"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.

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This thread is for discussing "On the Banks of Plum Creek".

This one of my Favorite book

I've read this book many times as a child. I bought a used paperback copy of it at a thrift store about six years ago. I love it!

This book reminds me how feisty Laura was as a child. She tried hard to be as good as she thought Mary was, but overall, she had that streak in her!

I just can't imagine how hard it would be to live in a dug out! Poor Ma!
Laura really was naughty in this book! She learned some pretty important lessons through it all.

I love how Pa dunked her when she waaaandered out too far into the water!

I love Pa!

I just finished reading this book today and I'll go ahead and say it's probably my favorite one thus far. I found the chapter where Laura was playing through the hay to be particularly hilarious (especially the way it was written). Also, I liked seeing where so many episodes of the TV series came from... Before I read this, I'm embarrassed to admit it but I had thought Nellie had been created for the TV program. Someone had said something to me about her being fictional while I was watching the series...

I didn't realize they actually meant she had been based on more than one person and there wasn't someone named "Nellie Oleson" in real life... so I was both happy and surprised when I read her name in the book. Good quality reading!

Jon, the character of Nellie Olsen of the Little House books is made up of 3 different people. The Nellie from Plum Creek was really Nellie Owens who had a brother named Willie. Nellie was younger than Laura and was the leader of the girls at school until Laura came along and then she was everyones favourite and I think Nellie's nose got put out of joint, lol. The Owens family was from the East and I beleive they retunrned there after living in Minnesota.
The character of Nellie shows up again later in the series in Little Town on the Priaire and books following. This Nellie was created from 2 characters from De Smet named Ginny Masters and Stella Gilbert. (Laura met Ginny Masters in Burr Oak first and then again back on the Dakota prairie.)
When Laura wrote her books she told everyone that the people were true in name except the Owens family. They were so nasty that she changed their names. Researchers have also wondered the real identity of Mr Edwards. Laura may have made up his name as well. He may have been created out of more than one character. One may have been Edmond Mason, of Plum Creek. Later Mr Edwards shows up in De Smet and is heading to the west, Oregon I beleive. But Edmond Mason never ever went to the west and so we are let to beleive that Mr Edwards real personage is a mystery. http://www.laurasprairiehouse.com/family/mredwards.html
I am so glad that you are reading the Little House books. If you are interested in more books about Laura, check out the Little House Library thread in this section. I recomment all books written by William Anderson. Enjoy and keep reading!

Hey, thanks for that info! I'd heard she was based on more than one person, but I didn't know the details like that. That's really cool and I look forward to seeing Nellie later in the series now. I think the next one I'm starting is Silver Lake (fortunately the book set I bought is all numbered otherwise I'd be completely lost). I'll check out that thread later, too! Thanks again!

Here is the Little House books in order

Laura Ingalls Wilder
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
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The First Four Years
On The Way Home
West From Home

The first 8 books are the series. Farmer Boy was written second but the publshing company for some reason always puts it in third. The First Four Years was found years later after Rose's death. It had not been edited and so it was published in it's rough form. It is very different from the first 8.
On the Way Home is a diary that Laura kept for family records of their move from De Smet, SD to Mansfield, MO in 1894. It is interesting to see how they went in wagon over a few weeks what we can go in a day or more. It's a personal guidebook for all they say and people they me.
West From Home was written many years later. It is a book of letters written to Almanzo when Laura was visiting Rose in San Francisco and attended the world's fair together. I've only read this book once and it was awhile ago, but it's interesting to read and see how much has changed from then til now.

Enjoy the LH books Jon. I'm almost 42 and can prouldy say that they are my favourites. I don't care if they were written for children, this 42 yr old kid will never grow up!
Marilyn

LIWnut wrote:

The first 8 books are the series. Farmer Boy was written second but the publshing company for some reason always puts it in third. The First Four Years was found years later after Rose's death. It had not been edited and so it was published in it's rough form. It is very different from the first 8.

They must be finally wising up to that, then, because Farmer Boy is correctly numbered as Number 2 in the set I bought. I got that 9-Book set that came out recently (the ones without the pictures by Garth). Ironically, I still read it third, so go figure. :think:

I'll keep that in mind about the ninth book not being edited when I get that far in the series. I appreciate all that info!

I read almost all the little House books when I was a young girl in the 70s but I did not read On The Banks Of Plum Creek because I didn't like the cover!

I didn't like the way Laura's hair was all flying up and then Ma being under the ground like that... :unsure:

I was a sensitive and weird kid!

Now I love the book and I can overlook the cover.

My son used to have me skip over "the strange animal" part because it scared him but this last reading he told me I could read it. I love the way that Laura discovers that Pa has rules for a reason.

When I was ten, this was my favorite book in the series, though as I got older I liked the later books more.

I think my favorite part would be when Laura and Mary go sliding and rolling down the haystack. When I was ten I was horrified that they would disobey Pa, and now that I'm older I find it rather humorous and was quite excited to realize that Pa found it funny too.

Of all of the characters that I'd most like to meet, I think I'd like to meet Pa the most. He seems as though he was a really special guy- especially for that time period. I know that a lot of fathers in that time period were loving, but generally didn't show their love, and Pa really seems to show his love for his family.

Because my imagination is so vivid, I can feel the grasshoppers crunching under my feet! The grasshopper chapters always make me start itching. ~laughs~

Prairie Dweller wrote:

Of all of the characters that I'd most like to meet, I think I'd like to meet Pa the most.

Same here! I love Pa. Yeah, for his day, he was a very loving pa.

I hate reading about the Grasshoppers! Yuk!

I love the book cover. Other favorite book of mine. I feel like, to start reading the LHOTP series.

A couple of things about his book, that I thought of after reading it about 6 times.

It was terribly irresponsible of Pa to build that house on credit. Harvest the wheat first! Would it have killed them to stay in the dugout another year? When they go there they saw Hansen's wheat field was small, didn't they get the clue then there could be problems?

Also this is the book where Ma has Laura give Charlotte the doll to the Nelson's girl. That is the only toy in the world she has, her past doll was a corncob! And she has to give it away??? How about Ma give up her china shepardess? I can see being unselfish, but that's ridiculous. Strongly disagree with Ma here.

The cute part of the book is Laura's sense of wonder. I always admired that about her. Every new place they settled was filled with wonder.

I like the front cover too. I got one of the old books of Little House on the Prairie series. Only one new book of Little House on Prairie series. That one is Little Town on the Prairie. I got that book at Greenfield Village gift shop. I should have bought two books that day, when I got it.