Reviews for Little Blog on the Prairie

The average rating for Little Blog on the Prairie based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-07-18 00:00:00 Jefferson Cox Exactly ten years ago, PBS was filming Frontier House, a show where three families went to Montana to live in the same conditions as people would have in 1883. I loved that series - it's the only reality show I've ever been able to stand. Keeping that in mind, you can see why my interest would be piqued by a book entitled Little Blog on the Prairie, which is about Gen Welsh who is forced to go on a family vacation to Frontier Camp, where she, her mother, her father, and her little brother Gavin will live as though it is 1890. When Gen is told about these summer plans, she is horrified. She whines, cries, and argues until she is finally offered a bribe: a cell phone to be given when she gets home. Gen has wanted a cell phone for ages and finally agrees to go. However, the night before her family leaves, she sneaks downstairs, charges it, & learns to use it. The next day she managed to smuggle it into camp. As the title suggests, a blog begins when her best friend back home begins to post each text message online in a blog she calls "Little Hell on the Prairie." The first thing to go is the family's normal clothes. Initially, Gen is embarrassed by her prairie girl outfit, but the other teenagers are dressed just as badly, so this does fall on the wayside. She develops a crush on Caleb, another camper, and a dislike of the camp owners' daughter Nora, who seems determined to make Gen feel like a useless idiot. Additionally, Nora is a rival for the affections of Caleb. Nora herself is a bit of a tragic figure, while the other kids are there for eight weeks in the summer, she lives with her Neo-Luddite parents on the farm year-round. She's home-schooled and sees only her parents in the winter. The only friends she makes are the ones in the summer whose families don't tend to make a second trip. As the summer moves along, the kids have problems adjusting to life without their own beds let alone their own rooms. They aren't the only ones though, the adults are finding that their back-to-basics vacation isn't quite as picturesque as they'd imagined. Everything is a challenge; cooking, weeding, washing, ironing, and to top it off, the mention of a possible bear roaming around has Gen's father in a panic. I did appreciate that the characters aren't actively stupid; the mistakes made are more from lack of experience rather than ignorance. There aren't a lot of surprises in this book as it goes along. The ending made me think of the end of the first act of Into the Woods when the Narrator declares "And it came to pass, all that seemed wrong was now right, the kingdoms were filled with joy, and those who deserved to were certain to live a long and happy life." Bottom-line: I'd suggest this book for the tweens. I'd have probably read this book over and over when I was in sixth grade. However, a lack of sex, drugs, and extreme emotional problems would probably make fans of the Gossip Girl books or fans of the paranormal label this book boring.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-11-06 00:00:00 Demita Madison Madison Predictable ending. Way too many unanswered questions: cell phone tower? no one else found the "electricity bldg"? Is Nora always this mean to her female guests? How do they advertise without e-mail, a web page, modern advertising? May appeal to tweens, but not serious literature.