Courageous Joy

*On the Banks of Plum Creek* by Laura Ingalls Wilder

By Nolan: We started reading these books when we were doing people traveling in covered wagons for school. Mom likes these books. I like them too. I like the stories about the storms, grasshoppers and the animals that attacked.

I (De’Etta) have enjoyed this book in the series, most, so far. I found it interesting to read this account of the long blizzard that Pa was lost in after having read *The Children’s Blizzard”. I think that many see the Little House series as the sugar-coated television program of the 80’s (or was it 70’s?). The books are not sugar-coated. Laura writes plainly of the “children who froze stiff” and of not only the good times, which we romanticize, but also the trials and problems of living in the mid-west in the 1800’s, which we tend to forget.

On a personal note, reading about Ma teaching Mary and Laura with nothing more than a slate, a Bible and a nature book of some sort inspired me. It is so easy in the homeschooling movement to think that we must find the right book, curriculum, or tool in order for our children to succeed. We must find the right teaching style, motivational tool etc. Generations of Americans taught their children with a few books and loving over-sight. This reminds me again that what my children need most is consistent time with me…learning together and not the latest and greatest NEW and IMPROVED curriculum.