"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.

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This thread is for discussing "These Happy Golden Years".

Me too, I love this one!

Oh yes, I like this one too. Maybe my favourite but I need to read them again to decide...

I Love this one too I started to read the series again so i'll read this one again now i'm reading Farmer Boy

my second favorite out of all the books!
~*emilyanne*~

This one is my favourite!!! I´ve read it about 3 times and I love the relationship between Laura and Almanzo... so sweet

i have read it alot 2!

One of the better LHOTP books. But it's hard to decide which one of them I like the most, since everyone of them has something that makes it different to the others.

This one is excellent for Laura is no more a girl, and you see her blossoming as a very bright and firm woman. The interesting thing, if one compares the books and the TV Show, is that Laura hated to teach in real life...and in the show, she loves it. In real life she was waiting a miracle to stop teaching and in the show she barely accepts she must stop to teach in order of being a mother for Rose... :shifty: . In the books, she is not sure she wants to marry a farmer, and in the show, she dreams to marry one... :haha:

Vanesa.

And in the tv show Laura loves Almanzo first while in real life Almanzo was in love with Laura first...

Oh! There are so many things that I love about this book!
I can't believe how brave Laura was and how she never complained to anyone about the horrible family she had to stay with in the beginning! When ever I read the first part of the book it helps to brace up and face whatever it is that I have to do!

I wondered about it too, and the whole situation made me sick. Just imagine if this awful woman would attacked Laura! It never happened, God thanks, but it may have happened.

The knife one was a scaring scene! Poor Laura! Imagine if Pa would known what she was going through.

Vanesa.

Oh I know! :faint2: Can you imagine!?
Complaining simply was NOT allowed in that family
but I know Pa would never have wanted Laura
to hide such a thing!
Wow. What a writer Laura was!
You could just feel the cold hatred of that
miserable Brewster woman!
My cheeks burned along with Laura's
when Mrs. Brewster refused to even
acknowledge Laura's question!
Laura was just so determined to finish
what she began AND to help Mary go through school.
Her love for Mary is so precious!

Well on to happier scenes-
my favorite Laura/ Mary scene in this book
is the "Kitten up the skirt"!
Mary says, "Laura, will you never learn how to behave in church?
"No, Mary. I never will!"
Good ole Mary. Mary and Ma were so much alike
and Laura and Pa were so much alike too.
Pa and Laura longed to go further West.
BTW- Pa is my favorite character!



Holly

I'm glad that the show got this right: Mary was a lot like Ma was, and Laura was a lot like Pa.

As for my favorite character, it's hard to pick only one. I love Pa, and like certain of his qualities. But I think that Ma was also great, trying that her girls would have a good education and were well behaved wherever they were: in a Palace , or in the middle of High prairie. I just love them both.

By the way, I was thinking about this issue: Laura was like Pa. Mary was like Ma...And what about poors Carrie and Grace? I can't catch their personnalities as well as I did with the elder sisters! :sad5:

Vanesa.

Yeah. Poor Carrie and Grace. :sleep:
They definitely are not the main characters.
I love the way that Carrie and Laura become
closer after Mary's blindness though.
I also like it when Carrie tells Laura that she
does have beautiful hair and again when she asks Laura
"aren't you glad you didn't change out of your dress?
(when Almanzo showed up!)
You can just feel the sisterly closeness there.
I always wished I would have had a little sister!

When I visited Little Town on the prairie,
the tour guide showed a well known picture of Carrie- an original.
She commented that Carrie must not
have liked the picture too well because on the back of it,
in Carries own handwriting, Carrie wrote,
"burn this!"
I thought that showed that 'Poor little white faced Carrie
did indeed have a sense of humor!

And then when Grace was grown,
when addressing Rose, she refered to herself as "Aunty Fat".
Now, you really have to have a sense of humor to be able to say that!
so maybe at least Grace took after pa.

I love pa so much because his cheerfulness
always kept the families spirits up-
and because I never had a dad growing up,
he was sort of my role model.
He was my image of what a dad would be-
a friend, but yet there to correct but not angry and mean.

Yes. Carrie was a very interesting person. I read about her working in a paper when young and having very firm politic opinion. The paper owner wanted that all his employes shared the same ideas he had (that were the opposited of Carrie's ones! ) and she just didn't gave up in her convictions. But he respected her and didn't force her to change.

