The Long Winter (Little House) - Softcover

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0590300946 ISBN 13: 9780590300940

Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks, 1995

Synopsis

The Long Winter is an autobiographical children's novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and published in 1940, the sixth of nine books in her Little House series. It is set in southeastern Dakota Territory during the severe winter of 1880-1881, when she turned 14 years old. The novel was one runner-up for the Newbery Medal in 1941, as all the fourth to eighth Little House books were from 1938 to 1943. In retrospect they are called Newbery Honor Books. On a hot August day in the 1880s, at the Ingalls' homestead in Dakota Territory, Laura offers to help Pa stack hay to feed their stock in the winter. As they work, she notices a muskrat den in the nearby Big Slough. Upon inspecting it, Pa notes that its walls are the thickest he has ever seen and fears the upcoming winter will be a hard one. In mid-October, the Ingalls wake to an unusually early blizzard howling around their poorly insulated claim shanty. Soon afterward, Pa receives another warning from an unexpected source: an old Native American man comes to the general store in town to warn the white settlers that there will be seven months of blizzards. Pa decides to move his family into his store building in town for the winter. In town, Laura attends school with her younger sister, Carrie, until the weather becomes too unpredictable to permit them to walk to and from the school building, and coal too scarce to keep it heated. Blizzard after blizzard sweeps through the town over the next few months. Food and fuel become scarce and expensive, as the town depends on the railroad to bring supplies but the frequent blizzards prevent trains from getting through. Eventually, the railroad company suspends all efforts to dig out the trains that are snowed in at Tracy, stranding the town until spring. ...

About this title

From the Back Cover

America's Original Pioneer Girl

Meet Laura Ingalls, the little girl who would grow up to write the Little House books.

The first terrible storm comes to the barren prairie in October. Then it snows almost without stopping until April. Snow has reached the rooftops, and no trains can get through with food or coal. The people of De Smet are starving, including Laura's family, who wonder how they're going to make it through this terrible winter. It is young Almanzo Wilder who finally understands what needs to be done. He must try to save the town, even if it means risking his own life.

The Long Winter is the sixth book in the Laura Years series.

About the Author

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) was born in a log cabin in the Wisconsin woods. With her family, she pioneered throughout America’s heartland during the 1870s and 1880s, finally settling in Dakota Territory. She married Almanzo Wilder in 1885; their only daughter, Rose, was born the following year. The Wilders moved to Rocky Ridge Farm at Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894, where they established a permanent home. After years of farming, Laura wrote the first of her beloved Little House books in 1932. The nine Little House books are international classics. Her writings live on into the twenty-first century as America’s quintessential pioneer story.

Cherry Jones won the TonyŽ Award for best actress for both The Heiress and Doubt, and received two TonyŽ nominations for her work in A Moon for the Misbegotten and Our Country's Good; she can be seen in the films The Perfect Storm, Erin Brockovich, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and Cold Mountain.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0590300946
• ISBN 13: 9780590300940
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 334
• Illustrator: Garth Williams