pantazis5's Full Review: Laura Ingalls Wilder - Farmer Boy
Farmer Boy! A story about Almanzo Wilder’s family.
The Little House books are wonderful. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote 9 books in her series of Little House Books and they are enjoyed by many many children throughout the world. The third book in her series takes us away from the Ingalls family to the Wilder Family in upstate New York.
The Wilder family lives in a big house with a big barn full of livestock. Almanzo Wilder is a nine year old boy in this story, and he celebrates his 10th birthday. He goes to school, he helps in the barns with his father. He works to bring in crops and he plays with his new sled.
Almanzo is the youngest child in the family of four. He has an older brother Royal Wilder, a sister ElizaJane Wilder and a sister Alice Wilder. In this story these four siblings work hard, and play hard. They learn to survive on their farm. They eat healthy foods and make ice cream and candy!
Almanzo’s father is a successful farmer. His farm is obviously thriving and the family is quite rich in comparison to the Ingalls family. This family eats well, and Almanzo obviously enjoys his food. The male and female roles are well defined in this story and everyone seems happy in their traditional roles. The rites of passage of a boy to a man are defined when Almanzo gets his own boots with a sole instead of moccasins to wear.
At nine years old, turning 10 Almanzo was beginning to assume the role of a grown man. In this story he learns many life lessons about raising horses and training his own set of oxen. He falls through the ice when he is learning to bring in ice from the ice house. He shows how smart he is when he tricks the hired hand by putting a sheep up in the loft in competition to see who is done with the sheep shearing job first.
Farmer Boy is one of my favorite stories in the Little House Books. It is wonderful to read because it is filled with so much early American tradition, while at the same time it teaches the reader many things about life that can be used later on! Children who read this will learn many new concepts and ideas about farm life. There is so much going on in this story. From the traditional Saturday night bath to the teacher living with the family for a few weeks.
In keeping with New England tradition, old farm families always ate pie and cake at breakfast (ie:donuts are really cake). The largest meal was eaten in the morning, because there was so much work to do later on in the day that they needed full stomachs. The breakfasts that Laura Ingalls Wilder describes are amazing. The tradition of the youngest child being served last, and the children being seen and not heard are important to American tradition.
The teacher in the school lived with the Wilder family. Families and teachers worked together to keep school safe! We could learn a lot about the way teachers are treated in this book, by families that consider education important vs. the ones that do not consider it important! It really is not very different!
Farmer Boy did not win a Newbury Honor book and I wish it had. It has so much happening in this story and it teaches so much to the reader that it is a wonderful addition to the Little House books.
I remember though when I was a little girl and was reading these books that I was at first disappointed to find that this book was not about the Ingalls family. I remember also wishing that the Farmer Boy book had sequels to it. I would have liked to know more about the Wilder family and their farm in New York State. I have often wondered why Farmer Boy is the third one in the series. However, this book shows the difference between Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life at age 9 on Plum Creek and Almanzo Wilder’s life at 9 in New York. The contrast is remarkable.
I recommend Farmer Boy. My own sons have enjoyed reading it and at our camp we have put potatoes in our fire place and the boys have been reminded of Farmer Boy. In the spring when we have fresh maple syrup my children often talk about Farmer Boy. Read this story with your children. It is a child’s book, but it has a tremendous amount of historical information that you will not want to miss.
Please see my other reviews of the Little House books.
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