Literary Dream Tour, Pt 2

A couple thrilling updates for you all, in the Laura Ingalls Wilder and Betsy-Tacy department. I count fifteen more days until we leave for Minnesota, but we've been making steady progress preparing.

First off, for all you Maud Hart Lovelace fans who devoured the Betsy-Tacy books (including the spin-offs Winona's Pony Cart, Carney's House Party, and Emily of Deep Valley), I recommend you drop everything and give this one a try:

That cover artist might not be a Lois Lenski or Vera Neville, but the story inside is fabulous. Now I have to add at least a drive-by of Fort Snelling and Pig's Eye Park to the itinerary. Set in the 1820s and 1830s around Fort Snelling, at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, Early Candlelight is peopled with soldiers, fur traders, Sioux and Chippewa Indians, and the DuGay family. Love interest Jasper Page had more than a hint of Delos Lovelace in him, and I found the love story unpredictable and satisfying. Can't wait to try more adult fiction from this woman!

The 9-year-old and I have re-read our way up to Betsy In Spite of Herself, so we're on track there. I'd forgotten how humorous the books are and how well Lovelace captures the mindset of each age. The 9YO skipped a bit through Heaven to Betsy because she deemed the Essay Contest "boring" (!!). I grant you, the Philippines don't light my fire either, but there is no skipping over any possible mention of Joe Willard for this reader.

As for the 13YO, she hasn't picked up a single LIW or Betsy-Tacy book, to my disgust, but she did submit to sitting through Episodes 1 and 2 from Season One of Little House on the Prairie. I must confess: we howled through it.

A rare pic of Pa with shirt on

When Pa fell out of the tree for no discernible reason, it called for replays and re-enactments. My husband and I agreed we hadn't laughed that hard since the skit in Portlandia where Fred and Carrie are giving instructions to the housesitter. Good stuff. Now the only problem is that there are so many episodes and so many seasons, that we can only hit a couple more highlights before the trip. If you have a favorite episode, preferably with something ludicrous happening in it and Pa with his shirt off, let me know in the comments.

With Plum Creek on my mind, I picked up this book from the library:

and sure enough, Lockwood quotes the whole scene in On the Banks of Plum Creek where the Ingalls' see the cloud of pestilence approaching and then have to flee inside, ripping locusts from their hair and clothing and crunching them underfoot. I had no idea what a scourge these insects were throughout the 1870s and 1880s before they mysteriously disappeared. Swarms consumed 50 tons of vegetation a day, leaving famine and ecological devastation in their wake, just as we read in LIW.

And one final note, coming full circle to Betsy-Tacy, after my first post on the Literary Dream Tour, a reporter from The Free Press in Mankato contacted me about doing a story on our visit! We'll see if anything comes of it, but how cool would it be to be mentioned in the very newspaper that Winona's dad used to edit? That's like a rip in the life-literature continuum! When worlds collide, baby.

Thanks for tuning in! Now if I can just get some more writing done, in between all this reading...