Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder

Title:  Farmer Boy
Author:  Laura Ingalls Wilder
Pages:  372
Genre:  Fiction, YA
Source:  My bookshelf
What you'll love:  Such a sweet little boy!
What will bug you:  Nothing.  

True confession - I never read this as a kid!  I skipped over it because it wasn't about Laura.  How silly.  I loved Farmer Boy.  

The setting is amazing.  Of course, it was fun for me to read because it's a more familiar setting than the prairie.  "Picturing" things in my mind is important to me when I read, and this was great because it was so easy to understand what everything looked and smelled like.  

Almanzo Wilder is such a sweet little boy!  Laura will certainly find a wonderful husband who is kind and caring.  

I was struck by the huge differences between the Ingalls and Wilder families - not necessarily in how they act, or how they interact with their children, but in their means.  It's obvious that the Wilder family is far better off financially than the Ingalls family.  Almanzo's father has built a successful business and life for his family in New York.  

Not surprisingly, my favorite parts to the story are when Almanzo and his family are doing day-to-day things.  It's fascinating to read about - filling the ice house, threshing the wheat, all the preparations that need to happen to be ready for the first hard frost.  As I've said before, I love the descriptions of these "simpler times" - although I suspect it's something I'd like to visit, not live in forever.

Man, these people eat well!  The descriptions of the delicious dishes gracing their table were amazing.  I'm jealous.  :)

I'm so glad I finally read this book in the series, and I'm scolding my younger self for skipping over it!