💙 Little House in the Big
Woods is the one that started the series of nine autobiographical novels
written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, based on her childhood memories in the
American Midwest.
💙 The story is told from
Laura's perspective, who, in this book, is four years old. The family consists
of Pa Charles, Ma Caroline, Mary - Laura's older sister, and baby Carrie who
was just born. They lived in a log cabin at the edge of Big Woods in Wisconsin.
The Ingallses are busy preparing for the upcoming winter. They are butchering
the animals and preserving the meat; harvesting fruits and vegetables from
their garden to be stored in the attic. Everyone is lending their hands to the
works.
💙 At night, when they are
tired from the day hard work, Laura feels warm and contented by the blazing
fire, the safety of their sturdy log house, the warmth of family love, while
Pa's singing and playing his fiddle.
 |
| illustration by Garth Williams |
💙 Then the freezing
winter came. There's Laura's cousins, aunt and uncle staying with them; the joy
of finding presents inside their stockings (Laura got a beautiful doll she named
Charlotte), and of course, delicious foods. It is so satisfying to follow
Laura's excitement in every simple thing she's enjoying, like when she's
scooping snow from outside of grandma's house, then grandma poured hot sticky
maple syrup on it to make a sweet candy. It's really a bliss when one can
obtain so much happiness from little things like that!
💙 The joy continues on next
in spring, summer, and fall. Of course, there're scary moments too when one
lives on the edge of a big woods, such as when Ma and Laura went out to the
barn, and seeing the shadow of what they thought is their cow, Suki. Ma slapped
the animal, which turned out to be not a cow, but a bear! I couldn't imagine
how scared they were (including the bear... it might be more scared for it to
be slapped by human like that!!)
🤣 |
| illustration by Garth Williams |
I enjoyed this book in
audiobook version, narrated by Cherry Jones. Let me tell you, one of my
favorites is Pa's fiddle. Every time there's a scene where he's singing and
playing his fiddle, the narrator sings accordingly, accompanied by a fiddle play (played by Paul Woodiel)! That only enhanced the reading sensation; I felt as if I was
transported to the Ingallses' log house by the big woods on a cold night!
💙 I loved also Pa's
stories. The one when he heard a scary voice in the wood when he's a boy
coming late from running errand, for example, which turned out to be a screech
owl's!
🤣
💙 But the funniest one is
Pa's story about grandpa & his brothers' sled riding when they were kids,
and the black pig. One day they sneaked out of the house on a Sunday afternoon
while their father fell asleep, and rode the sleigh down the hill, when a pig
appeared suddenly in front of them out of the wood. They couldn't stop the fast
going sleigh, so the pig ended up landing on the boy's lap and they sleighed
down with the scared pig squealing, passing the house to the astonishment of
their father!
🤣🤣 That was so funny I had to stop the
audio for a minute to laugh out loud!
💙 It was a so satisfying
reading experience, that I planned to read through the whole series (I have
only read
Little House on the Prairie so far) from audiobook. Cherry Jones is
such a perfect narrator for this series!
Rating: 5/5
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
