Customer Reviews

The First Four Years.

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a must for Laura diehards only. At any rate, perhaps those reading the stories to children younger than 8 or so should have second thoughts.

The book picks up just before the ending of "These Happy Golden Years," and describes Laura Ingalls' first four years married to her husband of over 60 years, Almanzo Wilder, who she here calls "Manly."

This is the only one of the original series which was not published during her lifetime, and not edited (some say co-written or ghost written) by her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, herself a best-selling author, and it shows.

The writing was not as bad as I was led to believe without Rose's hand, as the book was based on a diary Laura kept during her first married years. A close friend of Rose's, Roger Lea McBride, received this diary and saw to its publication after Rose's death. The book seems more like a story outline than a diary as such, and perhaps Laura intended it as a base for Rose to embellish, but this never happened.

I read this book in order with the others in the series with my 8-year-old daughter (we took an entire school year of evenings to finish). My daughter was annoyed by the fact that the descriptions of the events before Laura and Almanzo's wedding are not exactly like those in the earlier book, and she quickly picked up on the fact the book doesn't have the richness of description so important to enjoyment of the earlier works, especially for young girls.

Laura and Almanzo had a rough time of it those first four years, but this book does not have the tone of hopefulness and progress that illuminated the earlier works--in fact, Laura reveals a great deal of anger and bitterness that exists, but is veiled, in the Rose-edited stories.

Despite the tribulations, there are good times, too, and the young couple's pleasure with their daughter Rose shines through. Nevertheless, the hardships of the prairie became so oppressive that, by the end of the 3rd year, I almost dreaded reading the 4th, so I jokingly tried to end the series by saying "and then a giant grasshopper ate the entire crop and the house! The end!" My daughter didn't buy that, though, and the actual end was, if anything, less cheerful.

I consoled my daughter by pointing out that Laura, Almanzo and Rose all lived long full lives afterward, and it wasn't all so hard. But if I had had the choice, I would've just skipped this one.

For those of you used to the sentimental (but still lovely) "Little House" books, from "Little House in the Big Woods" to "These Happy, Golden Years," you will find "The First Four Years" to have quite a different feel and tone. Whereas Laura wrote the first 8 books with major input from her journalist daughter Rose Wilder Lane, Laura wrote "The First Three Years and a Year of Grace" as a personal journal of sorts, separate from her major works which were written and published from 1932-1946. "The First Four Years" is more somber, a little heavier, and weighed with Laura and Manley's disapppointment over personal tradgedies such as losing every crop for 4 years due to drought or hail, losing their home to a fire, going into heavy debt, contracting a major illness that left Manley with a stroke and a disability, and finally losing a child just a few days old. This book was published in the 1970s, after the death of both Laura and Rose. A must-read for "Little House" fans, with the understanding that The Wilders had a hard life that Laura did not want to address much in her books. - Lori M. Sampso

The Little House series is fantastic for readers of all ages. Laura Ingalls Wilder is a wonderful writer. It was her intention that the series end in the nice, neat little wrap-up she included in "These Happen Golden Years." However, this novel, "The First Four Years," was published after both Laura and her daughter Rose had died. And after reading the text, I can see why these pages were not really written to be published. Foremost, the book is too sad. None of the cheerful quips and passages that fill the other Little House books are included in this one. It is only a detailed account of all the incredible hardships the young couple faces. Second, the book contradicts parts of the other novels (in fact it starts with the same marriage proposal scene captured so sweetly in "Golden Years" only in this version, Laura initially says no because Almanzo is a farmer and she can't stand the idea of being a farmer's wife!) These are things to keep in mind before getting this book. Admittedly, it is interesting to know what happens next to Laura, but this book is not like the others. Be prepared.

I love this book.Evan though I an only 10 my opinion is this book really and truly touches my heart.It brings bag good and sad memories.It is the last of her time.She and her husband Manly and Rose(her daughter)go through many hardships of their day.I love The First Four Years.I wish in a way I lived back then.I hope this review has helped you.

"The First Four Years" has a distinctly different tone from the "Little House" books, which, despite the hardships of pioneer life, were suffused with the strength, comfort, and security of loving parents. Pa would play his fiddle, and Ma would sit sewing in the evenings, and all was well. This book describes the beginning years of Laura and Almanzo Wilder's life together, and it was a difficult period.

Both Laura and Almanzo suffer from diptheria, a very serious illness at the time. Laura later gave birth to the couple's second child, a son whose life was so brief that he apparently remained unnamed. After his death, during a period when Laura must have been distraught and inattentive (although this is not spelled out), there is a fire which destroys the house Almanzo has so lovingly and carefully built.

Their troubles and losses eventually lead to a re-location to the Ozarks in Arkansas, far from Ma and Pa and the family circle of sisters, although that move is outside the scope of the book.

"The First Four Years", despite lyrical passages, describes the end-of-innocence in Laura Wilder's life. It's a book for older children. Recommended.

I really agree with the other reviews. This book is different from the others.
There is an introduction in the beginning of the book (by the person who personally knew Rose Wilder Lane and wrote the Rose books)that tells us that this book is different from the first books. It's because Laura never intended to publish it. Or maybe she did, but didn't get to. But anyhow, she did not edit it to be published.
I read another review that said that the voice of the whole book is different. I totally agree with that statement! It's not like Laura!
I think it's a good idea to make this book part of the set, however, because people want to know what happens after Almanzo and Laura get married.
This is my advice: Read the other books first!
-Gracie G., age 11

I had read the Little House series a number of times over the years, but never picked up the First Four Years. Finally, as an adult - and even more a fan of Laura than I was young - I picked up this book to see what happened AFTER "happily ever after."

