This morning I was still a little woozy I guess from the last dregs of my headache. I had spread four or five pieces of bagel with sour cream and Bella had eaten two of them before my tired brain finally processed the funny too-soft texture and I realized I’d grabbed the wrong carton from the refrigerator. Bella actually ate all of the pieces I’d spread with the sour cream; but she seemed happier when I pulled out the cream cheese instead. I got a good giggle out of it though, that drove the last shreds of headache away.
Bagels and Sour Cream?
Further reading
I felt exactly the same about Bachelor Girl. My oldest daughter who was around 9 at the time had read through all of the books up to that one. I don’t always pre-read her books now but I was reading those because I was an avid Little House reader when I was younger and I wanted to find out what happened to Laura and Almanzo more than Rose. I got to Bachelor Girl and was just so disappointed with it. I suppose ultimately disappointed with how Rose chose to live her life. I just told my daughter that I didn’t think this was an appropriate book for her to be reading at this age and she was fine with that.
As an aside, I think the part of that series I found the most moving was when Laura went back to her parents when her father died. Having “lived” her whole life along with her and knowing what she meant to Pa and he to her I believe I cried through the whole chapter and spent the rest of the day in the kind of mourning.
“I suppose ultimately disappointed with how Rose chose to live her life.”
Yes, I suppose that it really does come down to that. Rose was definitely a product of her times, but it was sad to see her throw off the values of her parents. I suppose her wandering was a variant of the pioneer push, but it definitely lacks the both the family-centeredness and the agrarian simplicity that made all the previous Little House books so attractive.
“the part of that series I found the most moving was when Laura went back to her parents when her father died.”
Definitely. That moment was so poignant. I loved it. Though as an artistic choice it might not have made for a smooth narrative—I did think it felt odd to switch from Rose’s point of view to Laura’s—still for anyone who loved the original Laura books, it was priceless.
I always felt so sad for how Laura’s life seemed to go – just the one surviving child, and her so difficult and unlike the rest of the family. In fact, the more I have (obsessively!) read about Laura’s real life over the years the sadder, darker and more ordinary it all seemed and I long to go back to being the little girl who devoured every book over and over, and only wanted to be like Ma Ingalls when she grew up.
Not that Wikipedia is the Bible, but it appears Rose and her husband did have a child who was either stillborn or died shortly after birth. Then she had complications from surgery and she wasn’t able to have more children.
I’ve only read the series once and it’s been a while, but I didn’t get quite the same feeling from Bachelor Girl. It seemed more that Paul didn’t want to marry her, whether she stayed at home or went to the city. The saddest time for me was also when Pa died; I liked the idea that they were still in the Dakota prairie…
I always wondered why Rose and her husband never had children, too. In a biography of Laura, I learned they had divorced. I wonder sometimes what those circumstances were; I don’t think there was no-fault then (even in CA).
Rose and her husband divorced when he turned out to be a deadbeat and left them in deep debt. She then worked endlessly to pay off the debt and clear her name. Pretty honorable move… She eventually became a writer much like her mother and traveled the world interviewing many famous people of her time. I love her book “Let The Hurricane Roar” which is a thinly veiled account of Ma and Pa’s early years of marriage. It’s a recommended read. She then ended up back home in Missouri. I guess she returned to her roots at the end and learned her lesson. I really admired Rose who made the best of bad choices in life. I always got the sense that she knew she disappointed her parents in how she chose to live her life, but redeemed herself in the end by encouraging her mother to put her agrarian life stories to print.
“I always got the sense that she knew she disappointed her parents in how she chose to live her life, but redeemed herself in the end by encouraging her mother to put her agrarian life stories to print.”
An interesting point. I had read some speculation about Rose’s involvement in her mother’s books. Evidently she worked quite a bit as a ghost writer. The question is whether she provided Laura only with encouragement or with more hands-on help.
I guess my real question is not so much a matter of passing judgment on Roses’ choices; but of how and when to deal with sharing these darker books with young readers. I would have no qualms about a very young girl reading the original Little House books by Laura. I even bought Little House in the Big Woods for my 5 and 6 year old nieces, thinking they would enjoy it as a read-aloud. But I think that when it comes to Bachelor Girl I might hesitate, wait a little longer to introduce a book with more difficult subject matter. Then again, that decision is still years in my future and will depend greatly on how well I think Bella will handle the topics or how I want to present the books to her.