The COMPLETE LITTLE HOUSE BOOKS

Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, Farmer Boy, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years and The First Four Years.

by LAURA INGALLS WILDER

See other children's fiction click here

Boxed set of 9 new softcover books still in shrinkwrap. Each book measures 20 x 13cm.

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.

1. Little House in the Big Woods

Wolves and panthers and bears roam the deep Wisconsin woods in the late 1870's. In those same woods, Laura lives with Pa and Ma, and her sisters, Mary and Baby Carrie, in a snug little house built of logs. Pa hunts and traps. Ma makes her own cheese and butter. All night long, the wind howls lonesomely, but Pa plays the fiddle and sings, keeping the family safe and cozy.

2. Little House on the Prairie

Pa Ingalls decides to sell the little log house, and the family sets out for Indian country! They travel from Wisconsin to Kansas, and there, finally, Pa builds their little house on the prairie. Sometimes farm life is difficult, even dangerous, but Laura and her family are kept busy and are happy with the promise of their new life on the prairie.

3. Farmer Boy

While Laura Ingalls grows up in a little house on the western prairie, Almanzo Wilder is living on a big farm in New York State. Almanzo and his brother and sisters work at their chores from dawn to supper most days -- no matter what the weather. There is still time for fun, though, especially with the horses, which Almanzo loves more than anything.

4. On the Banks of Plum Creek

Laura's family's first home in Minnesota is made of sod, but Pa builds a clean new house made of sawed lumber beside Plum Creek. The money for materials will come from their first wheat crop. Then, just before the wheat is ready to harvest, a strange glittering cloud fills the sky, blocking out the sun. Soon millions of grasshoppers cover the field and everything on the farm. In a week's time, there is no wheat crop left at all.

5. By the Shores of Silver Lake

Pa Ingalls heads west to the unsettled wilderness of the Dakota Territory. When Ma, Mary, Laura, Carrie, and baby Grace join him, they become the first settlers in the town of De Smet. And Pa begins work on the first building in what will soon be a brand-new town on the shores of Silver Lake.

6. The Long Winter

The first terrible storm comes to the barren prairie in October. Then it snows almost without stopping until April. Snow has reached the rooftops, and no trains can get through with food or coal. The people of De Smet are starving, including Laura's family, who wonder how they're going to make it through this terrible winter. It is young Almanzo Wilder who finally understands what needs to be done. He must save the town, even if it means risking his own life.

7. Little Town on the Prairie

The long winter is over. With spring come socials, parties, and "Literaries." There is also work to be done. Laura spends many hours each day sewing shirts to help send Mary to a college for the blind. But in the evenings, Laura makes time for a new caller, Almanzo Wilder.

8. These Happy Golden Years

Laura is teaching school, and it's terrifying! Most of the students are taller than she is, and she must sleep away from home for the first time. Laura is miserable, but the money is needed to keep Mary in a college for the blind. And every Friday -- no matter what the weather -- Almanzo Wilder arrives to take Laura home to her family for the weekend. Laura and Almanzo are courting, and even though she's not yet sixteen, she knows that this is a time for new beginnings.

9. The First Four Years

Laura and Almanzo Wilder have just been married! Their life on a small prairie homestead begins with high hopes. But each year seems to bring unexpected disasters -- storms, sickness, fire, and unpaid debts. These first four years call for courage, strength, and a great deal of determination. Always, though, there is love, especially for the newest member of the family -- baby Rose.

About the author

Nickname: Half-Pint, Flutterbudget
Birthday: February 7, 1867
Birthplace: Pepin County, Wisconsin
Parents: Charles Phillip Ingalls & Caroline Quiner Ingalls
Brothers & Sisters: Mary, Carrie, Grace, Freddie
Likes: Churning butter, Pa's stories, fiddle playing, going barefoot
Pets: Jack, a bulldog; and Black Susan, a cat

Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was born in 1867 in the log cabin described in Little House in the Big Woods. By the time she was thirteen years old, Laura had traveled by covered wagon from the thick Wisconsin woods across the Midwest to the wide-open Kansas prairie, out to the fertile Minnesota plain, and finally to a brand-new town at the end of a railroad line in Dakota Territory. True pioneers, Laura and her family faced everything, from severe droughts and bone-chilling winters to crop failures and grasshopper invasions, in their long search for a new life on land of their own.

Laura was a spirited and courageous girl from the start, and her life on the frontier was a nonstop adventure. She worked hard helping Ma and Pa in the house, and on the family's farm, but there was always time for fun - which meant climbing trees, riding horses, sledding, playing with her three sisters, and singing along with Pa's fiddle. Laura also loved school, and at age fifteen, she became a teacher like her mother. Three years later, she married a quiet farm boy from northern New York named Almanzo Wilder. Laura and Almanzo 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.

The popularity of the "Little House" series of books has grown phenomenally over the years, spawning a multimillion-dollar franchise of mass merchandising, additional spinoff book series and the long-running television show. Wilder once said the reason she wrote her books in the first place was to preserve the stories of her childhood for today's children, to help them to understand how much America had changed during her lifetime.

See other fiction book sets and boxed sets click here

The Complete Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder