the feel for in this volume, and why most people don't want to read these books anymore. They are a kind of sweetness that cloaks tyranny. And maybe Ingalls never adequately addresses it, I can't recall; we'll see. But the stories are well written, and now, being read, we can use them as an occasion to reflect on these important issues. Have to! This is exactly what the idea of deconstruction is about: Sometimes you have to read books for what is NOT there, what is missing. The Ingalls family didn't kill anyone or move tribes out of the area to make room for westward expansion. But they are also not entirely innocent, either.And the buffalo are gone at this point. At one point they see a lone buffalo wolf, and realize this is the end of an era. What makes this experience pretty special (in spite of the above issues) is that it is read by the wonderful Cherry Jones. There's so much music throughout, too, which is fun, too, hearing the music of the times. The family portrait is terrific, pretty unforgettable. I will keep reading.

It was toward the beginning of this novel that I abandoned the Little House books at age eleven, and to a large degree, I blame the television series. The book opens with the news of Mary’s blindness, which was shown with typical pioneer stoicism: “She was able to sit up now, wrapped in quilts in Ma’s old hickory rocking chair. All that long time, week after week, when she could still see a little, but less every day, she had never cried. Now she could not even see the brightest light anymore. She was still patient and brave.”Compare that to the TV series, in which Mary just woke up one day completely sightless and screaming, “Pa! I can’t see! I’m blind!” The actress was nominated for an Emmy for that performance, but it was nothing like the book.Another discrepancy came in the chapter “Grown Up” in which Jack, the family dog, dies. Twelve-year-old Laura realizes that just as she has put her old rag doll Charlotte away, she’s too old to run around playing with a dog along the prairie. She’s got responsibilities now. Among them is being Mary’s “eyes,” which she does by describing aloud to Mary everything she sees. No doubt that is part of what shaped her into a writer.In the TV show, Jack is simply replaced by another dog, Bandit, who gets his name because he is caught stealing bacon and because he has a black “mask” around his eyes. He won’t stop following Laura around, and she, grieving over Jack, doesn’t accept him as hers until the end of the episode. I guess Michael Landon didn’t think the viewing public wanted Laura to grow up just yet. These things I was able to reconcile. There were the books, and there was the TV show, and they didn’t always match. What bothered me much more was a minor detail: Laura’s first ride on horseback didn’t occur until this book. The Laura on the TV show was an expert rider at a young age, and some of my favorite episodes revolved around her riding. I wasn’t willing to let go of those images and the feelings they gave me, even if the book clearly showed they were inaccurate. But even that was not enough to turn me off to the books. What I think happened was that I reached a dull part (the books do have them, as do the works of many other great writers), and I wasn’t willing to push myself through as I had with The Long Winter years before. I’d grown lazy, spoiled by the minute-to-minute entertainment of television. I finally finished By the Shores of Silver Lake two Shabbosim ago, and I loved it. But once again, I don’t think I had enough understanding of the history to have appreciated it back in fifth grade. I remember quite clearly that I listed “homestead” as a vocabulary word from the book, and I remember noticing I had no others, from which I concluded that the Little House books were getting easy for me. But when I looked up “homestead” in the dictionary, I didn’t learn anything about the Homestead Act, which is what the whole book is about. Any social studies teachers who want their students to understand the settlement of the American west ought to give them the chapters called “The Spring Rush,” “Pa’s Bet,” and “Building Boom.” These bring the concept of manifest destiny to life. So while the Little House books aren’t necessarily vocabulary builders for older readers, they’re most definitely a slice of history, and that goes for all ages.

This one begins so sadly, with two years since Plum Creek has ended, the family sick with Scarlet Fever, and Mary now blind. I've always wished Laura had written about those years, as Baby Grace appears during that time, and apparently a baby brother was also born and died during that time. Clearly, it was a sad and difficult time, but I find their fortitude inspiring and I wish there was more about that time. Laura us much more grown up in this one-- I feel there is a separation between Plum Creek, the last book where she is truly still a little girl, and this one, where she is expected to behave more ladylike and to now care for Mary and take on the burden of Mary's chores.Almanzo makes a brief appearance in this one, as well.

3.5

So Mary went blind in between books and it was just barely touched on? Weird, but okay. This book was pretty exciting in its events, as has been the trend. I can't imagine how terrifying to be entirely by yourselves on the prairie like that, especially with the men threatening Pa.

The Ingalls family at last gets to stake their claim out by DeSmet. One of my favorite scenes in this particular novel is when Laura catches a glimpse of Almanzo and his brother Royal out on the prairie. Looking forward to watching their story come together as I continue listening to the series.

So I am trying to read more classics and this is one of them. I admit I picked this because of the horse on the cover while having no idea what the story is actually about. And apparently it's the fifth book in a series although this certainly can be read on it's own because that is what I just did.So what is this about? It's about a family in 1880 moving west to an area near Silver Lake (although they don't seem to say what state this is? Oh its the Dakota Territory so its not a state yet) on the wide open prairie. The father gets a job with people building a train track - not the actual track but getting the ground ready for a track. The book describes this process although I didn't fully understand it (except in a more simple way: remove dirt from one area and put it in another area to make it all nice & level)...The main character is young Laura and she has several sisters: Mary, Grace and Carrie. Basically the story is about their everyday life and the little adventures they had living on the prairie, including staying there through the winter. And the fervor is getting a claim for land. I did enjoy this story. It's entertaining and interesting to see how they lived: what they ate, how they made Christmas gifts for each other in secret, the strange people that were passing through and how their presence affected the wildlife. Some of the descriptions were really amazing, like how two of the girls went outside onto the frozen lake in winter during a full moon and slid on the ice. I think my favorite scene in here was when Laura rode the pony that belonged to her cousin. She had never ridden before but was bold enough to go at a crazy gallop with no experience at all and without a saddle! But she clearly loved it and I could see by the end of the book she had clearly caught the horse "bug" as she was eying very special horses that were going by! It makes me curious about other books in the series. Will she continue and maybe indulge her love of horses somehow? I have no idea. The edition I read has nice black and white drawings at the start of each chapter.