Young Pioneers

I have long read about this book, which author Lane based on her mother's life stories. I think I had higher expectations, as I know Lane also influenced her mother's novelizations. This book directly riffs off On the Banks of Plum Creek with a tale of teenage newlyweds David and Molly who settle on the creek to land they see with great promise, only for the grasshoppers to descend. It is utterly soulless. The two leads read as archetypes that never come to life, and therefore, the emotional events describe lack feeling. They are poor, but more than that, they are profoundly foolish. David is a condescending jerk to his wife. The racism is pretty blatant, too, including two mentions of "the whitest man I know" being high praise.

The show more Little House books have their problems, too, but the actual writing still holds up quite well. show less

Very enjoyable! The tale of Molly and David is well written: insightful, exciting and tender. The writer, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder brings forth the determination of the pioneers in a story of loyalty and courage. This story is for a slightly more mature audience than the Little House series. It is a page-turner!

Rose Wilder Lane was a born pioneer woman. From early childhood she was groomed by her parents to have courage, resilience, and faith in order to survive anything the Midwest wilderness could throw at her. So it was easy for Lane to fictionalize her life in the character of Molly Purl. In Young Pioneers Molly becomes a wife to David at sixteen and a mother by seventeen on the long journey out west via the settler's trail. These are the days of trading goods for essentials and being resourceful while the transcontinental railroad was being built. Once in South Dakota, in quick succession, Molly learned about the harsh countryside, motherhood, and survival. Her first challenge was to give birth safely in their new sod shanty hundreds of show more miles from family, friends or medical care. With a newborn on her hip and her husband, David, away for months at a time looking for work, Molly encountered events that tested her courage, resilience, and faith. If it wasn't a plague of grasshoppers, it was blinding blizzards, or starving wolves. While she wasn't exactly alone on the prairie, she was without help once the grasshoppers forced her nearest neighbors to move back east. Her faith in her husband's return kept her going. show less

Very short. My edition 118 pp. Most events will be familiar to readers of Lane's mother's books, the Little House series. I can't recommend this to modern readers, though, as these naive children were destroying the prairie, enabling the devastation of the Native ways of life, and still thought themselves superior to immigrants who weren't as 'tough' as they. I hope they taught their children the value of frugality and the risk of debt, at least.

Rose Wilder Lane's 1932 novel, LET THE HURRICANE ROAR, is another book recovered from my late mother's stash stored in her closet. Mom's yellowing 1968 reprint of what was perhaps Lane's most popular and enduring book gave me some insight into the controversy over the authorship of the popular LITTLE HOUSE books, written by Lane's mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder. The first book in that series, LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS, was published about the same time as this one, and it is well known that Lane (already a prolific writer) was a close collaborator and editor of her mother's work. And what I saw here was a short (152 pages), adult novel about Lane's grandparents, Charles and Caroline Ingalls, that contained elements of that first show more Little House book, as well as ON THE BANKS OF PLUM CREEK, LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, and THE LONG WINTER. And yes, the style is very, VERY similar to that which made her mother's books so endearing and popular. I read the whole thing in just a few hours after dinner last night. A most enjoyable read. Very highly recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

Newlyweds Molly and David are only sixteen and eighteen years old when they pack up their wagon and head west across the plains in search of a new homestead. At first their new life is full of promise: The wheat is high, the dugout is warm and cozy, and a new baby is born to share in their happiness. Then disaster strikes, and David must go east for the winter to find work. Molly is left alone with the baby -- with nothing but her own courage to face the dangers of the harsh prairie winter.

There is a reason that Rose Wilder Lane, once a hugely famous journalist and novelist, is now largely remembered as an afterthought when her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder is mentioned. After reading claims, that Rose took a more than 'editorial' part in her mother's Little House series, and then finding out that this was book was somewhat modeled after her grandparents, Charles and Caroline Ingalls, I had to read it. Luckily, this one is still often reprinted. Here are my thoughts, however educated or not so, they may be: I think this book was tremendously interesting. I startled time and again reading things like "Wild Plum Creek", and about the grasshopper plagues, so familiar from Laura's "On the Banks of Plum Creek". I was suprised show more (in almost a good way) to read about some of the harsher things that Molly (as she is called in this version) had to do to survive. We definately wouldn't read about some those gory aspects in a Little House book. I actual could have really liked this book if it weren't for the way it was written. Rose's plot line was great (the ending was too abrupt though). But there was absolutely no personalizing her characters here at all. This read like history...this happened and this happened. Oh, and they were madly in love. I never felt like they were madly in love, except for the fact that Rose tells me so in the book once in awhile. In Laura's stories I feel the love between Pa and Ma, in his 'twinkling' eyes as he looks on her..as his first thoughts are usually things to do to make Ma happier wherever they settle. You can feel the love between parents and child(ren) in Laura's books as well. In the soft words, Pa and Ma speak to comfort the children. In the ways Pa and Ma think of their children as they try to soften the blows so frequently felt from the prairie.

There is none of that in Young Pioneers. This story is kind of bland. I think this should be an example pointing to the fact that Rose Wilder Lane perhaps (most certainly in fact) edited her mother's stories, and its never been a secret that she typed up Laura's handwritten manuscripts, but Rose Wilder Lane's writing style would have had to completely changed, to have had a serious authorship of the Little House books. show less