Reading about Wisconsin

Little House in the Big Woods, of course; 1870s childhood in Pepin county.

Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright.

August Derleth wrote quite a few books about and set in Wisconsin.

The house with a clock in its walls is in New Zebedee, Wisconsin if I recall correctly.

John Bellairs' series generally seem to be set in that part of the country, though not necessarily Wisconsin in particular.

New Zebedee, Michigan, actually. And his Anthony Monday/Miss Eels series is set in Hoosac, Minnesota, loosely based on Winona, so right across in the border from Wisconsin. The upper midwest generally, though.

The Land Remembers:the story of a farm and its people by Ben Logan-the story of the author's childhood on a farm in western Wisconsin.

Whistling in the dark is lesley kagen's wonderful recent novel that takes place in '50s Milwaukee.

I work at a living history museum in Wisconsin, and started a book group among fellow interpreters back in 2007. For book group we read Wau-Bun by Juliette Kinzie. Amazing. It's the reminiscences of a woman who was the wife of an "Indian agent" in the Wisconsin-Illinois area before Wisconsin was even a territory. She talks about the voyageurs, the First American populations, housekeeping, etc.

She and her husband take a trip from the Green Bay area to visit relatives in Illinois at a time when roads/maps weren't available to take one easily from place to place. Legs of the journey were described according to who lived where in the wilderness and mistakes in following vague or ambiguous directions put you in real danger of starving to death in the middle of nowhere. Even if you didn't get lost, camping in the woods in the middle of winter in a wind/snow storm doesn't sound too safe.

Highly recommended.

Her mother-in-law was Eleanor Lytle, who was taken captive by the Seneca as a child and eventually released to her family. The story was fictionalized on The Shirley Temple Storybook as "The Indian Captive." Kinzie's granddaughter apparently founded the Girl Scouts.

I was thinking of reading fiction for the 50 states. (I read a lot of nonfiction so I am less interested in a nonfiction 50 state challenge.)

For Wisconsin, I was thinking of Mona Simpson's Off Keck Road. This is set in Green Bay or one of its suburbs. I went to college up there and don't recall ever seeing any fictional works set there before.

Loving Frank is a perfect one. I read it and then visited Frank Llyod Wright's home in Wisconsin. Here's a bunch of other options...

http://avidreader25.blogspot.com/2012/12/reading-states-wisconsin.html

Anyone who wants to read about Wisconsin and manages to omit August Derleth doesn't know Swiss from Limburger. THE SHADOW IN THE GLASS is good historical stuff, while EVENINGS IN SPRING is autobiographical. There are scads more, and WISCONSIN COUNTRY, while in the frm of a journal, reads better than most fiction. See my collection for further ideas. In a more modern vein, Jack Wennerstrom's BLACK COFFEE has significant -- and accurate -- depictions of Madison in recent decades. Finally, I can't help but put in a word for one of my personal saints, William Ellery Leonard, whose autobio THE LOCOMOTIVE-GOD is far more compelling than most fiction you'll ever read: very tough reading, but correspondingly rewarding. Peace to all, at holiday-time and always, -- Goddard