Customer Reviews

Beyond the Heather Hills (Little House)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Warning - if you enjoyed the Martha series you will not ever see the ending - the series will not be finished according to the author herself. Why? Here's what she had to say on her website.

"The Time Has Come, the Walrus Said...
...to talk about Little House. Many of you have written to ask when my next Martha or Charlotte book will be published. Plans have been in flux for over a year now, but it's time to address your questions.
As I mentioned here recently, HarperCollins has launched new paperback editions of Laura's books which feature photographic covers and no longer contain the Garth Williams illustrations. (The Garth Williams art will remain in the hardcover editions and the colorized paperback editions.)
There are also going to be some changes in the other Little House series. The Martha, Charlotte, Caroline, and Rose books are being reissued in abridged editions. If you wish to read these books in their original, complete forms, you'll want to pick them up now before the unabridged editions go out of print. In at least one case ( On Top of Concord Hill, a Caroline book), the original is already out of print and is hard to find. (A reader recently told me copies are selling for hundreds of dollars on eBay.)
The abridged editions of my books and the Caroline and Rose books will be released with new covers this summer. They are significantly shorter; in some cases more than a hundred pages have been cut from the original edition.
In light of these changes, I have decided not to continue writing Martha and Charlotte books. Although it is indeed strange to know that I will not tell the rest of their stories (especially the story of Martha and Lew's romance, for which I have been sowing seeds since the first books), I do not think it is such a bad thing to end my part of the story with Beyond the Heather Hills and Across the Puddingstone Dam. In both of those books, I had the opportunity to say something about what is good and true and enduring in this world. Martha glimpsed it, looking into the eyes of her infant niece. Charlotte glimpsed it in the eyes of her mother, the grown-up Martha, who endured the worst kind of loss but, through faith, managed to keep hold of--and share--her joy.
It will be difficult to say goodbye to these girls who have been to me like my own children. I have loved watching them grow. I am deeply honored to have had the opportunity to, in the words of Gail Godwin, "respectfully imagine" them and chronicle their stories.
As I said, my decision to leave the series has been in the works for quite some time. Meanwhile, I've been working on new projects and am quite excited about my current novel, which is about neither a Scottish lass nor a New England villager, but something completely different. Stay tuned...

You Guys Are Great
Thank you so much for the outpouring of support and well wishes you have given in the comments from yesterday's post. You all are wonderful, and it's a blessing to have such passionate readers!
Some questions naturally arose in the comments, and I thought I'd tackle a few of them here. One important point is that HarperCollins doesn't think of the abridgements as dumbed-down. I do, and that I am strongly opposed to the dumbing-down of children's literature must be obvious from my decision to walk away from a series of books that has been my heart's work for the past decade. Although I came to the decision many months ago, the shock of it still takes my breath away sometimes. I love Martha and Charlotte, really love them. Like daughters. I have written certain scenes between Martha and Lew in my mind a hundred times. I'm sorry that I will not be sharing them with you, more sorry than I can express.
My decision to quit also had serious ramifications for my family. Had I continued with the series, we would still be living in Virginia; Scott would still be a work-at-home freelancer. So quitting was not a decision I made lightly; it had teeth.
And yet, if you read this blog then you know my stance on giving children the highest caliber of literature--not a slimmed-down version of what had been a carefully crafted novel. And so, when it became clear that my publishers were committed to their decision to abridge, I made what I believe to be the right decision--the only decision I could have made. Doing the right thing, I tell my children, is almost never the easy thing.
Certainly, this was a very hard thing to do.
But as I said, while I see the abridgement as dumbing-down, I must say in all fairness that I don't believe my publishers see it that way at all. They see this as an opportunity to bring the books to a younger audience, a way to keep the series in print. The decision was presented to me with excitement and enthusiasm; I really think they were surprised that I was dismayed by it.
I bear them no ill will; indeed, I shall be sorry not to be working with my wonderful HarperCollins editor anymore. She is a gem. I simply disagree, quite gravely, with this publishing decision. I do think children deserve the very best books we can give them. The books I wrote, the books that were carefully and lovingly edited by not one, but two top-notch editors (the great Alix Reid, who edited all eight of my novels, not to mention Newbery winner Ella Enchanted, has since left the publishing world for other pursuits), are, I truly believe, literature of high quality. And I don't think they are too hard, or too long, for young readers. I have heard from too many enthusiastic young readers to believe otherwise.
HarperCollins has made a business decision, and I disagree with it on principle, as an author, a reader, and a mother. I think chopping up the books is a mistake. But--and this is very important--publishers respond to trends in the marketplace. They make decisions based upon what sells. If you, as consumers (readers, parents, booklovers), want to influence publishing trends, you must do it (I am sorry to say) with your pocketbooks. The big publishing houses don't read our blogs; they don't know how we feel about literature versus twaddle. They only know what sells.
I see both sides of this coin, because I live on both sides. I'm a homeschooling mom with a modest household income, and frugality is a must. I'm also a writer whose livelihood depends on people spending money on books. Years ago, Scott and I made a conscious decision to strike a balance between these two competing identities: we resolved not to buy used if the book is still in print and the author is still alive. We buy new books in hardcover as often as possible, because that too sends a message to a publisher. And if we read a book at the library and truly love it, we try to buy a copy of it too.
(Now you know why I have cheap furniture and don't dress well. All the discretionary income goes to books.)
So. I'm deeply gratified that you are ordering copies of my unabridged novels while you can still get them. Deeply gratified--yesterday was a goosebumpy day as the comments and emails came pouring in. But if you really want to show your support for the principles on which I stand, go out and buy a new copy of The Penderwicks. In hardcover, if possible! "

