Customer Reviews

The Way I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House

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I've always been a fan of the show "Little House On The Prairie" and grew up watching the show. A few months back, I read Melissa Gilbert's book "Prairie Tale." In Ms. Gilbert's book, she briefly speaks about Melissa Sue Anderson, who played her older sister Mary on "Little House." But the few things Ms. Gilbert did say about Ms. Anderson, while not critical, were also not very fair and I hoped that Ms. Anderson would write her own book to provide her point of view about the show, Michael Landon, and Melissa Gilbert. I must say that I was a bit disappointed in Ms. Anderson's book as it seemed to be more of a re-telling of each "Little House" episode that she had more involvement with than any new or different revelations about herself or the show. And, in many of the chapters of her book, Ms. Anderson has exerpts from "Little House" scripts or has part of the chapter itself written in this script format. Ms. Anderson has, since her 1990 marriage to Michael Sloan, opted to distance herself from show business in order to devote herself full time to raising their two children. So, she's quite understandably protective of her privacy and the privacy of her family. That protection of privacy is evident as she wrote her book because Ms. Anderson does not go into how, as a child, she became interested in acting, about meeting her husband, there's not even much about her interaction with other "Little House" cast members including Michael Landon. While I'm not a fan of 'tell-all books', this one tells little or nothing. Also, while I very much like Ms. Anderson, while I was reading her book, I was scratching my head about WHY she decided to write this book in the first place.

There are a few interesting tidbits here in Anderson's book but for the most part this 200 plus page tome devotes, on average, 80% of each chapter to long plot descriptions of various Little House episodes. This info can all be found online, for free. A book to glance through... nothing more.

Probably less memoir and more recollection of the author's take on being a cast member on Little House On The Prarie, Mellissa Sue Anderson relives filming the popular tv series and focuses on some of the most memorable episodes she participated in. More snippets of day to day life on a film set where days were often long and location shooting was dedicated to a six day week, she talks fondly of the people she met along the way and gives her reader the impression that, for the most part, life on the set was fairly upbeat and pleasant and really a family affair during the years the series filmed.
While very little negative comments were expressed, the reader will learn that at times Michael Landon was not quite as easy going and benign as he publicly seemed. He periodically had a cruel streak toward crew members and particularly delighted in mimicing a man who had a problem with stuttering. Anderson also expressed disappointment when she learned that Landon was divorcing his long-time wife Lynn and carrying on an affair with a former stand-in who had be elevated to a make-up artist with the reasoning that the promotion somehow made Landon's inamorata and future wife more acceptable to the pubic. Ma Ingalls, played by classically trained stage actress Karen Grassle, appears to have been one of the few actors on the set who bristled at the mundane lines she was expected to deliver as the series progressed.
Eventually, as Anderson's participation in the weekly series dwindled, she opted out of weekly appearances and made periodic guest spots in the last year or so of the series.
After the series ended, Anderson continued to work in the acting profession and even took to the stage. However, when she married she chose to devote herself to her husband and two children and presumably has not worked as an actress.
On a personal level, Anderson discussed dating Frank Sinatra Jr. for awhile. She was very complimentary toward Jr. and the rest of his family including Frank.
While this book did not have a lot of juicy tidbits of a scandalous or racy nature, it was interesting. Anderson appears to be one child actor who managed to survive her theatrical childhood unscathed and has lived to tell about it in a chatty, informative way. This was an interesting book, but one definitely devoid of fireworks.

For starters, I am a huge Little House fan. I love the good, the bad and everything in the middle! I read Melissa Gilbert's book and though I found it a bit self indulgent, at least she shared some fun Little House memories and trivia mixed with her own personal life.

Melissa Sue Anderson's book is a wreck! I can't believe someone published it (not to mention, edited it!). The entire book is a simple rehashing of her favorite episodes. Melissa--we have seen the show, that is why we are reading the book--we KNOW the storylines!

Not only does she tell us the plot of the episodes she is featured in, but she procedes to weave odd stories (which no one cares about) in a screen-play format! I'm not kidding

"Melissa takes control of the radio. Punches the FM button and turns the dial to 102.7.

MELISSA
There, KISS FM. Good.

RADIO ANNOUNCER
Hey, there. This is Rick Dees, and just in case you didn't know or couldn't guess...."

Then she writes out the lyrics to Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life". This is horrifying and not at all literary!

Basically, you learn that she did not like the wide-brimmed hat she had to wear and that she could have been a superstar had she not had children.

Thank goodness I saved CONFESSIONS OF A PRAIRIE B*ITCH until after I read The Way I See It.

PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS, if you write to me I will gladly send you my copy! Actually, I want to send it to Melissa Sue Anderson with some rewrites and an invoice for the crappy book. UGH!

Really Melissa Andersen? Really? I will never forget you as Mary Ingalls on Little House, and YES, some of your starring episodes were amoung the best in the series history. But did you have to write an entire book about how wonderful you were? If you mentioned your Emmy nod (and later an Emmy win) once in this book, you mentioned it fifty times.

I read this book after reading Alison Angrims wondefully funny bio "Tales of a Prairie Bit**" and Melissa Gilbert's entertaining "Prairie Tale". Both women mentioned that it was hard to get to know Melissa Sue Anderson and they implied that she was snooty. My mind sort of found that interesting but really didn't believe it one hundred percent until I rad "The Way I See It".

I hoped this book would be like the other two, with benind the scenes antedones about what it was like on the Little House set and maybe it would explain a little about Melissa Anderson as a young girl growing up on the set. Unfortunately this book is about 70% recaps of the tv episodes, sometimes word by word. As others have mentioned we probably wouldn't be reading this autobiography if we hadn't already seen these shows.

The book also disappoints as she doesn't really tell about her private life at all. There is nearly nothing mentioned about her parents or growing up. She mentions in great detail run ins she had with Frank Sinatra and Steven Speilberg. She name drops like mad but doesn't give us any kind of information that isn't general knowledge.

And yes, she repeats over and over how Little House top episodes always were the ones she was in. Only she was ever nominated from the Little House cast. She talks about 'how pretty' she was then or how 'cute' this picture of her is. I mean you really have to read it for yourself to believe this... She claims one minute to have loved Michael Landon and in the next she dogs him. That is about the only thing really to have an actual ring of truth to it...because I have heard time and again that he was almost like two different people.

Her relationships with ANYONE from the Little House cast aren't mentioned. Melissa Gilbert and her other co-stars are barely mentioned. She does seem to have some fond memories of a couple of boys she worked with and mentions some are still her friends today but we never get a feel for these relationships either. I get that she is a private person and I do really respect that. I also respect how much she seems to genuinely love her children...but she doesn't come across as much more than a snotty girl who became a stuck up woman.

I began reading this book with excitement. Having been a fan of the Little House On The Prairie Series (at least the first 4 seasons), I was especially fond of both the characters Laura and Mary as well as the actresses portraying them. Unfortunately, disappointment set in quickly. The book turned out to be a revisiting of several episodes filmed throughout the Little House years. By Chapter 3, it gets extremely frustrating to read, "Then, Ma said this..." or "Mary turns to Laura and says..." The book contains pages and pages of running through episode scripts including dialogue, who wrote and directed each episode and how grueling it was to film. Boring! I've seen the episodes - so many times, in fact, I knew the details that were revealed. I could have easily written this book. That being said, I believe I would have written it in better form. Some things are so poorly worded, you almost have to go back to re-read them to figure out what the author is trying to say. And, to see typos in a published work - slightly unforgiving in my book. The book goes from bad to worse although, I must admit, I continued to read in hopes it would, at some point, get better. Unfortunately, it never did. A fan of biographies, I usually find myself finishing many books in 1 or 2 sittings. This one took me several simply because it was far to boring to keep my attention. There were very few moments of revelation or details of Melissa, her homelife, or her relationships with the other members of the cast. The most the reader gets is "she was very nice" or "he really nailed the scene". You can tell she grew up with the principle of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." I was slightly amazed that she did reveal a little of Michael Landon's dirty laundry. I assumed it was because he is no longer living, and she steered clear of offending any of the living cast members. Sorry, Melissa. Yes, I was one of the many fans who sent you fan mail during the Little House years, but I am not a fan of this book. I look forward to seeing how Little House sister, Melissa Gilbert, fares in her autobiography. That book, I will begin today.

Recently, Melissa Gilbert published a tell-all biographyPrairie Tale: A Memoir that featured her memories of Little House, which was a highlight of the book. She then went on to tell all about her drug use, affairs, and personal axes to grind which ended up really ruining the book. Melissa Sue Anderson seems to have learned a bit of a lesson, and tries to focus her new book, "The Way I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House" on just her time with the television series, with little success.

It appears that twenty years later, it's almost impossible to dig up some substantive memories of working on a hallmark television show. You really can't blame them. Melissa was a child then, working and attending school, and probably the years have faded some memories that fans like myself would clamor to learn. For example, what was Mrs. Oleson really like? What did she think of her TV sister Half-Pint? Most of these go unanswered as Melissa writes very little to whet your whistle on. Sure, we are given little glimpses such as Victor French being nothing like Mr. Edwards, and Michael Landon was a control freak, and there was definite tension on the set between he and Karen Grassle.

