Photo credit: Kirke Bent
When I decided to write about
Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House books, I didn’t mean to write about my father. Or mother, grandfather, or any other family member for that matter. Certainly not about myself. That I did has something to do with Wilder and her work.
There are lots of Lauras. Your Laura might a composite of your own creation, a blend of images projected into your brain as you read her novels. She could be drawn from Garth Williams's illustrations for the 1953 standard edition of the Little House books, or a freckled, nine-year-old Melissa Gilbert, skipping down a grassy hillside in the opening credits of the
Little House on the Prairie TV drama...