Donald Zochert

Having just finished the "Little House" series, I was looking for more Laura Ingalls Wilder. I've read a couple more contemporary biographies of her, but this is the one I come back to.

Admittedly, it glosses over a lot of the tough parts of Laura's life. The book makes use of Laura's diaries and journals to fill in some "Little House" gaps. But I think the reason I liked this book so much was that it feels like you're reading a "Little House" book. Donald Zochert has absolutely captured the essence of Laura within these pages.

Absolutely lovely, nostalgic reading.… (more)

I enjoyed learning more about Laura, and getting some details on the years and places missing from her books, but the writing wasn't very good. Also, for every piece of information he provided he left out more, especially details, and there was a lot of attributing feelings to characters without any acknowledgement whether there's evidence they actually felt that way, or he's imagining how they might have felt, and that really annoyed me. And given all the speculating on emotions, there was precious little speculation on facts, such as why baby boy Ingalls died.… (more)