Laura, not yet sixteen, takes her first teaching job far from home, while Almanzo Wilder drives her back every weekend
Laura grows up
Laura Ingalls is only fifteen when she is offered her first teaching job, at a small claim-shanty school twelve miles from home across the snowy Dakota prairie. Some of her pupils are taller than she is, and she must board with a family whose home is cold and unhappy. Laura longs for her own family, and every Friday afternoon a familiar sleigh appears at the schoolhouse door: Almanzo Wilder has come to drive her home.
Who will enjoy it
Readers aged about eight and up who have followed the Little House books and want to see Laura grow into a young woman.
What you will get
A warm, gentle story of Laura's first teaching job and her courtship with Almanzo, closing the Little House series with growing up and new beginnings.
These Happy Golden Years Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Children’s Books · Frontier life · First teaching job · Courtship
Length
304 pages · ≈ 9 h
More about this book
Many readers consider this the most romantic book in the series, and it earns that reputation quietly. The first part is a test of nerve: Laura, homesick and nervous, keeps order in a freezing schoolroom and endures a frightening household where she boards, all for the money that will help keep Mary at college. Wilder conveys the bitter cold and Laura's determination in plain, vivid detail.
After that winter the book relaxes into happier seasons. Laura works as a seamstress, studies, and teaches again, and her drives with Almanzo turn from convenience into courtship. Their buggy rides behind his spirited horses are some of the loveliest scenes in the series, with a comic rivalry when Nellie Oleson invites herself along. The family is as close as ever, and there are bittersweet moments as Laura realizes she is growing away from home.
The book ends with a wedding and a new little house, a fitting close to the main series. Garth Williams's pictures add warmth. It is a lovely book for readers who have grown up alongside Laura, and a gentle reminder of how much she learned along the way. About 304 pages in the HarperTrophy paperback.
Little Town on the Prairie
The Long Winter
Little House on the Prairie
Anne of Green Gables
On the Banks of Plum Creek
By the Shores of Silver Lake
Little House in the Big Woods
Princess Academy
Ramona Quimby, Age 8
Blueberries for Sal
Sarah, Plain and Tall
Misty of Chincoteague