Old Town in the Green Groves: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Lost Little House Years [Hardcover]

Cynthia Rylant (Author), Jim LaMarche (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up | Series: Little House

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote nine Little House books about her childhood growing upon the western frontier. But there were two years she didn't write about, two missing years that take place between On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake.

Now, Newbery Award-winning author Cynthia Rylant has imagined what those lost Little House years were like, based on Laura's unpublished memoirs. The result is the first Little House novel about Laura as a young girl in almost 60 years, and a wonderful addition to the classic series.

When the grasshopper plague returns to Plum Creek, Pa knows all the crops will be destroyed again. He decides to take the family east to Burr Oak, Iowa, where he has found work running a hotel. But Laura tongs to return to the tall-grass prairie and the unsettled west, to a place where Pa can play his fiddle in the open air and where she can feel free again.

Old Town in the Green Groves continues the story about Laura Ingalls -- a story whose wonder and adventure have delighted millions of readers.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-6-It is somewhat startling that Rylant should choose to cover a period of time about which Wilder herself chose not to write. Here the Ingalls leave their farm on the banks of Plum Creek to spend several years in Burr Oak, IA. Pa's determination is tested, but his pioneering spirit and hard work coupled with Ma's essential support and unending labor see them through. The death of a new baby who arrives at the opening of the novel is clearly painful to all; a birth near its closure is a reminder that life goes on. After several different homes in Iowa, the family returns to Plum Creek, where Wilder continued the story in By the Shores of Silver Lake (HarperCollins, 1953). LaMarche's illustrations wisely focus more on things than on people, which helps to reduce their incongruity with Garth Williams's drawings. The characters are somewhat different here. Laura seems less of a tomboy and enjoys tea parties and talking about the dolls and rich furnishings of their small-town neighbors. Some of the events match quite closely with known biographical details, while others are definitely fictionalized. Rylant enjoys detailed descriptions of the flora and fauna much more than the original narrator. These small differences will not matter a whit to those insatiable for further Laura stories. For purists who want the classics left alone and are sure Wilder is rolling in her grave, the whole idea is strictly sacrilege. For most everyone else, this is neither a necessary nor valuable addition.
Carol A. Edwards, Sonoma County Library, Santa Rosa, CA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 3-7. When Wilder wrote the original Little House stories, she left a gap of two years between On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake. Now Rylant has crafted a story, based on Wilder's unpublished notes, filling in the story. She tells of the Ingalls' wintering in Walnut Grove, where Laura's brother Freddie was born; Ma's suffering a serious illness; Freddie's dying; and the family's backtracking to Burr Oak, Iowa, where Pa and Ma ran a hotel and Grace was born. Rylant does an excellent job capturing Wilder's cadence and tone as well as imitating the characters' conversational styles. Missing, of course, are the delightful human-interest vignettes that Wilder always included to make the characters really come alive. Rylant also omits the murky details surrounding the family's sudden departure from Burr Oak (probably a wise choice considering this young audience). Despite these small flaws, this is a well-written book that will answer many of the questions frequently asked by series fans. Illustrated with small charcoal drawings. Kay Weisman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (April 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060295619
• ISBN-13: 978-0060295615
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,716,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Cynthia Rylant is the author of numerous distinguished novels and picture books for young readers. In addition to her beginning-reader series: Henry and Mudge, Poppleton, and Mr. Putter and Tabby, as well as her Cobble Street Cousins early-chapter series, she is also the author of the Newbery Medal-winning Missing May, the Newbery Honor Book A Fine White Dust, and two Caldecott Honor-winning picture books.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bittersweet - Leave well enough alone!, July 31, 2003

By 

T. Dempsey "Page-turner" (United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Old Town in the Green Groves: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Lost Little House Years (Hardcover)

I enjoyed reading this book, but at the same time, felt sadness. Cynthia Rylant did a good job of capturing some of the spirit from the other books, but I feel that the reason Laura herself didn't write about this time in her life is because she wanted to forget it. The family experienced so much sadness during this time and maybe she didn't want others to know about it. While reading it, I just kept thinking about how Laura would feel if she knew people were reading this.
I first received the complete set of Little House books when I was 9. I'm 30 now & still read the complete set every fall. I won't put this book with my precious & well-worn set because I will never consider it a real part of the series.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is NOT a Little House book!, December 19, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Old Town in the Green Groves: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Lost Little House Years (Hardcover)

Let me begin by saying that Cynthia Rylant is an accomplished author, and has written several books that I've read and enjoyed.

This is not one of them.

If you are at all familiar with the Little House books, the style of this book will appear glaringly unsimilar. The original series had the unique feature of progressing in reading/comprehension difficulty as the age of the characters progressed--thus, Little House in the Big Woods was the 'easiest' read, and "These Happy Golden Years" was the most advanced. Using this criteria, "Green Groves" does not fit into the space between "On the Banks of Plum Creek" and "By the Shores of Silver Lake." It reads too simply.

Additionally, the conversations between the characters will make you squirm; Laura's books may be wholesome, but they never were saccharine! Rylant has them speaking like "The Beverly Hillbillies," when they aren't being 'cutesy-wootsey;' this is certainly not a feature of any of the original books! I think that the stilted dialog was one of the major disappointments of this book.

Even if the dialog had been true to the originals, however, it is still disconcerting to have someone step forward and claim to know the intimate family details (right down to the dinner conversation!) of a family not her own, and not her contemporaries. As a Laura Ingalls Wilder program presenter, I am fairly well-informed about her life and times, and I've read the original books more times than I can count. (I've worn out three sets...) Still, I would not profess to be able to step into Laura's shoes, and write about her life as if I had been there.

I think that the most upsetting thing of all is that the original, wonderful books are being buried in a sea of look-alike (as far as the covers go!), wannabe, spin-off books, and that today's children might miss the excitement of knowing Laura and her family. What a loss.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed Feelings, August 4, 2004

By 

Kathryn (Ohio, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Old Town in the Green Groves : Laura Ingalls Wilder's Lost Little House Years (Paperback)

I love the original Little House books, so when I saw this novel claiming to detail "the missing years" I thought I'd give it a try. It was interesting to read someones view of what may have happened during those years between "On the Banks of Plum Creek" and "By the Shores of Silver Lake." But that's just it-what MAY have happened. The main structure of the story was true, but the events were fictionalized or made up.

Also-if Laura didn't write about these years herself, there must have been a reason. It almost seems an invasion of privacy to guess about what happened to make her not want to write about the time. If she had wanted us to know, she would have told us.

I did enjoy this book. But if I ever buy it, I won't put it on my shelf between "On the Banks of Plum Creek" and "By the Shores of Silver Lake." I don't consider it part of the "Laura Years" and I don't think it should be listed as so on the back of the book.