Prairie Fires
The Life and Times of Laura Ingalls Wilder
By Caroline Fraser

This book was given to me for free in exchange for an honest review

I couldn’t wait to read this book, in fact I read it in 3 long sittings. It didn’t bore me, and I am glad I read it, but honestly I don’t know how I feel about it. I had hoped author Caroline Fraser wanted to write about the “real” Laura Ingalls Wilder. But she tried too hard to uncover a lesser person than the historic version of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I read the Little House books when I was pretty young. I don't remember thinking they were absolutely true. The author of this book seemed to “go after” the Ingalls family right away. The bibliography of the book is long and she often quotes sources. But she also seems to take any piece of information that requires judgement and processes it negatively.

The books starts with the childhoods of the Ingalls and Quiner families, Quiner is the maiden name of Caroline Ingalls. This part of the book is fascinating. It talks about indian conflicts and the civil war. The historic part of this is well researched and written. I was drawn right in. I loved getting a hint of the real history of the Ingalls.

The next part is begins to involve Laura and her siblings. I cringed when the author talks about the family and their poverty. It was as if she resented the fact that they were poor. I saw in the book, a family that had to start over many times, I think that required faith and guts and determination. It seemed as if the author judged the family and found them wanting, even when a horde of hungry locusts ate their crops.

The best part of the book is when Laura and Almanzo get married. The true story isn’t perfect. But the love between them is sweet. They were married over 60 years, had two children, Rose and a boy who died while an infant. Laura and Almanzo both contracted diphtheria and Almanzo struggled with a disability from his illness for the rest of his life.

I almost cried in several places, when Laura makes plans and sees her hopes dashed over and over by crop failures, illnesses and fire. It seems like real life to me, not personal failure.

In my opinion and perhaps that of the author, Rose, the Wilder’s daughter was an awful person. She was cheap and catty, and a Communist. She was a very famous writer in her own right, and even helped her mother start writing. But she stole her mother’s story and made it her own, in her own book, which didn’t survive the way the Little House books have. Throughout the book the author seems to be searching for a reason for the tension in the mother daughter relationship. As if her parents Laura and Almanzo, did something to cause it. Again the author comes up with poverty and illness as the reasons.

The story of how Laura became a famous writer in her 50s is fun to read. And she finally achieved some wealth in her later years.

This book is well researched and is a hoot in places. But the story is told from a point of view that makes much of it really sad.

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser is a comprehensive look into Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life. I’ve been a lifelong reader about the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I could not pass up the opportunity to read this one. I felt this book answered so many of the questions I’ve had about Laura’s life after she married Almanzo Wilder in De Smet, SD. I often wondered why her father and mother moved around so much in the early years. I was also very curious to know more about Laura’s relationship with her daughter Rose. Prairie Fires answers these questions and so much more. I started reading the Little House books in the 1970’s as a teen. Now nearly forty years later I can say I’ve come full circle. Prairie Fires provides a very comprehensive and historical account of one of the most interesting pioneer/settlers of all time.

This book is a must-read for anyone who has ever picked up a book written about Laura Ingalls Wilder. It contains the full breadth of knowledge about her early pioneer days. I read this book at quite a clip but found myself going back and re-reading the rich information found in it. Readers will find it is hard to put down. I highly recommend Prairie Fires to all Laura Ingalls Wilder fans, historians, those interested in the early pioneer history, and homesteaders.

I requested this book from NetGalley to review due to its subject matter, and rave reviews.

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder is a fascinating read. I enjoyed every word and learned so much more about the Wilder and Ingalls families. Highly recommended!
5 plus stars

Prairie Fires The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser is a nonfiction biography of a lady so many of us grew up feeling like we knew and therefore we loved her dearly.  Fraser covers not only the life of Ingalls but that of her parents before her birth as well as framing her life within the larger picture of what was happening in the United States at the time.  Using this tool, Fraser is able to give a more rounded depiction of Wilder and her family.

