The kids and I have been reading Little House in the Big Woods before bed each night. When I was a little girl, this series was, by far, my favorite. I never owned the books but checked them out of the library with such frequency the librarian had to get a new card because my name filled the old one.
To this day, when I make plum jam, I think of Laura's description of plum juice sticky and sweet on a hot summer day as they lay the cracked fruit on clean sheets to dry in the summer sun. When I go to the snow, I cup it in my hands and imagine what it would be like to make syrup candy by pouring the thick steaming liquid on ice cold piles of snow encased in a black cast iron skillet. When I had my children, I couldn't wait to open this world to them.
Every night we read a chapter. Sometimes we read two. And as Laura talks of butchering time, making bullets, hunting deer, and playing with a corn cob doll, I realize as much as I try to teach my children where their food comes from, what goes into baking a loaf of bread, how to gather eggs and care for a garden, there is so much of this book that is beyond their understanding.
I watch Joseph's imagination catch hold while I read of the black panther stalking Grandpa Ingalls home through the Big Woods. I see his confusion over the girls playing with a pig's bladder. Elizabeth interrupts me to ask why they killed the pig. She cries, "Poor deer!" when Pa brings home venison. Every night, it hits me hard how different my children's lives are compared to my own.
When I was a little girl curled up with my book, I didn't have to imagine a deer hanging in a tree outside the window. It was a familiar sight. I didn't have to picture the coppery color of shiny bullets piled on the table. I knew them well. I didn't have to figure out the sound a shot gun makes when it explodes.
I knew what it was like to huddle in a single bed with my sisters while the snow piled around a house surrounded by a forest. I knew what it was like to listen to my dad stomp the mud off his feet while bringing in rabbit or raccoon or squirrel. I ran around an open fire while my mom and grandmother canned in the steamy hot sun. I understood neighbors being so far away you couldn't see the smoke from their chimney. The stories Laura told in her books were from several generations removed but I lived in a place where time stood still and the past merged and mingled with the present.
These are things my children don't know, don't understand. They can operate my iPad and iPhone with terrifying efficiency. They know how to search eBay for Lego mini figures. They eat roasted Brussels sprouts and sushi. While they're not city kids by any means, they're children of this time and this place. To them, this book that reflected so many of my experiences growing up, is as fantastical as Harry Potter.
It's not a bad thing; it's just a little disconcerting. How many other childhood memories will we not share? How many will we share?
6 comments:
You know, for all that I devoured books with frightening frequency as a child, Little House never grabbed me, but when you talk about it...
I vivadly remember reading and re-reading the "Little House" series as a child. It was 2nd grade because we had just moved from S. California to a sleepy little town in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Great books!
I love that we're reading this at the same time. And yes, my kids look at me with confusion. I didn't have the same childhood you did, but my dad hunted and my grandma had a cabin in the woods (albeit not to live in full-time). It's a completely foreign world to A & D.
You should give it another go. For nothing more than all the talk of food.
Aren't they? I bet being in the mountains made it all the more vivid too. The idea of bears and panthers was way more real. (Although there was this one time a little less than a year ago when a bear strolled down my street. Thank God I wasn't home. I'd have freaked.)
I adore that we're reading it at the same time. Great minds, lady.
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