Prairie Tale: A Memoir (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A fascinatiating, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting tale of self-discovery from the beloved actress who earned a permanent place in the hearts of millions when she was just a child.

To fans of the hugely successful television series Little House on the Prairie, Melissa Gilbert grew up in a fantasy world with a larger-than-life father, friends and family she could count on, and plenty of animals to play with. Children across the country dreamed of the Ingalls' idyllic life -- and so did Melissa.

She was a natural on camera, but behind the scenes, life was more complicated. Adopted as a baby into a legendary show business family, Melissa wrestled with questions about her identity and struggled to maintain an image of perfection her mother created and enforced. Only after years of substance abuse, dysfunctional relationships, and made-for-television movies did she begin to figure out who she really was.

With candor and humor, the cherished actress traces her complicated journey from buck-toothed Laura "Half-pint" Ingalls to Hollywood starlet, wife, and mother. She partied with the Brat Pack, dated heartthrobs like Rob Lowe and bad boys like Billy Idol, and began a self-destructive pattern of addiction and codependence. Left in debt after her first marriage, and struggling to create some sense of stability, she eventually realized that her career on television had earned her popularity, admiration, and love from everyone but herself.

Through hard work, tenacity, sobriety, and the blessings of a solid marriage, Melissa has accepted her many different identities and learned to laugh, cry, and forgive in new ways. Women everywhere may have idolized her charming life on Little House on the Prairie, but Melissa's own unexpectedly honest, imperfect, and down-to-earth story is an inspiration.

About the Author

Melissa Gilbert starred as Laura Ingalls on the hit television show Little House on the Prairie. Post-Little House, Gilbert appeared in numerous Lifetime movies and recently served as president of the Screen Actors Guild for two terms. She currently serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Children's Hospice and and Palliative Care Coalition, where she works directly with chronically and terminally ill children to provide them with care and comfort. She resides in Los Angeles with her husband, Bruce Boxleitner.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment; First Edition edition (June 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416599142
• ISBN-13: 978-1416599142
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,363 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Say it isn't so Half-Pint!, June 21, 2009

By	Sherlock Sherman (Los Angeles USA) - See all my reviews

Melissa Gilbert has as many flaws as the rest of us and if you don't mind having her burst that bubble you'll get a good chuckle as she shares anecdotes involving the unbelievable behavior of some of Hollywood's familiar faces.

Melissa keeps her bumps in the road interesting and never once appears to be reaching out for pity as a means of distracting us from the unpleasantness in her life.

I would have preferred to keep her up on a pedestal but despite the revelations regarding her less than perfect behavior, the book kept my attention and moved along at a good pace. I especially enjoyed the snippy tidbits regarding Kent McCord, Valerie Harper and Sally Kirkland. I'll never be able to think of them the same again. Someone should write a comedy about the SAG meetings!

Lets hope the publicity from the book will bring Melissa back to prime time, or at least another TV movie.

This was a good summer read; you won't regret the purchase.

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't Put It Down!!!! GREAT Memoir for ANYONE from the '70s, June 15, 2009

By	Blondzilla8 "Blondzilla8" (SoCal, CA) - See all my reviews

What can I say? I'm a SUCKER for dishy bios on the stars I grew up admiring and wanting to be. My boyfriend saw nothing but my face buried in this great book over one solid weekend.

Melissa Gilbert was one of the truly admirable teen idols back in the '70s and an extraordinarily talented actor to boot. Her story, much of what I already knew from keeping up with her Tiger Beat and People magazine interviews through the years, is incredible and this book just reminds us that what we may perceive as the audience members of someone else's supposed "perfect" life, may very well be quite the opposite.

Gilbert is honest, irreverent, hilariously funny, and even when she's "dropping names" it doesn't feel like anything except that she is grateful for knowing and working with the legends she refers to.

Michael Landon, Rob Lowe, Patty Duke.....all very important people to Melissa - the people who truly shaped her life respectively. And so many more......but it never feels pretentious or "I bet you wish you were me".....she is just 10000% REAL when revealing the ups and downs of her colorful life. And what a life. I am so glad she had the courage and moxy to put pen to paper and share it with the people who've followed her since she was the adorable little girl on "Little House."

I also hope that young, ambitious and up and coming actors read this book because Gilbert is also the picture of dedication and professionalism sans the ego that seems to follow this generation of performers.

Melissa Gilbert is an inspiration. Her life is a wonderful lesson in perseverance, loyalty, and not taking "no" for an answer when you know deep in your heart that there's a better one.

A must read!!!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars They do grow up, don't they?, August 1, 2009

By	James Hiller (Beaverton, OR) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I guess the very nature of the genre of "celebrity memoir" speaks of shock and name dropping, and not of great literature. One picks up the book to peek at the life of perhaps a beloved television celebrity and learns about the decisions, which seem to be mostly bad, they made in their lives, painting them, in the end, as survivor and victor. I had good hopes about Melissa Gilbert's new memoir, "Prairie Tale", after reading the first couple of chapters, that maybe she had gone out a little above this fray (like the awful mess of Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice and tried to create a book with a higher calling. Sadly, the Jeopardy buzzer sounds, and quickly, it becomes a name dropping, occasionally vengeance seeking book, somehow, seeming beneath her.

It all starts out well. As Gilbert herself writes, she begins in her life and a career as the world's biggest geek. Raised by an overprotective mother (who defies the "stage mother" persona and who probably should have continued in that role for a few more years) and a distant father, Melissa quickly lands in the spotlight, wondering about her adoption, and an iconic role as "Half-Pint" in the Little House on the Prairie series. She describes herself, aptly, as a china doll, unable to deal with emotions, hiding, putting on that acting fact whenever needed to get through whatever needed. For those of us seeking scoop on Little House, Melissa gives, but not a lot, and perhaps, nothing I hadn't heard before. It was here she meets the man who would become her substitute father: Michael Landon.

Gilbert's examination of Landon is personal and not yet thorough. As she didn't really know him in the show (he seemed to keep a professional distance from people, although, she did feel close to him), we are kept from him as well. When the show ends, so does Mike's appearance in the memoir, until his sickness, and you realize then how much he was missed.

As she grows up, Gilbert's booze becomes the usual story of Hollywood excess; drug use, alcoholism, and various encounters of sleeping around to seek retribution on a loved one. Haven't we all read this before? I know Gilbert is not an author, but as we read about spats with Rob Lowe or her present husband Bruce Boxleitner, it seems like a mere recounting of events without much impact. It's almost as if the china doll, whom Gilbert painfully sets up in her childhood, takes over the book and writes it. Never realizing how vicious the Screen Actors Guild can be, Gilbert's recounting of her time as union president strikes at several celebs without holding back, and I can't help but feel a slight sense of revenge from her. Those seeking names of celebs will not be disappointed; those hoping to know Gilbert more might be.

I can't ding Gilbert too much for this, like I said, she's not an author. It must be challenging to be in the American psyche forever as this little pioneer girl with braids that entered our hearts. The Melissa Gilbert who wrote this book is a woman, that in the end, is a survivor, only, a bunch of names and random events stand in the way of us truly knowing this remarkable woman.