Anyone with a passing interest in Ingalls knows that her Little House books were based on her real life but were by no means works of nonfiction.  Ingalls took liberties with the truth in part to make her books palatable for children as they were written and marketed towards a young audience.  Her own life was quite difficult at times, both in childhood and adulthood. 

Fraser also covers Wilder's relationship with her daughter, Rose, as well as Rose's life outside of her time at home with Laura and Almanzo.  Fraser presents the facts in a straightforward fashion but seems to fall on the side of believing that while Rose guided Laura in her early writing, she did not actually do the writing for her mother.  

This biography by Fraser is very well researched and is without a doubt geared toward a scholarly audience.  This book is not for those who possess only a passing interest in the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Fraser clearly spent a lot of time researching and writing this book.  What makes this biography of Wilder most unique among others that are out there is Fraser's use of history to frame the coinciding times in Wilder's life.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book.

Wow. That was my first reaction to this meticulously researched historical book. As Marta McDowell's THE WORLD OF LAURA INGALLS WILDER shows us the natural world behind the "Little House Books" saga, Fraser's volume paints the history of Laura's family and Almanzo's family, then the couple themselves and finally daughter Rose Wilder Lane, against the historical events of the United States. You'll meet one of Charles Ingalls' ancestors who came over on the Mayflower, and his descendants including a poet of published verse, find out the history of the Big Woods and the Indian wars that enabled the Ingalls and Quiner families to settle there, learn the truth about the Kansas house on the prairie and why the Ingalls really left (and who Laura may have confused with Soldat du Chene), about the homesteading laws that enabled them to claim land in DeSmet, and about the history of "the Land of the Big Red Apple" and the world of the Depression-era Missouri where Laura and Almanzo ended their days, not to mention the historical figures and radical politics that became part of Rose Wilder Lane's life. The Little House books exist in an enchanted bubble of a children's book series where "now is now" and never "a long time ago"; the Ingalls family did not. They lived, as we all do, against the events of history which shape our lives. A presidential assassination, an election, a natural disaster, a Congressional decision can all change the future.

The sheer amount of information in this book about the Indian wars, the pioneer experience, the socialist movement, and other historical events may daunt some readers, but it is extremely rewarding to see how the times shaped the story of this particular family. The book includes maps, illustrations, and photographs to help bring the era alive. Definitely on my Christmas wish list!

An in-depth history of the times in which Laura Ingalls Wilder lived. I learned so much and have a new appreciation for the pioneers who made our country.

I savored Caroline Fraser's biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. As a life long devotee of the Little House books, I am always interested in learning more about the real stories and people that populated the novels. I really appreciated Caroline Fraser's willingness to uncover the woman behind the stories - a woman who was temperamental, imperfect, and heavily influenced by her daughter's politics. Getting to see some of Laura Ingalls Wilder's warts didn't make me like her less; if anything, I have a greater appreciation for the crafting of her stories. I also enjoyed the notes section tremendously - I like seeing the scholarship behind the writing. I think this is a must read for fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder and an excellent book for anyone interested in the massive changes the United States went through in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

I have loved reading the stories and newspaper articles of Laura Ingalls Wilder since I was old enough to read. The subject matter of Prairie Fires was of huge interest to me but I approached it cautiously. Would it strip away all the bonnet wearing, fiddle playing notions I had romanticized in my head? No, it didn't. In short, it gave a true historical look at Laura's life that I had only read glimpses of before. I loved this book. The one thing I will say is that it humanized Mrs. Wilder. Instead of thinking of her as the perpetual scamp Half Pint, aided by Melissa Gilberts (amazingly good) portrayal on television, readers have to remember she was human just like us. She wrote stories to honor her family, not to tell things exactly as they happened. After she had written them, Laura wanted to just live her life. With the resulting fame from her stories, that was made nearly impossible. Her political views and such may not be something we all agree with, but Laura Ingalls Wilder stands as a hard working woman who did just live her life and honored her Ma, Pa, sisters and her brother. I am still very proud to have loved the Little House books for so long, especially since I know how much of her love for her family and care for the worlds memories of them, went into each book. Prairie Fires is excellently done and I will be highly recommending it when the time comes for it to be published.

