Having completed everything in the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, including her travel journal On the Way Home, I decided we’d attempt just one of the follow-up books by an author who wrote the continuing saga, but fifty years later. Roger Lea MacBRide had known Rose Wilder, Laura and Manly Wilder’s daughter, for many years. He had heard her stories and read her journals, and as the sole heir to the Wilder legacy, he determined to research the time period further and record for posterity what all happened next, following The First Four Years.

Would a new author besmirch the integrity of the series? Would he have anything to add? In my humble opinion, MacBride didn’t skip a beat. I felt when reading this book aloud to my kids that this guy knew his stuff, that he drew from true history, and that he melded into Wilder’s style so smoothly that you’d be hard pressed to point our areas where this book diverges from the originals.

The story follows the Wilders as they move from De Smet, South Dakota, to Mansfield, Missouri. We experience their months-long wagon ride alongside the Cooley family, we endure their ordeal of having lost their $100 bill, and we enjoy their excitement at purchasing a home at a location they eventually call Rocky Ridge and begin laying down roots that will last a lifetime.

One scene that stood out to me as something we would never have read in the original books is when young Rose Wilder disobeys her parents by running off at night to meet some neighbors and then lies about it. She never faces any punishment or adverse consequences. Even if this were truly how the event played out, I’m pretty sure her mother would have turned this into a teaching moment of going against one’s conscience or apologizing for wrongs one had otherwise gotten away with. I actually voiced my surprise to the kids when I read this, so it turned into a teaching moment for us, but I’m doubtful that other most readers would catch it.

We all enjoyed this book as much as we have the others. I’m especially excited that these stories aren’t made up, even if they are dramatized. These events come from true memories and records, and MacBride’s research into the time period adds life to it that otherwise may have been forged. I’m happy to continue through his series, and we all look forward to the next installment, Little Farm in the Ozarks.

©2020 E.T.

Read More from The Little House Series:

• Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1932)
• Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1933)
• Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1935)
• On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1937)
• By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1939)
• The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1940)
• Little Town on the Prairie Laura Ingalls Wilder (1941)
• These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1943)
• On the Way Home by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1962)
• The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1971)
• Little Farm in the Ozarks by Robert La MacBride (1994)
• Little House on Rocky Ridge by Roger Lea MacBride (1993)
• Confessions of a Prairie B*tch by Alison Arngrim (2010)