Growing up, we got to open one gift each on Christmas Eve. Since each of the eight children gave each other something, we had gifts aplenty, but most of them were purchased at Pic 'n Save for under a dollar each. One gift always stood out under the tree - the gift from my Nana and Papa, which was almost always exactly what you asked them for. When I was in third grade, my fervent wish from them was for the complete Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Book gifts were a very deal for a little girl in a little town with a little library. I am pretty sure the library didn't even have the complete series at this point.
When my wish was granted, I couldn't sleep for excitement. Do you know that feeling - the delightful anticipation of finally having the book you have craved in your hands? I couldn't fight the feeling - I stayed up late into the night, spread out with the books on my bottom bunk, reading with aching eyes by flashlight.
These books were my first literature loves. I made bookmarks for each one. I thought about naming my first son Almanzo. I rejected the show because it wasn't faithful enough to the books.
At that ripe old age of eight, I was sad for Laura when I read the last book, The First Four Years, but felt a little disappointed. It wasn't exactly the fairy tale ending I had been hoping for (nor was Almanzo and Laura's courtship in These Happy Golden Years been dripping with modern day romance - oh, but I see the romance now!).
Reading this book as an adult, it is devastating and beautiful. It wasn't completed or published before Laura Ingalls Wilder's death (it is basically just a manuscript), and it concise and relatively emotionless, which in a way, makes it all the more poignant for me. Read it, as a mother, and it is a much different book than what an eight year old sees.
All of the books are very different to me as an adult, and I still love them.
I made the mistake this year of reading The Long Winter in succession with The Diary of Anne Frank this past February. Either of those books can have you alternately depressed and bursting with gratitude, but if you read them together in February, you won't want to leave your bed for a few days.
