Farmer Boy (Little House) [Paperback]

Laura Ingalls Wilder (Author), Garth Williams (Illustrator)

Book Description

Release date: April 8, 2008 | Age Range: 8 and up | Series: Little House

While Laura Ingalls grows up in a little house on the western prairie, Almanzo Wilder is living on a big farm in New York State. Here Almanzo and his brother and sisters help with the summer planting and fall harvest. In winter there is wood to be chopped and great slabs of ice to be cut from the river and stored. Time for fun comes when the jolly tin peddler visits, or best of all, when the fair comes to town.

This is Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved story of how her husband Almanzo grew up as a farmer boy far from the little house where Laura lived.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Growing up on his family’s farm in New York, Almanzo Wilder wishes for only one thing: his very own horse. But Father doesn’t yet trust him with such a big responsibility. Almanzo needs to prove himself to Father—but how?

Based on the real adventures of Almanzo Wilder, FARMER BOY is the second book in the award-winning Little House series. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in 1867 in the log cabin described in Little House in the Big Woods. She and her family traveled by covered wagon across the Midwest. Later, Laura and her husband, Almanzo Wilder, made their own covered-wagon trip with their daughter, Rose, to Mansfield, Missouri. There, believing in the importance of knowing where you began in order to appreciate how far you've come, Laura wrote about her childhood growing up on the American frontier. For millions of readers Laura lives on forever as the little pioneer girl in the beloved Little House books.

Garth Williams began his work on the pictures for the Little House books by meeting Laura Ingalls Wilder at her home in Missouri, and then he traveled to the sites of all the little houses. His charming art caused Laura to remark that she and her family "live again in these illustrations."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 8 and up
  
• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; 1ST edition (April 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0064400034
• ISBN-13: 978-0064400039
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 7.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (110 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,006 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #63 in Books > Children's Books > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > United States

More About the Author

Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in 1867 in the log cabin described in Little House in the Big Woods. As her classic Little House books tell us, she and her family traveled by covered wagon across the Midwest. She and her husband, Almanzo Wilder, made their own covered-wagon trip with their daughter, Rose, to Mansfield, Missouri. There Laura wrote her story in the Little House books, and lived until she was ninety years old. For millions of readers, however, she lives forever as the little pioneer girl in the beloved Little House books.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Goes to show we are not so superior April 16, 2002

By Kendrik Lau

Format:Paperback

"Famer Boy", the third book by Laura Ingalls Wilder in her "Little House" series, tells the story of her future husband, the uniquely named Almanzo Wilder. There, Almanzo lives on a farm with his parents and siblings, including Laura's future nemesis (and sister-in-law) Eliza Jane.

Like all the Little House books, it tells us in rich details how life is like just a couple of generations ago. Reading this book, and all the Little House books for that matter, made me realize that, for all the advanced technology we have today, we are not so superior to our forebearers.

Just reading the chapter on Almanzo's mother making candles made me realize that people back then are almost totally self-sufficient. They knows how to make the 101 little things that we take for granted today just by walking into a store.

All that aside, "Farmer Boy", like all the Little House books, is a timeless classic.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Life On A 19th Century Farm March 20, 2003

A Kid's Review

Format:Hardcover

Farmer Boy
By Laura Ingalls Wilder
First published in 1933

I read the book Farmer Boy. The main character is Almonzo Wilder. The book is about his farming family in the 19th century. I enjoyed the story because it has so much detail. It shows all of the chores that they did, and all of the food that they ate.
They had to get up at the crack of dawn to do their chores. Everyone in the family did different chores. Some of their chores were sheep shearing, cow milking, feeding chickens, training the calves to plow the field, filling the ice house and making all of their food and clothes.
My favorite chapter was titled County Fair. It was about when the Wilder family went to the fair, and tried to win all sorts of ribbons. They all worked very hard to get ready to go to the fair. They grew pumpkins and make spices. Almonzo's pumpkin won the blue ribbon.
They had everything at the fair. From horses to fair games. Almonzo's father would not let him play any of the fair games because he said "never bet money on another man's game''. Everyone had a great time at the fair.
I also liked when the mother and father went away for a week. The children were on their own. The kids did not do their chores. Instead, they made candy, cake and ice cream. Lucy the pig got some candy, and her mouth got stuck closed. They did their chores at the last minute before father and mother came home.
I would recommend Farmer Boy to a person who needed to do research on the 19th century, or anyone who wanted a book for pure enjoyment. I learned how hard life would be on a farm back in the 1800's, why children disliked school, and why they always were so well behaved. ...

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A gem August 11, 2002

By LN Phillips

Format:Paperback

If I could pick one book that every 7,8, or 9 year old MUST read, it would be this one. The story of Almanzo Wilder's life growing up on a farm in New York is totally compelling to children at this age. He's just a small boy, but he's strong, capable, and shoulders so much responsibility in the day-to-day on the farm. He works hard, and like all boys, is daydreamy and wistful to be off playing rather than hauling water or chopping wood, but there's such an intensity of life this brings him that the typical media and gizmo saturated child of today is genuinely envious of Almanzo and charmed to journey with him for the year retold in Farmer Boy.

He comes from a large family, his parents very loving yet very hardworking people who expect a lot of Almanzo. Nearly everything they eat, wear, and use is produced there on the farm, and it is one of the greatest pleasures of the book that the planting and weaving and washing and building and milking and all the other countless necessaries are vividly detailed and the reader can almost taste Almanzo's favorite apples and onions or smell the sweetly dusty air of the hay barn. I think every child who has read this book is eager to go out at once and grow a pumpkin just the way Almanzo does it--Almanzo has the secret for growing the biggest pumpkins in the county. And there's no greater inspiration than Almanzo to tempt kids into adventuring with some good wholesome food. The boy's mealtime accounts are absolutely mouthwatering. And working hard from sun up to sun down, that boy could eat!

But Almanzo is restless, and not so much to be free to play all day, but to be allowed to work with his father's prize horses. His father is known have the finest horses, and he's not about to let just anybody mess with them. Horses must be handled just right, otherwise you could easily ruin them, and Almanzo's not ready to be trusted with them. The 'coming of age' for Almanzo is one of the most touching and powerful in all of children's literature.

Please - if you've a child this age who hasn't yet read or heard Farmer Boy, don't let this book pass them by. By the end of the book you have come to know and love Almanzo so well, it's a sad good-bye indeed. Reader's won't meet him again until years later, as a young man who first meets Laura Ingalls in "By the Shores of Silver Lake".