This is an excellent biography of a dearly loved children's author, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Well documented and detailed, Caroline Fraser has filled in gaps that other biographies and books about Wilder have not covered. One question that Fraser answered was what was Pa doing during the Civil War. Charles and Caroline Ingalls were married in 1860 and Mary was not born until 1865 and I had wondered if Charles had fought in the War. The short answer is that he didn't but what he actually did is uncertain. An excellent point that Fraser made was that the paper trail on poor people is much less than those who are better off and just like the rest of his life, Charles Ingalls was never well off.
The birth of his second daughter Laura in 1867 starts a life that was filled with ups and many downs and covered much of the time period of pioneer westward expansion. As Fraser details the truth behind the stories covered in Wilder's fictional children's series, you can see how Laura Wilder and also her daughter Rose changed and edited the story. It was only when I read the annotated Pioneer Girl that I realized that Rose Wilder Lane and her mother were dedicated Libertarians, believing that the government had no place in American lives (while conveniently forgetting the help that the Ingalls and Wilders had received). The notion of the individual American who depended on no one but himself became a major theme in their writing.
Laura and Almanzo Wilder come across as hard working people with individual flaws who, on the whole, made a good life for themselves. Their only child, Rose Wilder Lane, comes across as a deeply troubled individual who became more bizarre as she aged. For all the former children who have loved the Little House books, this wonderful biography gives you a chance to not only find out, 'what happened next?' in Laura and Almanzo's lives but what actually happened.

My father was a young man when the Depression hit, in 1929. And although the line of work he was in, first building movie stars home, and then working for the studios building sets, did not suffer, the rest of his family did. He was, if not the sole supporter of his family, of his four, then three brothers, and parents, he was at least the main breadwinner. This effected him for the rest of his life. He knew how to pinch pennies like it was no ones business. Although he ended up building a house for the family he had later, in a posh area of L.A., he would still shift through trash cans to find recycling material, on trash day, before recycling was a big thing.

Laura Ingalls Wilder survived not one, not two, but three depressions. We, as a collective we, remember the one in 1929, because our grandparents, and parents remember it. But few today remember the ones that happened in the late 1800s.

Laura did, and she, like my father, knew that there might, and would be another one around the corner, and so stayed as thrifty as she could be, even when her farms in the Ozarks was doing well, and she was relatively comfortable. And, because she had survived, she figured that others could do the same, without government help.

I bring this last point up, because this is a major theme going through this very weighty tome about Laura's life. The second major theme, that is hammered home, is that the homestead act was a disaster, and caused the Dust Bowl. And because the Homestead act was help from the government, Laura was a hypocrite in later life.

You may think you know about the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, because you have read all the Little House books, as I have. You may think, well, I have also read the ones that came out after her death, such as <em>On the Way home</em> (her leaving the Dakotas for the Ozarks), <em>West from Home</em> (about her trip to San Francisco to hang out with her daughter Rose), or even <em>Little house in the Ozarks</em> the collection of her columns she was writing for the newspapers, before she wrote the little house books. Yes, I too have read those as well, and yet, much of <em>Prairie Fires</em> covers even more than that. It brings in the history of what was really going on, when her stories were supposed to have taken place, as well as the history of what happened after she left the Dakotas, until, in the height of the depression, she started writing about her life, to bring in a little more money.

Have you ever wondered why <em>The First Four Years</em> is so very, very different from all her other books? This book answers that question. It also explains how the books are really out of order, how <em> Little House on the Prairie</em> should have come first, then <em>Little House in the Big Woods</em>.

And although I love her books, and probably always will, it is amazing to see how she and Rose, her daughter, changed the narrative, so that everything was built on self-reliance, that no one ever needed a hand out if they all stuck together, and by gum, you could have a farm, and make a living, and it was all good, despite that not being how it ended up.

Warning, this is a long, and weighty book, filled with footnotes, and citations, and a boat-load of research.

Highly recommend it to all of those of us who grew up on these stories. Everyone should add this book to their collection.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.