Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder

I really wasn't anticipating reading any of the Little House books again for a few more years. Certainly not outloud to my son. However, when Barbara announced that she would be hosting a Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge, I thought that the least we could do was give Little House in the Big Woods a try with Bookworm1 and see how it went. And it went! It went well! I never realized how perfectly suited (at least the first book is) to ages 5 and up. As Wilder tells the story of her growing up years in the Big Woods with Pa, Ma, Mary and Baby Carrie she explains in ways that young children can understand. You truly learn how they went about making cheese, threshing wheat and making hats. She brings sometimes complicated chores down to a level where children can visualize them. I loved that! I'm so very glad that we took the time to read this together.

I have to confess that I've only read through this series once before in my lifetime. I distinctly remember my mother suggesting to me that I should read them when I was younger but I don't remember ever following through and doing so. (I was all about Nancy Drew at the time, as I recall.) My mom read this book when she was in grade school and, in fact, chose my name in reading this book. Yup! I'm named for Baby Carrie in the Little House books! (So you'd think I'd feel a tighter connect to it somehow. I don't, but it's an interesting fact all the same.)

I won't rehash the storyline as you are likely familiar with it. Instead I'll just share Bookworm1's reaction to the various stories Laura shares in this book.

In Chapter One there is my skinning and smoking of animals to prepare meat for the winter months. Making the pig bladder balloon received the biggest reaction from my son. I had prefaced the book by saying that this was a true story of a real family and the things that they did "a long time ago." We finished up reading about the pig bladder balloon and his only question was:

"Why is this story so yucky!?"

Moving on to Chapter Two "we" discovered that Laura and Mary were involved in helping with various household tasks, including the making of their own bed.

"Why do they make their bed EVERY DAY?!"

From there on out the general reaction to the book was, "WHY? WHY? WHY?" Why work so hard for cheese? Why spend days twisting straw to make hats? Why, most especially, do they have to sit quiet and still all through Sunday?! (This, as you might imagine, was mind blowing to the boy.) It opened up an interesting conversation between us though. I explained that they believed you should rest on the Sabbath and to them that meant playing quietly and being still all day long.

"Mommy, do we believe that?!"
"Well, what do you think?"
"No, not really."
"Well, we believe that God made a day for us to rest in, just as He rested on the seventh day of Creation. But we don't believe that we are supposed to sit quiet and still and do nothing on that day. It's the day that the Lord has made and we're to REJOICE in it!" (My explanation was longer but you get the gist. If you don't, I have a post in which I intend to lay out our views of Sabbath Rest in a bit.)

I went on to explain that Christians believe different things about how they are to behave on Sundays but I was able to explain what we believed which is always good to know when you live in our household. (Ha!)

I did get a little bored during the chapter about the Harvest and I skipped past Laura's descriptions of the women's dresses at the dance. However, on the whole this was a very fun story to read aloud and I'm grateful to Barbara for hosting this challenge to give us a good reason to launch into this fabulous story.

I'm linking this post up to Barbara's Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge and also to Amy's Read Aloud Thursday post over at Hope is the Word.