Nana's Book Library

• Age 6-10
• Particulars (Out of 5):  
  • Historical value:  *****  
  • Positive role models *****   
  • Inappropriate language:  None.
  • Sexual references:  None.
  • Alcohol:  None.  

Reminder:  Nana’s Books are rated G. Anyone could read them, or listen to them being read aloud.

The setting is the 1850s, on a large farm in upstate New York.  Almanzo Wilder, age 8, has a big brother, Royal, age 13, and big sisters Eliza Jane, 12, and Alice, 10.  With Mother and Father, this family is a team.  They work like their lives depend on it – because they do.  If they don’t get the harvest in, don’t preserve the fruits and vegetables they grow, don’t cut the firewood, don’t get the syrup from maple trees, don’t cut and store all the hay, don’t collect the eggs, don’t milk the cows, don’t take care of their shoes or mend the harnesses or do the many things they do every day – they won’t survive.  

            In one memorable scene, an unexpected frost threatens their corn harvest.  Mother wakes the children up in the middle of the night.  The corn is frozen, and the only way to save it is with cold water.  Every single plant must be watered before the morning sun hit it, or the little plants would die, and there would be no corn crop.  This was in the days before garden hoses and irrigation – so they use buckets.  “The wagon stopped at the edge of the field. Father and Mother and Royal and Eliza Jane and Alice and Almanzo filled their pails with water, and they all went to work, as fast as they could.  Almanzo tried to hurry, but the pail was heavy and his legs were short.  His wet fingers were cold and the water slopped against his legs, and he was terribly sleepy.  He stumbled along the rows, and at every hill of corn he poured a little water over the frozen leaves.”  There were thousands of corn plants.  “Almanzo began to be hungry.  But he couldn’t stop to complain.  He must hurry, hurry, hurry, to save the corn.”  They all keep watering, and when the sky starts to lighten, they press on and work even harder.  When the sun comes up, they have watered – and saved – almost three acres of corn.  They only lost a quarter of an acre. 

            It’s not all work; Almanzo has a lot of fun fishing, climbing on giant mountains of hay in the barn with Royal, growing a giant pumpkin, and teaching his young team of cows how to pull a cart and a sled.  He plays as hard as he works.  Almanzo’s no saint; he gets in his fair share of trouble (although he is memorably bailed out once by Eliza Jane, who turns out not to be so bad after all).  He loves horses, and more than anything wants to train one of his own.

            I bought the entire set of “Little House” books in the 1970s with money from allowance and chores; my copy of Farmer Boy cost 95 cents back in the day.  Guess what?  I never got around to reading it!  I didn’t think a book about a boy could possibly be as interesting as the ones about Laura.  Was I ever wrong!  Almanzo is a boss.  This may be my favorite book of the whole series.  

            This book is widely available new and used, including on Amazon. 

©Janet Farrar Worthington

Note:  I am an Amazon affiliate, so if you do click a link and buy a book, I will theoretically make a small amount of money, but I’m just starting this thing, so I don’t even know how that works.   Still, full disclosure, etc.