Little House memories

In reading class right now we are reading the novel On the Banks of Plum Creek.  It is a cross curricular unit with Minnesota history where we are learning about the settlers.  It couldn’t more perfectly tie into what we are learning if I had written it expressly for the purpose.  But that really isn’t the point of what I want to talk about today.  Today, as I was reading aloud to them, and getting way too excited about the book as I read, it brought me back to why I love these books so much.

When I read aloud this book, or read to myself any of the Little House books, it takes me back to my childhood.  I can remember like it was yesterday how I would anxiously wait for the bus to roll up in the dust in front of our house.  I would run as quickly as I could up the driveway so that I could dash downstairs and get Little House turned on before it was over.  I watched every single episode, over and over, I think I may have every episode virtually memorized.  I grew up feeling like Laura, Mary, Nellie and Almonzo were my close personal friends and I wanted nothing more to meet Laura who I related to so much.  I still have that theme song stuck in my head and can picture the opening scene with Pa and Ma in the wagon as the music slowly begins.  I remember crying when Bunny died or laughing when Laura put the pepper in Nellie’s meal for Almonzo.  Little House books are like a time machine to my childhood.  

I’m trying to figure out if any other books take me back the way these do.  Gone With the Wind is probably my all time favorite book.  I remember reading it in high school and everyone giving me a hard time about the big, thick book I was reading.  I remember loving the Chronicles of Narnia, but couldn’t even tell you what age I read them.  I have a couple of tiny picture books that I can picture the cupboard they were stored in at my grandmother’s and remember grabbing them out and reading them over and over again.  I remember Mr. Tickle and Little Miss Giggles and all their friends.  I will never forget the Judy Blume book, Forever, and how we all were embarrassed to check it out of the library because of it being about the “s-e-x” word, but all waiting our turn to read it.  I remember Fudge, Ramona and Beezus, Dallas and Soda Pop, Piggy, Charlotte, and those kids from Sweet Valley High.  I can remember a ton of books from my childhood, but none take me back to the smells, the sounds and the sights the way that Little House on the Prairie does.  

I know I can’t expect my students to be as enthralled with the series as I am, but it does give me immense joy when some of them pick up the rest of the series.  And I love watching their faces as we share a particularly funny part or read about the nastiness of the grasshopper plague.  I guess I can’t expect that 30 years from now they will see a Little House book and instantly be transported back to Ms K’s sixth grade classroom, but I hope that each and everyone of my students, and especially my own kids, has a book that touches them like Little House has touched my life.