Melody Murray's Books

After a couple of days immersed in this series for the first time in I don't know how many years, I'm left bemused in a lot of ways.From a historical standpoint, there's little else out there for kids that is this rich and complete. The everyday details that make up a pioneer life are lovingly dwelt upon in a way that's just far enough removed that even the littlest reader doesn't panic. After all, if they all starved to death in The Long Winter, there wouldn't be a next book, would there? From a modern, perhaps revisionist standpoint, I was uncomfortable with the hate that boiled out of Ma every time she talked about Indians. I didn't like the way Pa treated his family, the way he got the most potatoes, the way he dragged them from pillar to post on a whim. So many of the things I didn't like were cultural and I feel as if I haven't any right to not like them, if that makes any sense. It's the way things were then, and ought to be presented as such. Those who don't remember their history and all that. I dig the messages about self-sufficiency, I found the descriptions of how to craft houses and furniture and food out of prairie sod and a few cottonwood trees to be fascinating and useful. But I don't much like the Ingalls family. I haven't a thing in common with any of them, I don't think. I'm walking away for the last time with some fond memories, and that's enough.