A Little House Treasury: Six Stories of Life on the Prairie adapted from the Little House Books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, illustrated by Renée Graef

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Somehow I made it through my childhood without reading a single book by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Fortunately, My husband did and we read the whole series out loud, taking turns, to my daughter starting when she was four. I fell in love with the books and still think often about all the changes Wilder saw in her lifetime. Around the time that we started reading Wilder's books out loud to my daughter, paper back picture book adaptations of her Little House series with magnificent illustrations by Renée Graef who also illustrated the Kirsten books in the American Girls series. Now, you can get six of them, including winter and Christmas stories in A Little House Picture Book Treasury: Six Stories of Life on the Prairie.
I think there were 12 - 15 picture book adaptations originally published about 20 years ago, and, curiously, this collection does not present the books in chronological order and not all stories happen during the Ingalls's time living on the prairie, despite the title. The first story is from Little House on the Prairie, then Little House in the Big Woods, Farmer Boy (Wilder's account of her husband Almanzo's childhood in New York), with the final three from Little House in the Big Woods again.
All of the books show illustrate the challenges the Ingalls family encountered, from building a log cabin on the prairie to life in the woods and visits to town. The family connection is strong in all the books and it's fascinating to see how life was lived, from setting their hair in rags to curl it for a rare visit to town and the general store to the many many things the family made, from their home to their clothes to their toys. A Little House Picture Book Treasury is the perfect way to introduce little listeners to Wilder's series of books. Even if you don't read the them to your kids, or they don't read them on their own, this collection is filled with engaging, wonderfully illustrated stories.

The Six Books in the Treasury

Source: Review Copy

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