| The last "real" book in the Little House series (The First Four Years was published posthumously, decades later, and was only a first draft), These Happy Golden Years covers several years of Laura Ingalls' life, concentrating on her school teaching career (and staying with a homicidally depressed and angry wife), Almonzo Wilder's slow and determined courtship of Laura, and her leaving home for good. The book's portrayal of the bittersweet process of growing to adulthood and forging your own life is especially worth reading by young readers, but all ages can appreciate it. The novel does have a tonal problem at odds with the rest of the series; during Almonzo and Laura's copious time together, including countless buggy rides, we're rarely given glimpses of what Laura's thinking about Almonzo or their time together. The character, for the first time in the series, becomes a cypher. This is especially strange because the book is autobiographical, and who would better know what Laura Ingalls was thinking about than the author, Laura Ingalls? The end of the book also seems blurred, with a sudden, rushed wedding (Laura's parents weren't even invited). |
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