Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

 Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan, 58 pages

When a man living on the frontier sends away for a mail-order bride, his children, Anna and Caleb, find themselves wishing desperately that she'll stay. 

I never read Sarah, Plain and Tall when I was younger, and I'm retroactively upset I didn't. This is precisely the type of story I would have absolutely fallen in love with. It is short but echoes some of my favorite sentiments from the Anne of Green Gables or Little House series. Reading it for the first time as an adult gave me insight into Sarah's wistfulness and gave the book a lovely yearning dynamic. I loved it. 

Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser

Prairie Fires: the American dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser
640 pages

"Millions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls--the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true saga of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser--the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series--masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder's biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books."  --from the publisher

I finished the day before Ms. Fraser's arrival. The book is full of facts, yet also very readable.  I enjoyed the way Laura Ingalls Wilder's life was put in context with concurrent events in the U.S.

Twister on Tuesday by Mary Pope Osborne

Twister on Tuesday by Mary Pope Osborne-71 pages

As with most of the Magic Tree House books thus far, I read a newer edition. In this story, Jack and Annie are taken back to pioneer-era Kansas. There they find a one-room schoolhouse where they find something to learn, which is the third type of writing needed for Morgan Le Fay to save Camelot. Jack and Annie also learn a valuable lesson about perseverance.