Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I fell in love with the Little House books back when I did Little House in the Big Woods in grade three for novel study. Since then I got my parents to purchase the rest of the series and I read them over and over again. I was a bit suspicious of this book because of the whole filling the gap idea. Like one reviewer said, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake so that it wasn't obvious there was a hole. But now that they've brought in Old Town in the Green Groves... Anyways, onto the actual book itself.

Cynthia Rylant is a great author but she fails misearably here. I have a feeling she did this for the sake of money, not because she wanted to write it. This book does not have the vivid descriptions or magical feel to it like the originals. The writing was way too simplistic and the dialogue sounds cut up from the originals and pasted together. Somehow a modern feel leaks into it too... Oh, and by the way I forgot to mention that even though I managed to get to the end I was still left wondering about what happened. So, I had to go to the library and take out a biography on Laura Ingalls Wilder instead.

I think the publishers (whoever they are) should have just left the Little House Books by themselves. They stood out on their own just fine. Also, I think it was unfair to add this book in because Laura didn't want to write about those years, considering how depressing they were. They should've respected her wishes instead but it's too late now...

I liked this book ok, but like other reviewers, I missed the detail of Laura's original books. I kept expecting to get to the part where Mary loses her sight. If I recall correctly, at the beginning of Silver Lake, she tells us that Mary had gone blind after suffering from scarlet fever.
I also thought it was odd that the girls never noticed that Ma was pregnant! I didn't notice the bangs in the illustrations till I read the reviews here, but they are absolutely right!
I can understand why Laura left out these years in her books. With little Freddie dying, Mary losing her sight, and moving to places she was not enthused about, she likely did not care to share these stories.

This book is written well, if a bit too simply. While this book has value as a fill-in, I was galled by the grossly inaccurate illustrations. Clearly illustrator Jim LaMarche failed to study Wilder's books beforehand. In every drawing, the girls have bangs, even though Laura herself did not cut her hair into bangs until much later in "These Happy Golden Years." And where are the ubiquitous sunbonnets that that were de rigueur for proper young ladies in that era? The girl on the dustjacket front looks smarmy, self-satisfied, and not a bit like the real Laura - an odd, inappropriate illustration for such a tragic story. I'm adding the book to my collection, but I will toss the dustjacket, and I wish I could delete the inside pictures.

This book is supposed to fill in the "lost" years that Laura Ingalls Wilder chose not to write about, when her family gave up their failing farm at Plum Creek and moved to work in a hotel in Iowa. The author did a good job of glossing over the sad things that happened in this time (such as the death of her baby brother), but you won't find any of Laura's vivid descriptions and enchanting storytelling here, as much of the writing is flat, undetailed, and repetitive. The book also ends misleadingly, without mentioning the family's return to Plum Creek, where "By the Shores of Silver Lake" picks up, so if you're following the series, you're still left with a gap. All in all, the writing really doesn't do justice to this classic series, and I'm surprised the publisher didn't make a better effort. (If you want to find out about what really happened in Laura's life, "Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography" is very well-done.)

This book,written by Cynthia Rylant,is a book about the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder that Laura did not write about.It`s really good,with the touch of the other Little House books!It takes place between On The Banks Of Plum Creek and By The Shores Of Silver Lake!Definately reccomended for any Laura Ingalls Wilder fan!

I will admit to the you-can't-touch-the-Little-House-family fans that I enjoy the books written about Laura's family. but I set the Laura years on a you-can-NOT-mess-with pedestal. So when I heard that Cynthia Rylant wrote a book about the "missing" Little House years, I wanted to see if it was worthy to be called a Laura book at all.

And you know what? It wasn't. I have read books that have sequels written by different authors than the original, and found that the ones who did the research and effort did a good job. Not as good as the first book, but it still works. But I wonder if Cynthia Rylant even TRIED to write somewhat like Laura.

Besides the fact that I would hope it would sound like the original books, I noticed some changes. Pa talks funny, calling his daughters pet names more than the usual flutterbudget or half-pint. And Laura's mother seems to be even more prim that she was before. (And how would an eight or nine year old know what rambuncitious means? I know kids older than that who don't know that was a word). Also, she seems to change the feelings of people. Laura was reported to be HAPPY that Mary was good, when it was said sometimes she wanted to slap her sister for being so well-behaved. And it skipped from place to place and introduced charecters who were barely seen.

And don't even get me started on the pictures! Jim LaMarche grasped the whispy look of Garth Willams, but the drawings were so far from the truth! He gave Laura bangs! And they weren't the light, curled, dainty ones that Laura had. Oh, no, these were full on, heavy, thick bangs. It looks NOTHING like Laura! I hope they re-illustrate the books.

Personally, I reaaly think this book has a lot of flaws and shouldn't be counted as a true Laura year book. Maybe it should be an companion to the books like On the Way Home. I have lost a lot of respect for Cynthia Rylant since she wrote this.

You just DON"T do things like this!

This a good, solid, account of Laura Ingalls' life between On the Banks of Plum Creek and On the Shores of Silver Lake. Between these two stories is an actual gap of two years. Laura never wrote about this time but did leave several pages of unpublished memoirs behind regarding it.
During this two years, the reader learns about the birth of Freddie, Ma's serious illness, Freddie's death, a move to Burr Oak to run one of the hotels in town, and then the various moves made within the Burr Oak area.
From reading this account of Laura's "missing years," the reader comes to understand why Laura didn't write about this time. Laura inherited wanderlust from Pa, and this story isn't about the adventures of traveling west that Laura found so joyous. While a very important time in the Ingalls' family history, it isn't a particularly happy time.
Whether you are an adult who grew up reading the Little House Books, or you are introducing them to your child for the first time, this story is a welcome addition to the series. Although not written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the story, written by Cynthia Rylant, does capture the feeling of the original series, and gives all Laura fans an additional peek into her fascinating pioneer life.