As a New Year’s project, I decided to identify and reread the novels that have had the biggest influence on my life. I identified ten, and will be discussing them over the next few months. The first, Farmer Boy, is from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series of books.
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy was the first book I read that really got me excited; I was seven years old in the fall of 1982, living in Davenport IA in a small townhouse apartment. This book (actually the third in the Little House books series) takes place in the 1870s in upstate New York. I learned that a book could take you to a place that seemed more alive than the humdrum of the present day.
The idealized descriptions of domestic family life made me long for a larger family (instead of the 4 person nuclear family I had). The Wilder’s had what sounded like a large house with beautiful rooms stuffed full of interesting items. They ate large meals that were described in great detail. They had a wide variety of livestock and assorted farm animals.
This was the book that started my obsession with farm life, and also with nostalgia. The central character, a boy who would grow up to marry Laura Ingalls, was described much like I was at the time, except he did farm chores and worked with animals, while I watched television, listened to records and rode my bicycle.
More than that, though, I was hooked on reading as an escape. I devoured all the juvenile novel series available in paperback at my local mall’s bookstore, and checked more out from the public library. It is impossible to measure how much reading has shaped who I am today.
Rereading this book now, in January 2016, there are many idealized things present I would still like my life to contain: a sense of community, a childlike enjoyment of the moment, the idea that hard work pays off, the enjoyment of food, and the joy of being around animals.
Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Farmer Boy. (Originally published 1933) Edition I own: Harper Trophy Edition ISBN:0-06-440003-4