Product Description

Set during the pioneer days of the late 1800s and early 1900s, Laura Ingalls Wilder's books chronicle her life growing up on the Western frontier. For the first time in the history of the Little House books, these new editions feature Garth Williams' interior art in vibrant, full color. Come along for the adventure with this collector's set of the first five Little House books.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3248 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-01
• Released on: 2004-10-12
• Format: Box set
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback

About the Author
Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in 1867 in the log cabin described in Little House in the Big Woods. As her classic Little House books tell us, she and her family traveled by covered wagon across the Midwest. She and her husband, Almanzo Wilder, made their own covered-wagon trip with their daughter, Rose, to Mansfield, Missouri. There Laura wrote her story in the Little House books, and lived until she was ninety years old. For millions of readers, however, she lives forever as the little pioneer girl in the beloved Little House books.

Customer Reviews

Very good with one concern
I purchased this set for my wife. It is very nice, especially with the pictures in the inside of the book. The only down side of this set is that it is not the whole Little house collection. This set contains the first 5 books and there are at least four more that follow. I tried to find the remaining books and wound up ordering the entire set (including these 5 again) by a different publisher. These five are probably nicer, but I just thought the whole set would have been better.

Full Color Set is VERY Nice!
There is no need to write what these books are about, for everyone knows that they are about the pioneer life of Laura as she was growing up. Also, the book Farmer Boy is about her husband's boyhood in New York. They are wonderful books. I am 42 and I first read them when I was in Jr. High school, and at that time, These Happy Golden Years was my favorite of the series. I bought a set years ago when my 21 yr. old was small. She read them and loved them. We read them aloud when my now 12 yr. old was about 6, and we are reading them aloud again so my 7 yr. old son can enjoy them. We just bought this new set of FULL COLOR editions because our first set is pretty ratty from use. These books are very nice with the full color illustrations, and also the pages are much thicker. I am glad to have this set and feel they are very much worth the higher price for being in color.

Every child should hear these stories. They are very interesting. For us this time, we are again realizing how drastically different life is now from Laura's day. People LIVED then, for they really WORKED and were PRODUCTIVE then, and I believe they were HAPPIER then as well. We are in Farmer Boy now, and we are amazed at how self reliant his family was in producing almost all their own food, clothes ( mother even wove the cloth herself, used the oat straw from the fields to weave their hats), etc. Everyone worked, even the children. It actually makes me sort of sad, really, for everyone needs work and children do too, but today there isn't much work for children to do. Back then it was a productive society, today sadly it is a consumer society.

Another funny thing, in Little House on the Prairie, when the family was packing up to leave, Ma put all the family's clothes into ONE carpet bag! We are definitely not into clothes in our family, but we still could not put all the clothes into one suitcase to go on a trip.

I highly recommend this set of books, and especially the improvement of the sturdier pages and colorized illustrations.

A Classic, yet still exceedingly timely, collection
I do not remember the first time I read all the Laura books. They have, however, been on my list of comfort reading ever since. Was it because it was so easy to identify with her sibling rivalry in the first couple books, or because of the vivid descriptions that brought life in America over 100 years ago into my imagination, or because the chapters, so good for bedtime reading, encapsulated each vignette into a cohesive whole? It's hard to say exactly what it was about these stories, but Mrs. Wilder's voice creates a window into our country's past that no child should miss out upon. Where else would they find such a narrator of pioneer western America? Let alone one that is so easy to identify with. This collection is beautifully colored (the illustrations have always been wonderfully evocative) and the pages are a tad thicker than normal and shiny and feel good in the hand.