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Mar. 27th, 2005 04:22 pmI got to revisit one of my major childhood obsessions last night.
As a young child in Idaho (where we lived from the time I was 4 years old until I was 8), I was fascinated by pioneers. The Little House series was central to this fascination. I got the complete set of all 10 books when I was 5 or 6 and quickly read them all to shreds and committed them to memory. A few years later, the TV series started, and I was really into that too. I have a very clear memory of watching that show early on, and saying "That's not what *really* happened in the book." Clearly I was a literary snob - and a literalist - from a very very early age. But we never missed an episode of that show. I identified very strongly with Laura - I remember a few times people telling me I looked like Melissa Gilbert as Laura: I had long brown hair and buck teeth and there was definitely a passing resemblance. And I loved that.
So last night, ABC showed the first of a 5-part series they are doing, specifically of events from Little House on the Prairie (as opposed to the other books). And this is the series I would have loved to watch when I was 7 - totally true to the books. Halfway through last night's episode, I got out my copy of the book, and they were definitely sticking to it. As some of the reviews said, this is definitely darker and grittier than the original show (which is so cloying and cheezy it makes my teeth hurt to watch now). It was great.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
galagan never read the books, or saw the original series, so he's a Little House virgin, basically - and he was regularly on the edge of his seat.
My sister already emailed me with her thoughts about the show, and my father mentioned that he watched it too. I haven't yet talked to my mother today, but she was planning on watching it too. I think I was the one to initially love these books, but clearly my obsession got passed along to the rest of my family in the process. Which makes me happy too.
Some day I'm going to visit some of the sites - De Smet, South Dakota, and Pepin, Wisconsin, and Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and outside of Independence, Kansas. These places were so vivid to me as a child - and I still want to see them for myself. These books were absolutely central to my childhood, and to my early sense of history and of the American West.
I also had the wonderful realization that we get to start introducing these books to the girly in a few years - add it to the list!
As a young child in Idaho (where we lived from the time I was 4 years old until I was 8), I was fascinated by pioneers. The Little House series was central to this fascination. I got the complete set of all 10 books when I was 5 or 6 and quickly read them all to shreds and committed them to memory. A few years later, the TV series started, and I was really into that too. I have a very clear memory of watching that show early on, and saying "That's not what *really* happened in the book." Clearly I was a literary snob - and a literalist - from a very very early age. But we never missed an episode of that show. I identified very strongly with Laura - I remember a few times people telling me I looked like Melissa Gilbert as Laura: I had long brown hair and buck teeth and there was definitely a passing resemblance. And I loved that.
So last night, ABC showed the first of a 5-part series they are doing, specifically of events from Little House on the Prairie (as opposed to the other books). And this is the series I would have loved to watch when I was 7 - totally true to the books. Halfway through last night's episode, I got out my copy of the book, and they were definitely sticking to it. As some of the reviews said, this is definitely darker and grittier than the original show (which is so cloying and cheezy it makes my teeth hurt to watch now). It was great.
galagan never read the books, or saw the original series, so he's a Little House virgin, basically - and he was regularly on the edge of his seat. My sister already emailed me with her thoughts about the show, and my father mentioned that he watched it too. I haven't yet talked to my mother today, but she was planning on watching it too. I think I was the one to initially love these books, but clearly my obsession got passed along to the rest of my family in the process. Which makes me happy too.
Some day I'm going to visit some of the sites - De Smet, South Dakota, and Pepin, Wisconsin, and Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and outside of Independence, Kansas. These places were so vivid to me as a child - and I still want to see them for myself. These books were absolutely central to my childhood, and to my early sense of history and of the American West.
I also had the wonderful realization that we get to start introducing these books to the girly in a few years - add it to the list!
