Laura Ingalls Wilder

At the end of the nineteenth century, nine-year-old Almanzo lives with his family on a big farm in New York State where he raises his own two calves, helps cut ice and shear sheep, and longs for the day he can have his own colt.

Fifteen-year-old Laura learns that living away from home and teaching school can be a bit frightening when most of the students are taller than she is, but every week Almonzo Wilder arrives to take her home for the weekend.

Ma and the girls follow Pa west by train where they make their home at a rough railroad camp and plan for their own homestead.

A severe blizzard isolates the Dakota town in which Laura and Mary live. A desperate need for food sends Almanzo and another boy on a dangerous trip across the prairie. In May the snow melted and brought the Ingalls' Christmas barrel and the gayest celebration ever.

Laura and her family move to Minnesota where they live in a dugout until a new house is built and face misfortunes caused by flood, blizzard, and grasshoppers.

"Follows the Ingalls family's journey through Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, back to Minnesota, and on to Dakota Territory, [examining] sixteen years of travels, unforgettable experiences, and the everyday people who became immortal through Wilder's fiction. Using additional manuscripts, letters, photographs, newspapers, and other sources, ... Wilder biographer Pamela Smith Hill adds ... context and leads readers through Wilder's growth...

A selection of letters by Laura Ingalls Wilder to her husband in which she describes the highlights of her visit to the west coast in 1915.

Articles and fictional works by Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, some of which were published in magazines of an earlier era, create a chronological account of their lives.

A year in the life of two young girls growing up on the Wisconsin frontier, as they help their mother with the daily chores, enjoy their father's stories and singing, and share special occasions with relatives and neighbors.