I always loved On the Banks of Plum Creek. Although I had weird youth sex fantasies about. Almanzo getting it on with Laura on the trips back from her teaching job in TLW.

I loved the Long Winter! And we don’t live so far away from some of the Laura sites so my kids were particularly slapped into the reality of their pampered lives when they had to think about kids their age surviving blizzards in a shack.

The part where blind Mary spent day after day twisting straw to burn for warmth - I’ll never forget that for some reason.

I seem to remember her being laced into the corset specially for the dance (I think that’s where she met Charles?), but I could be completely wrong ...

“But Almanzo only did it so he could keep the town people (aka Pa) away from his seed crop, which Pa found.”

I bet they did. They whole idea is freaking brilliant! Fresh wood chips wouldn't burn, they would smoke. And hickory flavored smoked meat? Ohhh man!

My grandfather said they really did smoke meat that way; he was born about ... 188o.

Cap and Almanzo’s wild, sexy bromance leading them to take off in their sleighs to get wheat for the town’s insane wheat LUST!

I loved that book. I might have to check it out of the library. My copy was lost to the ages.

I certainly agree there is a diversity problem in entertainment, but this might not be the vehicle to get het up over. It is a product of reality—at least mostly. Further, did you ever hear of Dr Tann? He was the doctor who saved the Ingallses when they came down with malaria on the prairie, and he was Black. While…

the long winter was my favorite as a kid. When I reread it to my 9 YO, I was like: they are starving! They are freezing! they don’t have enough protein! And Carrie was small and weak afterwards too.

Mmmmm. Cap Garland.

Ha ha me too!

#teamcap

And Pa hollowed out a hickory tree and smoked a deer he killed using the wood chips!

I’m here for the Cap Garland references.

Charles Ingalls served on school boards and town councils in pretty much every place they lived; he helped pay for the church bell that still survives (albeit not in the same church); he proved his claim in the Dakotas and settled down in a nice house in DeSmet. He and his wife managed to not only keep Laura in school…

The long winter was sooo cool!

Don’t do this to me! I love Pa

I’m glad she answered the question, because if she would have deflected, it would have inspired a bs artcle on Gawker prime, “Hillary Clinton laughs in the face of diversity”.