The Little House in the Highlands

Melissa Wiley really showcases the research she's done with these prequels to the Little House on the Prairie series. The tone is lighthearted, yet poignant, and she truly has a talent for imitating almost exactly the writing style of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which only serves to heighten the reader's sense of authenticity and transport back to the days of 18th century Scotland. A wonderful job, and not a disappointment at all for fans of Wilder.

It's 1788, and six year old Martha lives in a little stone in Glencraid, Scotland. Martha's father is Laird Glencaraid, and the life of the Laird's daughter is not always easy for a lively girl like Martha. She would rather be running barefoot through the fields of heather and listening to magical tales of fairies and other Wee Folk than learning to sew like a proper young lady. But between her dreaded sewing lessons, Martha still finds time to play on the rolling Scottish hills.

Well-done, charming, perfect for fans of Laura of course - but just a little bland. A little too innocent. For example, the tenant farmers were so grateful to Martha's family for the gift basket for the baby, and for their tiny thatched cottages with no doors, just because Father wasn't as usurious as some lairds. Therefore, this doesn't read as 'real' and I don't really recommend this for children above the age of 9 or so.

Little House in the Highlands is chronologically the first of the Little House Prequel books. It is the story of Martha Morse, the maternal great-grandmother of Laura Ingalls Wilder, written by Melissa Wiley.

Martha is a spirited little 6-year-old girl who lives on a loch in Scotland with her parents and four siblings. They live in the big stone house where her father is the laird, surrounded by smaller cottages of families that rent and farm the surrounding land.

As in the original Little House books, we see life through the eyes of the young heroine. The book is mostly about her joys and struggles as the laird's youngest daughter living in the late 18th century. Mrs. Wiley takes us inside the day-to-day life of the stone house including show more the ongoing cooking, cleaning, spinning, sewing and all of the seasonal farm work and weaves it masterfully in and out of the story line. This was so interesting to my own children that we are set to make our own bannocks (bread) and try to learn a bit about spindles!

The book also has some enchanting tales of Scottish Lore about fairies and the wee folks. For my daughter, the story of the farmer's daughter and the fairy's wedding dress sparked quite a bit of conversation and narration!

This book also gives a good feel for the beauty and geography of Scotland and was a good starting point for our homeschool study of that region.

As I read the story aloud to my children, I had a bit of trouble with my own Scottish brogue (I definitely don't have a drop of Scottish in me!) but towards the end of the book I felt quite satisfied that I was doing a pretty good job. At least the kids enjoyed it and I'm sort of keeping it up in my everyday language which gives them all a giggle.

I just finished reading this volume to my 11-and 9-year old sons and my 7-year-old daughter. I wondered if the boys would enjoy it as much as they had Farmer Boy and they did! They thoroughly empathized with her feelings of being too young or too small to do something, and her interactions with her siblings, parents and other friends. As in Farmer Boy, many of the chapters could stand alone as little stories. There was plenty of mischief and adventure to keep the children wanting more, and enough interesting tidbits about the Scottish people, history and culture to keep me as the adult reader interested as well!

We are anxiously looking forward to starting the next book, The Far Side of the Loch show less

None of the other "Little House Years" books are as good as the ones about Laura but other then the Laura books the Martha ones are definitely my favorite. I love Scotland so that made this books particularly interesting to me but in general I just think they are the best written and most engaging titles from this set of books.

When I first heard about this book, my thought was: "cool!" Then I starting wondering who the author of this book could be and what in the world would they know about Laura Ingalls Wilder's great-grandmother. Much of the charm for me of the Little House on the Prairie series is that it is based on Laura's own life. I had my doubts about a modern book written about a time so far in the past.

I was pleasantly surprised. It did seem to be written in much the same style as Laura's Little House books. (Though it's been a few years since I read those.) The author definately did research to learn about this time period.

A charming children's book.

Martha is a little girl in this book growing up in Scotland with her two brothers. She spends her days learning to sew, learning to spin on a drop-spindle, and playing with her brothers. She loves to run everywhere and has a lot of fun.