I also read that she tried to have a claim, but that since her health was not very strong, she must give it up. People said Carrie was very active, happy and talkative. She was a real character! And she even knew how to write. She wrote for the newspaper, how first settlements near De Smet area were, and how her family began its life there. She was a tallented storyteller, something that the Ingalls girls must have inherited from their Pa.

When Carrie married, Caroline and Mary missed her a lot, for she was very merry and the house looked a little sad and empty without Carrie's lively speech. Caroline and Mary really missed Carrie's stories. She must have had a lot of sense of humour as you've said.

And Grace was a merry person too. She send a pic too Laura where her husband and her seemes to be sourrounded of great amounts of snow. She wrote below the pic: "Lost in the snow". It was a piture from 1909.

Yes, I agree. Pa was a lot in their characters.

Vanesa.

Vanesa wrote:

And Grace was a merry person too. She send a pic too Laura where her husband and her seemes to be sourrounded of great amounts of snow. She wrote below the pic: "Lost in the snow". It was a piture from 1909.

Yes, I agree. Pa was a lot in their characters.

Vanesa.

I've never seen that picture, Vanesa! Oh, there's so many factual books about the Ingalls that I would love to own!

Holly

I'll try to find it for you. It's really funny!

Vanesa.

This was a wonderful book.

This was another one that I didn't read as a child because of the cover. I didn't like Almanzo's suit! :haha:

I love this book....I loved how Laura's true spirit shone through whilst she was away teaching at Brewsters. such a harsh environment compared to her home life and of course Manly making the trips to collect her every weekend

Hello again, Indi!

I've read this book every year for... years!
What a drastic contrast between the Brewster and Ingall's home!
And can you imagine sleeping in some married couple's bedroom?!
And you just met them!?
And you knew the wife didn't like you?!
Inconceivable!!!!



Oh Laura, you were so brave!

I love this book! Even though I've read it many times I'm still captured by the book and have a difficult time putting it down!

I always feel so sorry for Almanzo at the beginning of this book! I always feel that Laura was a tiny bit unintentionally mean to him, but he was so sweet and still kept coming to pick her up at the Brewsters because he knew how much it meant to her to get away from the place for two days. I do though think it was good of Laura to tell Almanzo that she wasn't interested in him. But I still feel sorry for him! ~laughs~

Laura does so much for Pa and Ma in this book and helps them considerably. I love it in the end of the book when Laura is able to keep her pay, but doesn't feel comfortable keeping it.

Oh, and the horses! I just love the chapters where they're breaking the horses! I'm always right there with Laura hopping- maybe leaping is a better word!- into the buggy before the horses bolt!

The trick she plays on Nellie by spooking the horses! :Hahaha: That is most definitely something that I would've done, even if it wasn't too nice! Sometimes being a bit of a stinker is more fun than being good!

What I don't like about this book is the way Laura writes about Reverend Brown. Obviously I have no idea if what she says about him is true, but I don't think that she should've mentioned his long and dull sermons so many times... even if it were true... I just think that if an unsaved child is reading the book they may get the wrong idea...

I also really like the part in church where the kitten crawls up Laura's hoop skirt!

The last few chapters of the book a little bit bittersweat... I had a very hard time reading them! You read what people have been giving to Laura and Almanzo and what Laura really enjoys, and then a few years later she loses it all, but the bread plate, in the fire. That must have been devastating.

Prairie Dweller wrote:

I always feel so sorry for Almanzo at the beginning of this book!

Oh I know! Laura was just so clueless at first! It really shows how innocent and modest she was to not realize she had caught Almanzo's eye! I always wondered why Ma didn't inform Laura of Almanzo's intentions. I guess Ma figured that Laura already knew or maybe Ma was too shy to talk about it?

Prairie Dweller wrote:

Oh, and the horses! I just love the chapters where they're breaking the horses! I'm always right there with Laura hopping- maybe leaping is a better word!- into the buggy before the horses bolt!

Me, too! That's why I'm now the keeper of Almanzo's Morgan horses!

Prairie Dweller wrote:

What I don't like about this book is the way Laura writes about Reverend Brown.

She certainly did have strong feelings against "hollering preachers". :shifty: But you know Laura, she was always one to speak her mind!

Prairie Dweller wrote:

I also really like the part in church where the kitten crawls up Laura's hoop skirt!

That has got to be my favorite part of the book! How hilarious! Can you imagine? I know what it's like to try and hold back laughter in a solemn assembly! Sometimes I just get struck with something funny to such an extent that I have to take a little trip to the ladies room to get myself under control. I guess I'm like Laura... I will never learn how to behave.