Little House in the Big Woods

Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in Wisconsin in 1867. Her family moved around, travelling from Missouri to Kansas, Minnesota and back to Wisconsin. Laura’s formal education was irregular due to her family often living in isolated areas. Eventually the family settled in De Smet, Dakota Territory and Laura worked regularly as a seamstress and teacher. She stopped working when she married Almanzo Wilder in 1885. Her daughter was the novelist and journalist Rose Wilder Lane. Little House in the Big Woods was first published in 1932 and Little House on the Prairie in 1935, and five more books in the Little House series followed. Laura also wrote Farmer Boy about her husband’s childhood, and three more books were published posthumously. Laura was celebrated during her lifetime and her books considered great literature. She was five times the recipient of the Newbery Honor Award for her distinguished contribution to American literature for children: On the Banks of Plum Creek (1938), By the Shores of Silver Lake (1940), The Long Winter (1941), Little Town on the Prairie (1942), These Happy Golden Years (1944).