We are in our new home and now I am the commuter to work instead of my husband and young adult daughter.  The church we attend is also in this community, so it makes sense economically when you consider the cost of gasoline.  But we left a small town Main Street home, built in 1900, which sheltered us for over 17 years.  We did the old girl a lot of favors – stripping six layers of wallpaper from each room, removing false ceilings, adding and updating electricity and plumbing, replacing windows, updating kitchens and baths, and adding a second bathroom and a third floor/attic family room.  We raised two daughters there, and the dear old house was the only home our youngest daughter remembered.  Since we were two blocks from school and our daughters were active members in the marching band our home was a revolving door for their friends.  I poured my heart and a lot of elbow grease into that American FourSquare home.

But change is sometimes good for us.  And we are pleased with the new home which someone else clearly loved, updated, and cared for before us.  59 years newer, out “new” house is the same age as my husband and I so I hesitate to call it an old house.  But my favorite family antiques have each found a spot.  Unfortunately there is still overflow in the garage, but school is almost out and I will get through it all soon.

So as I sit in my “new” little house and return to writing “Read to me…” I find I must first pass along a link a friend forwarded to me.  Roger Sutton, editor of Hornbook, mourns the passing of Eden Ross Lipson and links to an article, “Future Classics”she wrote in 2000 for Hornbook.  In it Lipson addresses the strengths of the books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I particularly value the fourth paragraph, as my friend knew I would, where Lipson so aptly describes the values integral to those narratives. 

I realize the “Little House” books have fallen out of favor in some circles.  Society changes and we view things through new eyes.  But LIW’s books are not meant to remain current.  They are meant to capture the people, places, and events of the author’s childhood.  Recent research for a civil war project brought me to a digitized collection of Civil War Era newspapers.  The site’s disclaimer caught my eye:

“They [the newspapers] are full of fascinating history, but note that the language in these newspapers is often highly offensive, especially when the subjects are African-Americans, Irish immigrants, or women. Please read this language not as statements of fact but in the context of mid-nineteenth-century politics and society.”

Shall we not use and value these primary source documents because they are offensive by today’s standards?  Certainly not.  We use them with understanding, taking value where we can and recognizing the effects of time on attitudes. 

The Little House books have been condemned by some for their views on Native American Indians.  I do not dismiss that concern, but shall we then lose all that is good and fine and valuable in Wilder’s narratives?  Certainly not.  As Lipson said:

“There’s no magic in the Little House books, no invisible railway platform leading to a fantastic place, no wizards at all. It’s a plain account of ordinary lives, that’s just what makes it so thrilling and so engrossing. The Ingalls family’s ordinary lives are so far from our own. The lesson they teach, without comment, is that there is dignity, honor, and pleasure in work well done. They teach it superbly.”

Change is sometimes good for us, but unfortunately our society has lost site of “dignity, honor, and pleasure in work well done”.  Ask any public school teacher. 

So I would like to add a hearty “second” to Lipson’s views on the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and I shall continue to recommend them as read alouds to teachers and to students.  We must use the “Little House” books with understanding, taking from them the wonderful values and recognizing the effects of time on attitudes.  For if we don’t we lose so much…

Mr. Sutton and Eden Ross Lipton, thank you.  I believe I shall reread those books yet again.  You can just glimpse my childhood copies behind the statue in the banner on this page.  Now if I could just find the box my copies of “Little House” are still packed in from the move…

Just like Cal did not understand his sister Lark’s fascination with books, my father did not understand how I could spend a whole day with my “nose in a book.”  A farmer, he would come in for lunch during the summer and demand that I get outside and do something.  I usually complied by taking my book outside and reading on the porch swing or on the hill in the yard under the walnut tree.  (Not exactly what he had in mind!)

I shared this story with my students after we read Henson’s That Book Woman together.  As I explained to them, my father certainly could read.  He was a college graduate.  But he didn’t LIKE to read, certainly not for entertainment.  And my (and my mother’s) love of books and reading was pure puzzlement.

My mom and I were both fans of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.  Beginning in fourth grade, I read the entire series 12 times during my school years.  A 1975 trip to South Dakota included, of course, a stop in DeSmet.  My father and brother were not as excited about the visit as mom and I, but we stopped!  In the year’s since my mother and I have visited almost all of the Little House sites together and separately.  It was during a trip to Wisconsin (and a visit to Little House in the Big Woods) that my father insisted on knowing what was the fascination with these books.  “Why don’t you read one,” my mother said.  A wise woman, my mother… she gave him “Farmer Boy” first.

Grandpa got his first tractor when Dad was nine, but Dad remembers farming with mules and horses.  Naturally he loved “Farmer Boy”.  It was a time consuming read for him, but when he finished he said, “Give me the next one.”  He eventually read all nine in the series and then told my mother to “find me something else to read.”

Now you must realize that Sunday afternoons at our house did not include sports on TV.  Oh, no!  My father watched Western movies on Sunday afternoons.  A wise woman, my mother… she filled my father’s request for something-else-to-read with Zane Grey… which of course, was followed by Louis Lamour.  At the age of 54 my father had become a reader!  He was always literate – but he wasn’t a reader until then.

Dad’s reading for pleasure fizzled for a while, but when I sent him Richard Peck’s Long Way from Chicago his reading was renewed.  Peck’s recent books have been marketed to his usual Young Adult audience, but they aren’t really appreciated by that audience.  Adults – especially his contemporaries – absolutely love all of Peck’s books since Grandma Dowdel first picked up her shotgun.  When Dad finished reading Fair Weather he called me to talk about the book.  “Best Peck book ever,” Dad declared.  Growing up I never expected to have a conversation with my Dad about literature, but here it was!

Dad was 73 on March 18th.  These pages honored him that day as I reviewed Schmidt’s First Boy. My parents are retired now and spend several months each year serving with RVICS.  As they travel they purchase books about places they visit and they both read in the evenings now.  My Dad was once a literate non-reader.  Now he reads.

I know parents are often proud of their kids.  Well, I am proud of my parents – the way they serve others rather than themselves with their retirement, the sensible way they are handling aging, and the way they have always lovingly supported my brother and I and our families.  But I can’t tell you how proud I was to share with my students that my Dad, although a late bloomer, finally became a book lover.  I didn’t share all of the details above with my students, but I turned it into a story for them.  If Cal in That Book Woman didn’t inspire them, I hope the personal narrative about my father did!