Question What You Read.

I often ask myself, "How did Laura Ingalls Wilder get through hard times?"  The Ingalls family didn't lack challenges.  During this period of self-quarantine, I decided to reread The Long Winter to discover - What Would Laura Do?

The Long Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Chapter 7 - "Indian Warning"

Salt pork is often confused with bacon.  Salt port is actually salted pork belly and is fattier than bacon.

Chapter 7 begins harmlessly enough with men gathering at Hawthorn's store to discuss the October blizzard.  The gathering includes those fetching Wilder Brothers, Royal and Almanzo.  Pa is buying salt pork.  The men are chatting away until a Native American man walks into the store.  

Breaking News:  The chapter now descends into a pit of racism and stereotypes.  People want to ban LIW books because of chapters like this.  In 2018, The Association for Library Service to Children stripped the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award of her name because of how Native Americans and African Americans are referred to in her books.  The award is now called the Children's Literature Legacy Award.

Here is some text from Chapter 7:

It was only an Indian.
"Heap big snow come," this Indian said.
"You white men," he said.  "I tell-um you."

The Native American man is warning the men about the upcoming winter.  Pa has to translate because the men are flummoxed. "He had come to tell the white men that this coming winter was a twenty-first winter, that there would be seven months of blizzards." 

Was Pa ahead of his time?

Pa returns home and informs the family they are moving into town.  They will live in a sturdy, store building Pa owns.  Now, Ma is flummoxed by the rush to move.  (Apparently she hasn't been paying attention Pa's predictions.)  Pa says, "I'm like the muskrat, something tells me to get you and the girls inside thick walls." 

Pa also mentions the Native American's warning to Ma.  LIW then informs the reader - Ma despised Indians.  She was afraid of them too.  Pa was a bit more sympathetic and insisted, "There's some good Indians."  

Now it is time for my two cents.  Obviously I don't want these books to banned, but I DO want books to be discussed and questioned.  (Did I think about these questions as an 8 year old reading this book?  No.  But I get more out of the book as an adult because I am bringing more to it.)  

Possible discussion questions :

• How does The Long Winter perpetuate stereotypes?  Do these stereo types still exist?
• Does Ma despise Indians because she is afraid?
• How does knowing the Ingalls were illegal squatters on  Osage land color your answers?  (This is documented in Little House On the Prairie.)

The chapter ends with Laura wishing for wings of a bird, so she can fly away.  Laura resigns herself to moving to town.  She doesn't want to be around so many people.  Laura and Pa would be rock stars at social isolation.

WWLD:

• If Laura was alive now, would she write her books differently?  I would like to think so, but there is no way of knowing for sure.  What do you think?

See you tomorrow for "Settled in Town."

Prairie Eydie and her Prairie Daughter on a Prairie

Prairie Eydie