The Wilder Life

Starred review from January 10, 2011
Obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder and her Little House books about an 1880s pioneer family, children's book editor and memoirist McClure (I'm Not the New Me) attempts to recapture her childhood vision of "Laura World." Her wacky quest includes hand-grinding wheat for bread, buying an authentic churn, and traveling to sites where the Ingalls family attempted to wrest a living from the prairie. Discovering that butter she churned herself was "just butter," McClure admits she "felt like a genius and a complete idiot at the same time." Viewing a one-room dugout the Ingallses occupied that was "smaller than a freight elevator" prompted McClure to admit that "the actual past and the Little House world had different properties." McClure finally tells her boyfriend, "I'm home," after recognizing that her travels stemmed from her reaction to the recent death of her mother. Readers don't need to be Wilder fans to enjoy this funny and thoughtful guide to a romanticized version of the American expansion west.

November 15, 2010

BUST magazine columnist and children's-book editor McClure (I'm Not the New Me, 2005, etc.) takes an engaging road trip in search of a remembered "Laura World."

"I was born in 1867 in a log cabin in Wisconsin and maybe you were, too." Like millions of other young readers, mostly girls, the author had lived the dream and then—possibly impelled by the disappointing way the series peters out—moved on. Hoping to recapture the magic after glimpsing that world years later in a re-reading Little House in the Big Woods (1932), McClure checks out the LHOP canon's continuing role in online communities, lines of commercial products, the perpetually-in-syndication TV series and a steady stream of literary and other cultural spinoffs. The author also tries her hand at butter churning and farm cookery, and sets out with an obliging companion on a Midwestern pilgrimage. McClure presents a merry travelogue that features stops at Pepin, Wisc. (where Wilder was born), Rocky Ridge Farm (where she died) and most of the other widely scattered sites the peripatetic Ingalls clan set down in between, as well as meetings with fellow pilgrims, a wade in Plum Creek, a weekend at a self-sufficient farm (made scary by a group of "end times" survivalists) and even a later jaunt to the upstate New York farm where Wilder's husband Almanzo grew up. McClure also ruminates on the qualities that give Wilder's fictionalized but oh-so-evocative memoirs their enduring appeal. In the end, she moves on once again—coming to recognize the beguiling joy and simplicity of Laura World, but at a slight remove brought on by years and other experiences.

Many others have made the same pilgrimage, but not, perhaps, with such a winning mix of humor and painless introspection.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 15, 2011
After her mothers death, McClure rediscovered Laura Ingalls Wilders Little House books. Fascinated with the lifestyle the books evoke, she began a journey to discover Wilder and the culture and the tourism industry that have sprung up around her. McClure is a blogger, and this memoir is at its best when she recounts a project, whether it be churning butter or visiting Wilders homes. Equally engaging is her research into Wilders life, literary controversies, and the social history that allowed the books to take on a life of their own. Unfortunately, McClure also finds it necessary to recount every clever thing she and her boyfriend ever said to each other about pioneer life. She also struggles with how to describe fans who are different from her without succumbing to patronizing stereotypes. Toward the end of her journey, she connects her interest in the books to her own family situation, and readers are left with genuine affection for her. Prairie lovers will thrill to follow the journey of one of their own.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2011
After re-reading the Little House books she loved as a kid, McClure, a writer and children's book editor, renews her childhood obsession with Laura Ingalls Wilder. Kindred spirits will laugh out loud at McClure's memories: "Oh my God: I wanted to live in one room with my whole family and have a pathetic corncob doll all my own...I wanted to do chores because of those books. Carry water, churn butter, make headcheese...Have a man's hands span my corseted waist, which at the time didn't seem creepy at all." McClure finds Barbara Walker's Little House Cookbook, reads scads of Laura scholarship and biographies, and searches online for anything Wilder-related (discovering such gems as a Japanese anime series with episodes like "A Cute Calf Has Arrived!"). Soon she contemplates visiting the various Little House sites in order to find "Laura World," as she calls it, and wonders, "What kind of person would I become if I just went with this, let my calico-sunbonnet freak flag fly?" Luckily for us, she proudly lets it fly -- and takes us along for the ride. McClure's book is satisfyingly framed with her discovery of a link between her mother's death and her search for Laura, but for hard-core fans, it's enough that she shares so honestly her often-hilarious experiences churning butter, twisting haysticks, and searching for the elusive Laura World. jennifer m. brabander

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)