Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend Book

Hmmm. I am not sure what to make of this book. I guess the thing that I would tell potential readers is: be careful when you read a biography about someone you idolized. When you learn of their clay feet, it can be very disappointing.

In addition, after reading the Little House books hundreds of times, this biography seems lackluster at best. The first part of the book basically summarizes LAW's life, but offers very little that is new, particularly if you have read her books or were aware of other biographical details: the big "twists" are that she had a little brother who died very early in life, her childhood was much more nomadic than her books let on, her parents' families intermarried a great deal, and another couple passed the Long Winter with them in their DeSmet town house. Oh yeah, and Nellie Oleson is based on three people that LAW knew in her childhood. The second half of the book is almost more of an account of LAW's tempestuous relationship with her (possibly bipolar) daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. In fact, I would say that the second half of the book is equally a biography of RWL's life. This is the part of the book where facts become increasingly plentiful, much more clear, and better established...however, the ultimate disappointment is that the book does not give information as to the rest of RWL's life after her mother died. And given that the book becomes more and more about RWL in the second half, this is not only disappointing to the reader but shoddy writing and scholarship on the part of the author.