Father's Day, Little House books

I was pondering over which book to write about last night couldn’t decide which one to do… a horse story? The story I just finished? an adventure book? Then today while I was working with some photos to generate a truck themed Father’s Day card, the idea came to me.

As today is Father’s Day, I thought I should do something in honor of the occasion. I could do a book with a good father in it. Hmm… not many of those around, unless it’s in a book written by Lori Wick, Janette Oke, or a few others who write similar stuff. Then what about doing a book that my dad had read to me? But he read lots of books to my sister and me when we were little. I could do the most memorable book then…?

The most memorable book, or rather books, were the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. But practically everybody who I know has already read them repeatedly, and probably everybody else has at least heard about them if not read them once or twice…, and there about 1,400,000 results if one types in “Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House Series” in the Google Search-bar. So it would be a little redundant for me to peck out yet another review for an already well known and much reviewed book.

What I can do however, is write about my memories of it. My younger sister and I would get ready for bed, brush teeth, don night gowns and such, and then our dad would read to us. My mom had, and still has, a complete and beautiful set of hard-cover set of the Little House books, and my dad started with the first one and read a chapter or two each night to us until we finished the whole set. Sometimes we’d sit on my bed or my sister’s bed, but the time I remember most clearly was when we were sitting on the couch in the living-room.

That couch was perhaps the ugliest of the three couches we’ve owned. It was very blocky, and it was this neutral shade of gray checked with a darker gray, and my mom put a pretty afghan thing over it to make it more acceptable, but was still slightly uncomfortable. Anyway. We had a fabulous living-room in that house, though. It had a nice fireplace with a heater insert that my granddad made and it kept the house warm during the few times it got cold in Southern California.

I remember sitting on one side of my dad, with my sister on his other side, and we had gotten to the sixth book, The Long Winter. It was cozy in our house, so it must have been during the cooler part of the year, and the heater may have been blowing with its soothing purr. We had a Trader Joe’s grocery store not far away, and we’d gotten a tub of those animal-shaped ginger cookies. Lions and elephants, tigers, and all those, but I think they’ve been discontinued. I remember eating those cookies while my dad read to us, and we were at the chapter “Where There’s a Will”, where Pa and Laura were twisting hay into tight little sticks to burn so they wouldn’t freeze during the blizzard. That chapter had a picture, not every chapter did, and to this day, every time I see the picture of Pa and Laura twisting hay, I remember those ginger cookies and that couch and the heater in the living-room.

I really enjoyed that series. If someday I ever have a family and children, I hope that my children will get to have the stories read aloud to them.

“Bend your twist a little to loosen it,” said Pa. “Then slip the ends in between the kinks and let it twist itself back tight. That’s the way!”

Laura’s stick of hay was uneven and raggedy, not smooth and hard like Pa’s. But Pa told her that it was well done for the first one; she would do better next time.