Little House on the Prairie (Little House #3), by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Publisher: HarperCollins, 2004
- Genre: Children’s Literature
- Format: Paperback
- Page Count: 335 pages
- My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3/5)
Recommended for kids aged 8-12 on the back cover, this book was easy to read, and the words were in those of the little girl Laura’s, giving everything an innocent and lively touch.
However, this book is not suitable for little children to read nowadays. For one, it was a bit racist. I understand that Little House on the Prairie was first published in 1935, and that equality and human rights were not very well-developed back then. Even so, it was still a little unbearable to see Laura viewing the Indians as more ‘animals’ than ‘humans’. The obsession of wanting to have a ‘papoose’ (it is an offensive word for an Indian baby) showed that Laura simply thought it was like having a puppy. Also, the depiction of Indians in the book showed only barbarianism and inhumanity.
Apart from Indians, there were also very outdated moralities such as ‘children must be seen and not heard’ and gender stereotypical rules on how little girls should behave. To be fair though, Laura was rather ‘un-girly’ in the 19th-century standard.
If one could overlook these parts, the book is pretty much enjoyable. It was a story based on the author’s childhood, and we were able to get a glimpse of how the settlers once lived.
With the somewhat confusing and abrupt ending, I think Pa was a person of rather rash decisions. But without his seemingly spontaneousness, this book would never even have existed. [13 Apr 2018]