What Melissa does do (as other reviewers have indicated) is recount past episode plots to fill in the gaps. Really. And I'm not talking about mere mentions, I'm talking pages and pages of episode recaps, with maybe a little commentary thrown in. What that caused me to do is flip pages incessantly, skimming to get to something good.

In Melissa Gilbert's book, she suggested that she didn't really like Melissa Sue Anderson much because she was snobbish. I believe Nellie Oleson herself has confirmed such news with more colorful language. But Melissa Sue Anderson takes the high road in the book and merely suggests some rivalry, but dishes no dirt. One can say it's admirable to take the high road, but to give no information at all is a waste of time.

I came to realize that we may not get the inside scoop we crave about this landmark series that formed so much of our Monday nights and childhood. But we have the DVD's, at least of the first four seasons (which were the best), and possibly the first part of Melissa Gilbert's book. In the meantime, I suggest you skip this book, or do what I did, check it out of your local library.

I found this Melissa Sue's book while browsing one of the local Barnes and Noble stores.
I am a long time Little House fan back in my home country (so please pardon my English errors) but it had been for a while I stopped following update of the casts.

Since I knew that Melissa Sue was the most reserved cast and it was difficult to catch up what she was up to for a long time, I was shocked to see her most recent photograph on the cover. She is absolutely gorgeous! That was enough excitement for me.

Holding my temptation to buy a copy immediately, I went home and searched Amazon.com to order it cheaper. To my surprise, there have already been two more "prairie" actress bios published! Excitedly I ordered three of them at once.

Being unable to decide which one to start, I skimmed through all three titles. I was not a big fan of Nellie but decided to start from her book because it contains more photos of the show. Another surprise to me, her book turned out to be hilarious! I could not stop turning pages. Not only it is a wonderful insight into the show but also was an emotional and brave story of a young girl in the crazy show biz world. I laughed, and cried.

Reading Alison's book, I understand Alison and Melissa G. are great friends on and off the set but not so with Melissa Sue. Being curious to know how Melissa Sue recounts her version of interaction with other casts, I then went to Melissa Sue's book. I found virtually nothing. Not only she did not mention much about Alison, but also not about other casts. That is fine with me. She is not an active actress but Melissa G.and Alison are. They still need to be sensational and marketable.

I think Melissa Sue might have a LOT to say about the show and cast, but she held them and did not accept the challenge, to protect her peace and privacy. I admire Alison for her honesty but also admire Melissa Sue for her courage to opt out.

However, I must admit that her book is boring like others say. Even the inserted pictures and acknowledgment are boring. I suspect Alison and Melissa G. have writing corroborators , if not ghostwriters, to some extent, but Melissa Sue might have written on her own. If not, the book would have been much more readable.

Finally I read Melissa G.'s. Her book was not so boring as Melissa Sue's, but not as good as Alison's. If you were a Melissa G.'s follower, most of her story are not new to you.

But for a Little-House- Nuts like me, it was really fun (if somewhat boring) to read all of them. It is a kind of reunion in a peculiar way. I hope this prairie memoir thing stops here, since I would not be able to resist buying if Karen Grassle or other casts publish theirs. I will go broke!

Lesson learned for me: listen to the reviews! This book is horrible. Maybe because I read it last, after Melissa Gilberts and Allison Arngrims, both great, especially Arngrims, who is a truly talented, humorous writer. Melissa Gilberts is a hollywood tell-all, man, that girl knew, or came into contact with EVERYone! interesting! Confessions of a Prairie Bitch is mostly about Nellie's Little House experience, and a lot about Allisons personal life, extremely entertaining. Melissa Sue Andersons is truly like the reviews say, she LITERALLY goes and recites the episodes, it reads like, "Then I say, then Laura says....." that was where I said, she can't be serious!!! Is this the book?? She comes across, banal, cold, robotic and completely without wit. I was embarrassed for her the way she kept mentioning how great she was, how pretty everyone thought she was. Jeez!! I honestly think this was one of the worst, if not the worst book I have ever read. Don't do it!!

I am sorry but this was terrible. 95% of the book is her reciting what happened in all the shows. WORD FOR WORD. I have seen every show why would I want to read it. It is all copywrite with a little notes here and there. I was very disappointed. It was really boring. I was hoping to get more on the back scenes and what it was like. If i could return the book I would. It isn't worth the money. Sorry Melissa Sue Anderson I really believe this book should have been put together better.