This will be a long weekend for us, with Monday off (even for me!) to honor Memorial Day. I hope to get some reading done, I am currently 1/3 of the way through The Shuttle and have begun Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature. I am enjoying both very much.
My daughter has expressed interest in two things that I love this week - embroidery and Laura Ingalls Wilder. I found her yesterday with a hair pin and a scarf and she told me she was knitting, like me. Well, I do not know how to knit, and I told her so, and she told me then that she was sewing. She told me she wanted to try 'my kind of sewing' and instead of putting her off as busy mothers sometimes do, I took her right upstairs and set her up with a needle and floss, and some fabric in a hoop. She really enjoyed making her little free form design and was thrilled to show Daddy last evening.
The day before, I had peeked in on her to find her in her child-sized reading chair looking for the illustrations in my new Laura Ingalls Wilder Full-Color Collector's Editions. She then proceeded to show me her favorite picture and the scariest one. These editions are so beautifully produced and bookcloseouts has a few of them at a low price. My old yellow boxed set, dogeared as they are, remain in my heart and in the closet for safekeeping. These new ones will go on the shelf.
This brings me to a little driving day trip we'll be taking this weekend to Pepin, Wisconsin, Wilder's birth place. We'll be making a few stops along the way, ending up in Pepin to visit the reconstructed log cabin and museum which houses a few family items.
This is not our first time to visit Wilder sites. My husband and I took a driving trip (alone!) 2 years ago to visit the site of the Ingalls dugout on Plum creek in southern Minnesota and on to De Smet, South Dakota. You can visit in De Smet: the house in which the Ingalls family lived described in By the Shores of Silver Lake, the house Pa built in town, The Loftus Store described in The Long Winter, and the Ingalls Homestead. We actually stayed in a bed and breakfast located in Banker Ruth's home who is mentioned in the books. The photograph above is the reconstructed home of the Ingalls on the site of the homestead. The house has been built according to records as to its location and dimensions. I hope someday to visit Laura and Almanzo's farm in Missouri.
Have a wonderful weekend!
9 comments:
I have that same boxed set! Although mine are blue, not yellow - I think that may be something to do with US vs. Canadian publishers though. I am going to have to check out the color collector's edition though.
How wonderful that you can share some of your loves with your daughter!
Lesley, don't you just love that boxed set? I wish I knew how many times I read mine as a young girl, they are so tattered. The book in the best condititon is Farmer Boy, unsurprisingly.
I love when they publish illustrated editions. They are so conducive to reading aloud. I will have to chaeck bookcloseouts out! The freight may be too much but I'll know which edition you re talking about and may be able to track it down elsewhere.
Happy travels!
How fun--I love trips like that! I also stitch, and I have tried to get my niece (who is now 8) to give it a try, but I can't seem to interest her--a pity!
I got the full color illustrated set as a combination birthday/Christmas present in 2006. They're gorgeous.
The only LIW home I've been to is in Mansfield, Missouri. Of course I'd love to do the whole tour.
Nutmeg, I love the illustrated editions as well for the very same reason. Recently I found myself looking for a copy of Peter Pan, one that had the most illustrations possible to hold my little one's attention. Bookcloseouts is great; I just keep placing orders with them...
Danielle, I do love these little trips; we used to take more of them before my daughter came along.
Somehow these is a lot more whining when she is along....
I don't know if you've tried this but I wonder if your neice might like stiching if the images were for kids? There is a great company called Klutz - they make an embroidery kit geared towards kids. Actually, they make a lot of great crafty and other sorts of 'kits' which make great gifts. Just an idea =)
Bybee, thanks for stopping by! They ARE gorgeous. It is really amazing to go to these places as an adult and remember those feelings I had as a child about LIW, and how much I wanted to visit her homes and 'connect' with her that way. I hope you get to visit more of the 'sites'. DeSmet has a lot of wonderful things to see if you ever get the chance.
I love these books. I actually just read Little House on the Prairie with my ESL student and she loved it too!
Kirsten, what a good idea to read them with an ESL student! Reading practice and American history at the same time =)
Hah! My Farmer Boy is in near pristine condition, too.
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