Friday, June 21, 2019

Caroline, Little House Revisited by Sarah Miller: A Review by Warren Bull


Caroline, Little House Revisited by Sarah Miller: A Review by Warren Bull




Image from Frantzou Fleurie on Upslash

This novel was written with the full approval of the Little House Heritage Trust. It is a USA Today best-seller. As a child, I read all the Little House books and enjoyed the adventures of Laura and her family. I suppose I expected something nostalgic from this book, but I got much more. This would be an excellent historical novel even if there had been no Little House books.
Thinking back to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s work, I remember that Pa (Charles) was always shown as his daughter’s hero. He was physically strong and brave, ready with a cheerful fiddle, and a story. Ma (Caroline) was strong in other ways. She was presented as a model of correct behavior and persistence but she was not treated with the special love of a girl toward her father.
Miller presents a woman, pregnant and without friends and family close by who has to make do on her own on the frontier in 1870. While Charles is amazingly capable of building a log cabin or freeing a wagon sunk deeply in the mud, he is not mindful of the dangers of crossing a frozen lake while the ice cracks around the wheels of the wagon or fording a river strong enough to carry horses and wagon, not to mention the family riding inside.
Caroline has aches and fears of her own that she conceals from her husband and daughter. She is interesting as an adult outside the role of a mother. Charles, as a man, outside the role of father, is also given a more complete realization than in the Little House books.
The history is well researched and compelling. The attitudes and beliefs of the characters are timely and notably different from people of our time. 
This is a very successful re-imaging of well-known literary characters and I recommend it very highly.

4 comments:

  1. I've always been intrigued with the way the Little House series demonstrates the historic changes from the time when Laura and Mary share a tin cup in the largely isolated and self-sufficient House in the Big Woods to De Smet, where they are part of a community and have access to the manufactured goods available through a store.

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  2. I agree with Kathleen. As the Ingles moved around the Midwest, civilization kept catching up with them.

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  3. I never read the books, but I loved the series. Someday, I'll catch up with the literary Laura. I'm so glad some delved into Ma Ingles. I've always wondered how she coped with the prairie. Women pioneers were the unsung heros who have always fascinated me.

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  4. Good review, Warren. The book sounds quite interesting.

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