Laura Ingalls Wilder: Growing Up in the Little House

by Patricia Reilly Giff, Eileen McKeating (Illustrator)

Laura Ingalls Wilder grew up during the pioneer days of America. To the delight of millions of readers, she spent her adulthood recounting her girlhood memories. The story behind the creator of the beloved Little House books "provides dimension and insight."--Booklist.

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction, Childrens, Womens

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Patricia Reilly Giff was the author of many beloved books for children, including the Kids of the Polk Street School books, the Friends and Amigos books, and the Polka Dot Private Eye books. Several of her novels for older readers have been chosen as ALA-ALSC Notable Books and ALA-YALSA Best Books for Young Adults. They include The Gift of the Pirate Queen; All the Way Home; Water Street; Nory Ryan's Song, a Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Honor Book for Fiction; and the Newbery Honor Books Lily's Crossing and Pictures of Hollis Woods. Lily's Crossing was also chosen as a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book.

Reviews

[Sheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

An old book, published in 1987, part of a dated series entitled Women of Our Time, which now in 2024, is desperately out-of-date, even for middle-aged adult readers. But anyways, the content is a loose biographical sketch framed as Laura looking back at her life, centering on her writing career, and interspersed with scenes and memories taken from the Little House books.

Each biography I read on Laura Ingalls Wilder seems to give a slightly different impression and interpretation of how and why Laura came to be a writer. This one first has Laura declaring that she would write down the stories for Rose, but then later indicates that her writing was in honor of her father, a memorial to him and his hard life as a restless pioneer. I don't know that I've ever read the latter before, but I suppose both could be true all at once.

I liked the closing words of the last page and a half with the reflection on Laura's life and all that she had seen and known. It feels dreamy but yet so right and fitting for the storyteller who won the love and loyalty of so many round the world.

[sch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feb 2022. Reading this biography with my third grader. We love her books.

[Sherri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Laura Ingalls Wilder was one of my favorite authors when I was growing up. This biography explaines how she came to write the "Little House" books. I enjoyed reading it and remembering how much I loved reading these books over and over as a child, but I thought there were some gaps in this biography. I actually went to another book and searched the web for questions I had as I was reading.

[carrietracy · Rating 1 out of 5]

In my opinion, if it's shelved with non-fiction it ought to be factual. The first few chapters read like a cliff notes version of the Little House series and some fictionalized details in the series were not clarified in this biography (i.e. the name of the woman that she boarded with when she was teaching was listed in the biography as Mrs. Brewster. Mrs. Brewster was indeed the character in Happy Golden Years, but not the name of the actual woman Laura stayed with).

Even for early readers dying to know more about Laura Ingalls Wilder, there must be better options.

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a biography about Laura Ingalls Wilder. This book is about how her and her family felt moving to the little house on the prairie. This book is very informational but gets boring at some points in the story.

[Whitney Deaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laura Ingalls Wilder: Growing Up in the Little House is a biography about Laura Ingalls Wilder. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the beloved, childhood books called, The Little House on the Prairie. I loved reading these books as a child, so I was fascinated to read all about her life. Her books are basically a retelling of all her childhood memories. She grew up as a pioneer with her parents and sisters. These books can be a great history lesson for young girls. It teaches them all about how life was for a girl their age during the Pioneer age in America. The cover art is a drawing of Laura Ingalls Wilder. It is made to look like the illustrations on the cover of her books. The cover art is not very detailed, and looks as if it was made from water color paints. The colors are very light. Her face isn't very detailed either. The majority of the cover is the illustration of Laura, and the blue sky in the background. The sky is bluer at the top, and whiter at the bottom to make it seem like it is a cloudy day. Also, there are some hay bales and a prairie behind her. This book in particular is a good history lesson to learn all about Laura Ingalls Wilder herself, the hardships she went through in life, and why she decided to write her books. I recommend this book for young girls 2nd grade-5th grade.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely for younger readers. It tries to do a good summarization of of Laura's life as seen through the series but it does leave large holes as well. There are also some factual errors which concern me. I would only read this after you've read other things because of these errors. Definitely just a piece for a completeist who wants to read everything on Laura Ingalls Wilder or somebody who's too young to know the difference. One last note. The illustrations in this are absolutely terrible! They are ugly, have no warmth and are absolutely too modern for the era they are trying to depict.

[Eliza Slade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so good. All the same feelings of comfort that I get when reading the originals❤️ Its super short but covers her whole life and I learned even more about her and her life. Also found out there is one more book she wrote called West from Home so I’m going to track down a copy of that. Little House on the Prairie is one of or my favourite series and I think this book did them justice. You can really tell the author was inspired by Laura.

[Caroline Herfindahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellently written for a young reader. Contains a lot of pertinent bio points that many readers may not
Have known and shows how Laura’s fiction parallels her life but not always.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed Patricia Reilly Giff’s perspective.

[Marilyn Rushing · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good “behind the scene” story of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

[Momoka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book: Laura Ingalls Wilder Growing Up In The Little House
Author: Patricia Reilly Giff

Q. Who was Laura Ingalls Wilde?
A. Laura Ingalls Wilder is a famous book writer.
Q. How did Laura Ingalls Wilder become a famous writer?
A. Laura Ingalls Wilder became a famous book writer by her daughter.
Q. How did Laura's daughter make Laura a famous writer?
A. Laura's daughter helped Laura become a famous writer by finding all the journals that Laura wrote in when she was a kid and then Rose convinced Laura to put all the journals into a book.
Q. Why did Rose convince Laura to put all of Laura's journals into a book?
A. Rose convince Laura to put all of her journals into a book and in her book she inspired more people to move west.

[Stasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel the reviews people have left on this are unfair. This is a book geared towards elementary level readers... it's obviously not to to be written on a Pulitzer winning level, but it is still well written and a wonderful introduction to Laura and her books and WHY she started writing them.

I get het up so quickly reading about how children loved Laura's books, how we had libraries and awards named for her, and now, thanks to 'political correctness' we can't have those things anymore. People are so quick to miss the point of history and a life well lived.

[Laurie Mastrolia · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a young girl, I read all of the original stories many times. I loved them and I wanted to be like Laura! I thought this was a good quick over r go them and might serve well as a precursor for a child who isn't sure about wanting to read all of the books. Well done, Patricia!

[Lilly Fife · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was really telling about her life. Patricia Reilly Giff really captured the life of her. I reccomend kids reading this book too.

[Cws]

J92Wil

[WSL Library]

X4

[Lauri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an especially memorable young adult biography but it's about Laura so I have to have it.

[SouthWestZippy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book.

[Brianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice little overwview that reminded me how much I loved the Little House books.

[Lexie Haarsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laura Ingalls Wilder: Growing Up In The Little House is the biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. This biography is written in a way that children will be able to unedrstand well. I know that oftentimes, young students are hesitant to read biographies as they can seem a bit intimidating with the large amounts of information and non fiction can be perceived as boring sometimes. This book does a really excellent job with maintaining a good balance between children's book and traditional biography. I am sure that a child would be able to hold their attention while reading this, which is great as I think that Laura Ingalls deserves to be given a lot of attention by young students. The illustrations are very beautiful and classic, almost like a trip back in time. This is very well written and would be great for a history lesson.