I expected this book to be slow and boring, but it was anything but. In fact, I think this might be tied for my favorite book in the series. Through blizzard after blizzard, the story is interesting and even exciting at times. I really liked the perspective of the Wilder brothers being thrown in from time to time and was fascinated to read about some of the things the Ingalls family had to improvise in order to have just enough food and heat. I was glad to have warm weather when I started listening to this book, though it did get cold again, which added to the frigid feeling the book gives.

As before, my enjoyment of the book was greatly enhanced by the audiobook narrator, Cherry Jones, who does a fantastic job, and being able to hear Pa’s fiddle, thanks to Paul Woodiel. If you’ve ever considered reading this series, or have already read it and have occasion to listen to the audiobooks, I say do it! ( )

After listening to the first book of the little house series I couldn't resist myself to finish the series as soon as possible so that I know what happened to Laura and his family. I didn't read any book before finishing this series. ( )

First sentence: The mowing machine's whirring sounded cheerfully from the old buffalo wallow south of the claim shanty, where bluestem grass stood thick and tall and Pa was cutting it for hay.

Premise/plot: The Ingalls family--and the whole community/territory--face a brutal, harsh, and terribly long winter full of blizzards.

This first chapter is called "Make Hay While the Sun Shines" and if it's found within a book called THE LONG WINTER, the reader knows what to expect even if the characters don't. The book opens with Ma and Pa and family getting ready for harvest and winter. Laura is helping out Pa. Mary and Carrie are helping out Ma. Laura is especially pleased that she's old enough (around 14 now) to help Pa and do outdoor chores.

The Ingalls family is living in their claim shanty. This would be the first fall/winter they've been there. And they know it will be tough, but when the first blizzard comes in October, they know that it wouldn't only be tough to survive but impossible to survive if they were to try to stay on their homestead. Fortunately, Pa owns property in town. A place where they can be nice and warm and cozy for the winter. Or so they think.

What no one could know is just how hard, how long, how tough this winter was going to be. Some folks are prepared--the Wilder boys for instance--but most are not. Most are relying on the train making regular stops in town. The trains are essential for stocking the stores of supplies. But when almost every day brings a blizzard--with clear days coming only one at a time and never on a predictable schedule--it soon becomes clear that the trains will not be saving the day. Not til spring. The town's survival, the Ingalls' family survival, is a big if at this point.

Cold. Hunger. Starvation. No supplies. What's not to love?

My thoughts: The Long Winter has always been one of my favorites of the Little House series. I'll admit it tends to make you cold and hungry. But that's not a bad thing, right? I didn't think so. Only two books can trick my mind and body--okay maybe three--into thinking it's cold and hungry. One, of course, is The Long Winter. The other two are by Susan Beth Pfeffer. I think one of the reasons I love The Long Winter is that it introduces Almanzo Wilder onto the scene. True, there was Farmer Boy, but not every reader takes the time to read Farmer Boy. I spent forty plus years avoiding it. I read it earlier this year for the first time. But this Almanzo is a man--a young man it's true--19 years of age. And he's acting "manly" alright when it's time to save the day. I love every scene Almanzo is in. Laura first meets him when she's lost and trying to find her Pa in the slough of hay. Here is the description: "His blue eyes twinkled down at her as if he had known her a long time." Anyway, I love this book.

Is it my favorite and best from the series? Probably. I do love These Happy Golden Years. So those two are my favorite and best. But I really LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this one so much. ( )

Book 6 in the Little House series is a horrifically grim story of six months of the family surviving a terrible winter. Constant blizzards, temperatures of minus forty*. The trains stop running as the cuttings fill with snow, and so they all know there is not enough food or coal to survive the winter, and they slowly eke out what they have. It is a book of literally months of twisting hay into ropes to burn it, and grinding grain painfully slowly by hand in a coffee mill. Everyone is slowly starving to death, and their life has shrunk to a tiny circle around the stove, and they are tired and depressed. We even see Ma and Pa snap at each other for once.

But there are glimmers of hope in it all. Pa finds Almanzo's hidden grain and saves them from starving. Almanzo makes a heroic ride through the blizzards with Cap to get more grain for the town. They do what they can to keep their spirits up, reciting famous speeches and singing hymns. And somehow they hold on until April and the trains come through again.

It is odd reading it as an adult. We know Laura and Almanzo are going to end up together, but I hadn't realised until this one how attractive actually having food - pancakes and salt pork! - can be in a man when all you have is raw wheat. And Almanzo definitely saves the day by going out through the blizzard to the settler and buying his grain for the town - but the settler is hording his grain for exactly the same reason Almanzo is, and Almanzo is happy to take the risk and the heroics, but not happy to just feed the whole town from his future and his best seed grain.

I can't not comment on the cover of this book. It is ridiculous. It feels like someone was told 'there is a little house book called the Long Winter, can you draw a cover?' and never actually read the book. Smiling children with ruddy cheeks throw snowballs at each other and sledge down a hill. This is a winter that leaves them gaunt and pinched and unable to think, a winter where even in the first blizzard they are nearly all frozen to death just trying to walk home from school. Snowballs and scarfs it is not.

* I tried to translate that from fahrenheit to celsius, to get a feel for how terrible it was, but actually, it's the cross over point, it's minus forty in both scales. Petrifying. ( )

I had an accident at Christmas and ended in the hospital for a week. I was pretty much shut in for a couple of weeks after I was moved home. Then, we had a blizzard, and I continued to be confined to the house. So, I started thinking about being confined to a house for endless hours in the winter, with snow outside. That made me think about this book for some reason. I'd read it back in about 5th grade, but decided to revisit it.

I wasn't long into the book when I realized a personal connection to the book. We're in South Dakota (then Dakota Territory) in 1880. Well, my grandmother was living in Dakota Territory in 1880. In the summer of 1881, my great grandparents decided they'd had enough of the damn snow and headed south, hoping to make it to Texas. They didn't make it that far, ending up only in central Kansas. I don't know what Kansas winters were like in 1880—1900, but when I lived in Kansas in 1971—3, we had flowers in February, so no long winters by then. But then, of course, climate change had already been warming things up (although most of us didn't know about climate change in 1971—3).

Anyway, the Ingalls family, Ma and Pa, with Laura, Mary, Carrie and baby Grace, were living in De Smet, Dakota, a bit northwest from where my great grandparents were settled in Lincoln County. The snow came early and often, and dragged on until spring. So, people got shut in, the trains couldn't come to bring provisions, and essentials, like food and fuel, became scarce. So, basically, this is the story of how people coped back in the day. I wonder if any of my forebears would have had similar stories to tell, had I the sense to ask back when they were around (which they were when I was in 5th grade, but aren't any longer). Of course, even quizzing my grandmother might not have helped much. She was only 2 during the winter of 1880. FWIW, I believe Laura Ingalls was 14.
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