Well, I frankly wish I hadn't. Perhaps it's better to have the truth than to buy into the sugar-coating, but it truly disappointed me in a number of ways. Most other reviewers here have complained about the miserable story line - and it IS pretty depressing - but that's not even what bothered me the most. The Laura I had come to know through the first books was a good-hearted person who loved her family more than anything. It bothered me terribly that they were hardly mentioned (some of them, not at all!) throughout the entire book. The names permeating the book are mainly her own, Rose's and "Manly's."

... and she's not even all that cuddly in regards to her husband. As others have pointed out, she intially refused to marry him because he was "just a farmer." Ouch. Did she hate her childhood that much? The Laura in this book does indeed come off as a cold and somewhat naggy woman, nothing like the sassy, charming, good-hearted Laura of old. And not only does she seem to forsake her family of origin - the main characters in all of her other books! - but she destroys secondary characters that I used to like. I'll never be able to read about Mr. and Mrs. Boast again without thinking that they're a little bit icky. Which really stinks. At least Mr. Edwards didn't show up and molest Rose or anything.

Reading this really made me wonder about the degree to which Rose took a hand in the original Little House books. It's quite clear, reading this, that it is of a much lower quality and in a very different voice than the rest of the books. In defense of Laura, I can only posit that this is because these were actually notes and would have been seriously revised before being published as a "Little House" book. But with MacBride - the author of the Prologue and the one holding the "Little House" rights - having been so close to Rose, it might well be that he allowed the book to be released untouched on purpose, to show the world what the rest of the series would have been like stripped of his mentor's editing and re-writing touch-ups. To do her honor, so to speak, since she has claimed none on the rest of the series. Most telling is the contrast between Laura's version of her wedding in these notes and the version published in "Golden Years:" why did these need to be re-published? The story could have easily been begun where the last book left off. It almost seems as though it were left in as a study in contrast, meant to tip the readers off to something about the difference in writing styles and quality.

All-in-all, if you want to learn more about praries and how much things cost in the late 1800s, by all means - pick this up. If you want to preserve your memories of how much Laura loved her Pa and Ma and her sister Mary, and of what a fiesty but caring young lady she was, I recommend skipping this. Maybe preferring the fictionalized world to reality isn't very mature, but there it is.

I think I'm going to go watch a few episodes of the 70s TV series to cheer myself up, as long as I seem to enjoy fiction so much.

"The First Four Years" describes Laura and Almanzo Wilder's wedding and early years on a Dakota farm in the 1880s. Laura first tells Almanzo that she will never marry a farmer because the life is so hard and offers little financial security, so he makes a deal with her: They will try farming for three years and if it doesn't work out, he'll get a job in town. She agrees, and they begin their life together.

The manuscript for this book was found after Laura's death in 1957. It is very different from her previous Little House books in that there is neither dialogue nor emotion; rather, it is a dispassionate list of events. A lot happens to the Wilders during their first four years including the birth of a daughter, disastrous weather and constant debt, serious illness, and a death in the family. Yet never once does Laura describe any emotional reaction to these events; she faces both good and bad times with equal stoicism.

Although the book is short, it seemed to drag because it was so dry and repetitive; we get endless descriptions of prairie weather, the condition of their livestock, and their financial troubles, that would be of little interest to 9- and 10-year olds. I learned a lot about living conditions at the time, but found it lacked the charm and energy of earlier books.

What little girl didn't love Little House? OK, most of us--and if we loved it enough, we read them all, all of them exciting and heartwarming, until this one.

In The First Four Years, they don't sing together after the crop fails.

Reading the Little House books as a child, I loved the adventure and the warm family life, and didn't really notice that they were starving (Long Winter) or that large gaps occurred in the narrative whenever something really bad happened (By the Shores of Silver Lake). Reading them over as an adult, this was a really really depressing tale written by a person trying too hard to be cheerful. (Not that they don't have their place, for kids--my love of history is surely at least in part a result of loving the Little House books!)

I found The First Four Years positively refreshing in showing how frontier life was difficult and lonely. Reading biographical (not historical fiction) accounts of LIW's life shows The First Four Years to be a much more honestly written tale, and it still has some characteristic warmth and even humor. But boy was it hard to find some in that life.

It is really sad to know that after a life of not enough food or a consistent place to live, the author married a prosperous young man from a well-to-do family and lost everything in the next few years, so that she was worse off than ever. But that's the way life is for some people.


The one star rather than five is merely because the book was not fleshed out enough. I'm rather glad Rose didn't get her hands on this one, though, as I would not have liked to see the lighter side of diptheria.

Yes, this book is different from the rest of the books in the series.

No, that doesn't mean it's necessarily not a good book!

This book tells a lot about the kinds of things families went through to get started in the late 1800's. As a child, this was not one of my favorites in the series; as an adult, I am able to read a lot more into it.

I have to comment on the folks who stated that Rose "ghostwrote" Laura's books. I have no doubt that she had many suggestions, and did some editing, but--
Have you ever read any of Rose's books?
Not even close.
They are entertaining *stories,* but no more than that. The characters are not 'alive,' as they are in all the Little House books. (Even in this book, you get the feeling that the characters are real people you might meet.)
The styles are vastly different. Anyone who thinks that Rose is responsible for the LH books could never have read any that Rose actually wrote.
Rose may have helped out--may have helped out a lot!--but without Laura, she could never have duplicated this series of books.