Laura Ingells is a young fifteteen year old that is quite the grown up. In this books, this is the year that she begins teaching school. Some of her students are even the same age as she is. She is away from home living with a family, just so she can teach school. She becomes very, very homesick and wants more then anything just to go home. Every Friday, no matter what the weather is like, a very kind man that has a crush on her named Almonzo comes to pick her up and take her to her home for the weekend. Laura just thinks he is being nice, and ignores everyone when they call him her beau. Finally at the end of the school year and Laura goes home, she realizes she has feelings for Almonzo, and loves him as he continues to pick her up and take her places. Almonzo asks Laura for her hand in marriage.

These books are the best. I remember reading these chapter books as a young child. I like how it talks about frontier days and Lauras struggles and new obstecals that she faces in her adult life.

One activity that you could do with children in your class would be invite someone older from your community and have them discuss what it was like back in the frontier days and what struggles and obstecals that they had to face. Have children dress up like women and men in the Pioneer Days, and maybe have food that was something they might of had in the pioneer days.

Read these as a child and loved them all. I had the 9 boxed set volume.

This book sees a 15-year-old Laura gaining more responsibility as a schoolteacher and preparing for her adult life. Her perspective is so fresh and innocent as she mixes the burdens and fears of growing up with her natural inclination to want to be a girl, have fun, and see mean old Nellie Oleson get her comeuppance. The love story between Laura and Almanzo in this book is simply beautiful; it is a tale of romance blossoming from mutual companionship and respect, not from superficial appearances and physical lust. This is a particularly moving story to read if you are at a time of new beginnings in life, such as after a graduation or before a wedding. Laura speaks honestly of the childish hopes and fears hidden inside the grown-ups we all are forced to become, in a way that illustrates magnificently how little the human condition has changed in spite of all else. ( )

These Happy Golden Years is an interesting change from even just the previous book in the series, though certainly very different from the first six. Laura is more adult in the stories and even takes on real work of her own - as a teacher. Her trials with trying to control a class of students, some of whom were older than her, and venturing into her first romance. It's interesting to read about how the courtship between Laura and Almanzo came about and how, despite Laura's attempts to keep Almanzo away. Most interesting is Laura's own form of 'feminism', which greatly varies from that of even twenty years later. Laura is against using the word 'obey' in her wedding vows, but not particularly in favor of votes for women. The stories are sweet and subtly romantic, lacking the overtures and public displays of affection of subsequent generations and all the sweeter for it. ( )

I am so enjoying my re-read of this series. In this volume, Ms Wilder covers the years in which she starts to teach school (at 15) until her marriage to Almanzo (at 18). Simply told, the stories of everyday life in town and in the country are wholesome and healthy. Each character, place or event is richly and honestly described and I find myself, once again, regretting that I am nearly at the end of the series. ( )