What kept me reading a book that I had such a major gripe with? I don’t really know. Maybe it’s because I dearly love visiting museums and historical sites, so McClure’s trek across the upper midwest was like a long roadtrip I got to vicariously experience. I also learned things I didn’t know or had forgotten. The biggest one of these is that another Little House on the Prairie movie, produced by Disney, was released in 2005. How did I miss this? (Oh, I remember. I had a newborn and a toddler at the end of 2005, and I hadn’t discovered the world of blogs!) Of course, I’m (almost) always a fan of the book over the movie, but the LHotP television series played a part in my childhood, and yes, I still like it. 
I’d like to track down the 2005 movie some day. The other thing that reading The Wilder Life helped me remember is just how complicated Rose Wilder Lane’s relationship with her parents was. I didn’t remember all that when I read and reviewed Let the Hurricane Roar, and while I really like to let works stand on their own merits, I can’t help but wonder if I would’ve felt the same way about it had I read The Wilder Life first.
The bottom line? This book seemed a little over-the-top for even me, a person who, for the love of Anne Shirley, traveled to Prince Edward Island (and on her honeymoon, no less). It felt to me like McClure was on some existential quest for the Ingalls family to answer all the big questions in her life, but she was still a bit snarky about it. If you like that kind of humor, you might like this book. Just don’t expect it to really give any definitive answers about, well, anything. (Riverhead Books, 2011)
Reviews elsewhere:
**Special thanks to Janet who passed her copy of the book along to me. Although my review of it is mixed, my esteem for Janet is not.
I read this book for Barbara’s LIW Challenge which ends today. Click over to read more reviews and thoughts on all things LIW. 
However, I wanted to note it here because it’s a great, simple (of course!), motivational book that I hope to come back to soon. I read Mindset for Moms quickly, but I’ve started back over, meditating on the points and trying to put some of them into practice. I highly recommend both of these books, as well as the blogs 
) finished up a couple of chapter books in the past month, too:
My girls were quite taken in by this story and usually begged for just one more chapter each time our read-aloud session came to an end. They also drew several comparisons between it and another Newbery winner, 
Another Medieval read-aloud we have shared in the past few weeks is Castle by David Macaulay. Winner of a 1978 Caldecott honor, Castle is the fictional tale of the building of a castle in Wales. More informational than plot-driven, this black-and-white picture book gives a detailed description of how the castle is built from below ground and up. Obviously, David Macaulay‘s line drawings are amazing. I honestly think this one might best be read individually so that the reader can sit and soak up the description, flip back to the glossary to learn the meaning of a technical term or two, and study the drawings. As it was we read it over several days, stopping when I felt my brain couldn’t take any more description (or the DLM demanded my attention, or both). I do not visualize things easily, so perhaps I am playing to my own weakness here; Louise actually recognized the word portcullis (and not just the word, but what it
Let the Hurricane Roar by Rose Wilder Lane is the story of a young couple, Charles and Caroline, as they struggle to survive their first year on the prairie. Very young and in love, they face whatever hardships come their way with determination, confidence in themselves and each other, and pride. Together they experience leaving their birth families (forever?), the birth of their first child, the making of their first home in a soddy, planning and dreaming about their future home together, a devastating loss when a horde of grasshoppers consumes their wheat crop, and finally, a period of separation when Charles must return east to look for work while Caroline remains behind to hold their claim. The thought running through my mind while reading this was that there is no way I could stand up to all the challenges that Caroline, a couple of decades 
It’s the story of a little girl named Ally who goes with her mom to Australia to visit. Ally is an artist, so she travels to Australia with a heart full of anticipation and a backpack full of art supplies. The first person she meets is an Aborigininal woman, Pauline, to whom she shows the picture she drew on the plane. This woman, an artist herself, becomes Ally’s friend and mentor, the person to whom Ally reports with her newest piece of art, created as she and her mom explore the continent. Pauline encourages Ally in her art, for each time Ally points out something a little off in her art, and Pauline helps her readjust her vision to see it as an opportunity or something that makes the art special or more accurate. Here’s a sampling of one of their conversations:
I’m linking this post up at 