Pretty sad. Don't say you weren't warned. You will want to know how Martha ends up and none of us will ever find out.

UPDATE: Still no hope, Melissa Wiley now says in her blog that even the dumbed down versions of the books have been discontinued. The people in the suits need to use common sense - why shorten an already short book? And copyright law means no one else is allowed to write the sequels, not even the author herself. Talk about 'dumbed' down.

Martha is Laura Ingalls Wilder's great-grandmother and the "Martha series" are the books about her life in Scotland. This one has her beginning to grow up and learn to be a young lady. This is a great series of books, as are the ones that cover her daughter (Charlotte) and granddaughter (Caroline, Laura's mother). Remember these are not written by Laura, so they're different from the original Little House books, but they are excellent little books showing the author's view of how the girls' lives went.

I enjoyed this book for the most part, although Grisie's father-in-law was such a jerk, I couldn't blame Grisie or Martha not liking him very well. I was glad Grisie's husband was a much nicer person and she was happy in her marriage! I laughed out loud when her husband stood up to his father and told him he was wrong, probably nobody had ever said such things to the old man before!

Melissa Wiley does an excellent job of describing the world from the point of view of a 10 year old facing life in Scotland several generations ago. A lively and entertaining story, very well done!

Absolutly charming! In this book Martha leaves Glencaraid valley on a visit to Perth where Grisie now lives. In this book Martha grows up some: she now sees life from a more serious perspective and realizes how much she really loves her family. A longing to see the world awakens in her, too. I was surprised to find a married Grisie and very dissapointed that the wedding was not described.And was Grisie pregnant from June to April ? Despite this incongruence and the lack of Grisie's romantic wedding description, the book is a good one, one of my favorites.

It used to be that people wanted to know "what happened next?" after they read a book. The "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder have started a new fad: we want to know what happened next AND what happened before. This book is part of the before; Martha is Laura's great grandmother who was born and raised in Scotland. These are great little books. They're not exactly written like the Little House books (there's only one Laura and she was born more than a hundred years ago)but they show life in the times they're written about and they are very enjoyable. If you like Little House, give these a try. This particular one is not the first in the "Martha" series, so be sure and start at the beginning.

My daughter has already read the Laure Ingle Wilder series and loved them so much she wanted to read more from the series. I encourage it not because it is good to read (though it is), but also because I love the fact that I don't have to worry about inappropriate material in these books. They were shipped fast and well packaged. It was a winner all around.

I thought that since this book was a part of the Little House Series it would have been of the same mold as the other books. However, as I read through this book before letting my daughter have it, I was appalled at the quantity of negative content in it. The entire setting is among people who are very much the opposite of the beloved characters in the rest of the books: they are rude, aggressive, and degrading toward children. There are several instances of gratuitous violence, graphic descriptions of the macabre, and even a character made out of a dead girl. The morbid tone throughout the book is disturbing. It is not in keeping with either the description of this book from the editor's reviews or with the nature of the entire series. Read it before you let your child read it!

Good book, I have many books of Little House on the Prairie, all about real life during the 1800s.

Martha leaves the valley for the first time. She continues to be her spunky self, yet discovers that she's not THE Laird's daughter only that she's A Laird's daughter. It makes her think about whether she's thought of herself as being better than others. In reading these Martha books, you witness a girl who although born into money wants to be looked upon and treated no better or no worse than any other child. She wants to give to, learn from, and mingle with servants, their families, and everyone else in the valley. In this particular book, she's goes to Perth to visit with her sister Grisie. While enjoying her visit with Grisie, she finds it a challenge to deal with the servants and Grisie's father-in-law who don't want her there. She wants to "behave" as she's been told to do, but she also wants them to know that she has her own personality and didn't come 'out of a cookie cutter.' This, as with all of the series, is a Great Story.