Prairie Tale: A Memoir

Melissa Gilbert is best known for playing Laura Ingalls Wilder in the tv show “Little House on the Prairie”. This is a memoir she has written. She was adopted at about 24 hours old, and was very overprotected by her mother. Despite this, they were quite close. Her parents did divorce, but tried to keep things as normal as possible for the kids; sadly, her father passed away when she was only 11-years old.

As she grew up, she went through a succession of on-again, off-again relationships, her first (that lasted quite a few years) with Rob Lowe. She later married (twice) – her first husband, Bo, was a piece of work, but she had a son with him. There were plenty of bumps along the way with her second husband, Bruce, as well, but they show more love each other and came through. Melissa also battled with alcoholism. (Just looked her up and see there was more to her story after the book was published.)

I quite liked this. I learned a lot about her that I didn’t know. There was a short bit, as she described her time as president of the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) that I was less interested in, due to the business nature of what she was describing. She did, of course, have a wonderful relationship with Michael Landon, which was nice to read about. show less

Melissa Gilbert was America's Sweetheart back in the 70's and early 80's. In her memoir Prairie Tale she swrites about her adoption, Little House on the Prairie, her relationship with Rob Lowe and her battle with drinking.
I've always been a fan of Little House , naturally I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book. The book was very engaging, and read it in one day. For someone who reads tabloids cover to cover(I know, i'm ashamed) this book was great. She's very open about her time on Little Prairie giving a vast amount of info on her co-stars and what it was like on set. The most interesting part of the memoir for me was about her relationship with Rob Lowe. I've always been fascinated with The Brat Pack, and there's a good amount show more about them in the book. Did you know she auditioned for the part of Debbie in About Last Night? Luckily it went to Demi Moore, cause I just can't see her in that role.
The writing was straightforward and easy. It didn't seem like she was trying so hard, she just told her story. Memoirs are usually hard to follow because they can be disjointed, going back and forward in time but not with Praire Tale. The last couple of chapters were boring, but then again reading about someone being a mess is much more entertaining. Is that wrong to say? Melissa Gilbert also name dropped quite a bit in the book. It got annoying some, but it is about Hollywood so what can you do? I would definitely recommend it especially if you were a fan of Little House, or Rob Lowe. show less

This was eye opening. I didn't realize half pint had such a troubled past. I'm not sure she is a great story teller but if you grew up watching Little House and knew about her and Rob Lowe it was interesting. Rob Lowe's autobiography was great and he's a great storyteller but he didn't go into as much detail or as Melissa. This book filled in those gaps. She did drop a lot of names and didn't seem to hold much back when talking about those names. Good for her for being real. FYI she's a bit of a potty mouth. What would ma say?!

"Little House on the Prairie" and Melissa Gilbert always bring a childhood friend named Sharon to mind. She liked Melissa so much that she wrote to her during a classroom exercise on letter writing--and she got a signed photo back. Oddly, though, I never thought of Melissa Gilbert as a redhead, so when she would refer to herself that way, it was a bit confusing. I knew the story about her brother Jonathan being on "Little House" and that being his only acting gig; I didn't know he'd cut himself off from their family at some point--that's sad.

The Good: The beginning of the book is written in an engaging style (the last few chapters about SAG etc. not so much so). Melissa is very honest about her struggles and her faults. She balances show more the good things with the bad things that have happened in her life. She also now seems to realize that much of her personal life centered around her being adopted as a child (and feeling as if she needed to earn love or that she could be returned if she wasn't perfect) and around not being able to talk about her feelings during her childhood (which led to stuffing her feelings). She does seem committed to her relationship with Bruce Boxleitner and working through the issues they have--at least as of the time of the writing of this book.

The Bad: Her romantic relationships seem to be very repetitive--just change the name of the guy (Rob Lowe, Bo Brinkman, Bruce Boxleitner). She uses a lot of profanity (something you wouldn't expect based on her prairie image). There's a lot of name dropping. The chronology is sometimes a bit meandering. show less

I really loved Little House. I thoroughly enjoyed Alison Arngrim's "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch". But this book? Name-dropping, party-going boredom and tons of gossip. I felt for the little girl she was, told to hold it all in and pretend to be perfect, but the book itself wasn't worth my time to finish.

I was a little bit disappointed in this book. I did find it interesting that she talks A LOT about Rob Lowe and in his book, he doesn't mention Melissa very often. I thought his book was a lot kinder on the subject.

I LOVED Little House when I was young - LOVED it! At least until Laura got older, then I didn't like the way she was portrayed on the show. When I saw this book was out, I really wanted to read it. I don't know what I was expecting. I know her life wasn't all sunlight, roses, and wagon wheels but somehow, I just didn't get into the spirit of this memoir.

I didn't mind the name dropping, though. I mean, that's part of the reason I read the book!

Prairie Tale By Melissa Gilbert is the perfect celebrity memoir. This book probably makes my top five memoirs of all time. And that really is saying a lot, as I love, love, love memoirs and read plenty of them. I’m not ashamed to admit I starting crying while reading the forward by Patty (Anna) Duke. And I continued to cry all through this book while reading it. To say I was a huge fan of Little House on The Prairie (both the books and television show) is an understatement. LHOTP was my favorite show as a child, and if you’ve been to my blog before you’ll see that my mom dressed me just like Half Pint. My mother and I only agreed on two things in my life – The Beatles and Little House, so I get weepy just thinking about that show more show and one of the only connections it provided me to my mother.

To find out Melissa Gilbert’s version of what happened off-screen and on set was pretty cool. I knew “Laura” and “Mary” didn’t get along off-screen either, so my only disappointment with this book was that Melissa took the high road and didn’t talk about the trouble between her and Melissa Sue Anderson. She barely mentioned it, but I can understand why. This book is filled with so much celebrity dirt, gossip, and sex talk, there was no need to dig up same lame 35-year-old little girl feud.

Since Ms. Gilbert celebrity grew during the 1970′s and 1980′s, a lot of her history and life story was a bit of a surprise to me. Sure, I knew she dated Rob Lowe, what Teen Beat subscriber wouldn’t know that? However, the amount of people she met, dated, or “DATED” floored me. It was as if every celebrity guy I ever found remotely cute or interesting dated or “DATED” her, or at least wanted to or tried to. I can not believe she passed up George Clooney in favor of her husband Bruce. Why, why, why girl, why? When she described meeting John Travolta on the studio lot lunchroom when he was filming Grease, it was almost as if I was sitting at that table, getting embarrassed right along with her.

Read my full review here:

http://thegirlfromtheghetto.wordpress.com/2010/07/03/prairie-tale-by-melissa-gil... show less