Of course, reading the original series made me want to find out more about the real life Ingalls family, find out how much of the series was real, what you could still find of their lives and homes. So in the last couple years I've continued to read quite a few books about the Ingalls and their real lives. The Little House series tell a (mostly) wonderful story of a family surviving (sometimes barely) through circumstances most of us wouldn't dream of putting ourselves in. They hearken back to a much different time in our country and emphasize the important of family and home and making your home wherever your family is. I've enjoyed all the time I've spent reading about them and learning a bit of what life could have been like back then.
The Little House Series
The ones that started it all. Definitely the best place to start.
Old Town in the Green Groves: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Lost Years by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Jim LaMarche
This book attempts to fill in a gap of two years that Laura herself didn't cover in the original series. It is set between On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake. The Ingalls spent those years living in a town, running a hotel. The writing is very much in the same spirit and tone of Laura's writing. I read this after I finished my reread of the series but if I were rereading them again (or when I read them to my kids) I'll stick this one in where it goes chronologically in with the original books.
On the Way Home by Laura Ingalls Wilder
This book is the journal Laura kept as her, Almanzo, and Rose left De Smet and moved to Mansfield Missouri in 1894. It's a pretty thin book but the only one of all of these I haven't read in the last couple years (although I own a copy and read it more than once many years ago). The original series leaves off with them living near De Smet and Laura's family but Rose spent most of her childhood and Laura wrote all the books when they were living in Mansfield. She only returned to De Smet a few times after this move. I still mean to get to this soon.
Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Donald Zochert
This was written in the 1970s and is a biography of the real Laura, starting with her parents' early lives, how they met, straightening out the timeline of the Little House books, and her life with Almanzo afterwards. It has pictures of Laura, her family, and their house in De Smet. The author goes into detail on tangential people a few too many times but it was still a fairly compact telling of Laura's real life.
Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill
I read this shortly after finishing the series and it was a bit of a beast to get through. It's largely taken from the same source materials as Laura mentioned above but goes into A LOT of detail as the editor and team try to determine who every. single. mentioned. character. in the Little House series was in real life. There are a lot of pictures and documents included in the book and is very detailed about the Ingalls and Wilder families. I wrote a whole review of it here and it was really interesting to read the real stories but it took awhile to get through. Read this depending on your interest level after finishing the original series.
The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure
This author grew up reading the Little House series and, as an adult, spent some serious time visiting Laura's old stomping grounds and learning more about her fans. I found it really interesting to read about what's left of the Ingalls' various homes and how Laura is celebrated differently at the spots. There is nothing left of almost all the homes but there are various museums to visit, all of which I found so fascinating. You can even spend a night in a covered wagon near De Smet (which the author did). I read this first many years before I reread the series and then read it again after because I was very curious about all the homes.
Little House Picture Books
I only recently found out about these and now, I think, I've read them all to Luke. They are basic picture books, pulling out stories from the original series and with illustrations done in the style of Garth Williams who was the original illustrator. We read enough of them and close enough together that Luke was putting together a bit of the story and seemed to remember parts from book to book. It would probably be helpful to read them in some sort of order but we just read them as we got them from the library so we bounced from the Big Woods to the Prairie to Almanzo's childhood and back and forth. I think this gave Luke some sort of introduction so eventually I can read the original books to him.
Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
I have often recommended this book when I hear people reading the Little House series because it is also based on a real life girl who grew up about the same time as Laura, in Wisconsin, on a farm but in different circumstances. The author based it on her grandmother's life. I read this many times as a kid and again after finishing the Little House series recently. It was interesting to read about a young girl who grew up differently than Laura, even so much of their lives were similar. It's a pretty quick read but a different perspective than the Little House books.
In making this list I realized how many books about Laura I've read and I know there are many more that I haven't! It's a fascinating world to dip into and appreciate even more things like running water and modern medicine but also be amazed at what people did to survive over 150 years ago. I have fond memories of reading the books as a kid and enjoyed them just as much as an adult. Happy reading!
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