united states

This is the second book published in Laura Ingalls Wilder's (1867-1957) well-read series for children. However, it isn't concerned with the Ingalls family but rather the family of her future husband, Almanzo James Wilder (1857-1949). The story takes place near the town of Malone in upper New York near the Canadian border on the prosperous farm of the Wilder family and depicts the life of a nine/ten-year-old boy about 1866/1867. Besides Almanzo, the main characters are Almanzo's parents, James Mason Wilder (1813-1899) and Angelina Wilder (1821-1905), his brother Royal Gould Wilder (1847-1925), and his two sisters, Eliza Jane (1850-1930) and Alice (1853-1892). In this book, Almanzo realizes that what he wants to be is a farmer. That is what he enjoys and what he excells in. (I really can't understand the comments of the Feb. 14, 1999, reviewer from Toledo, Spain. What was the "misinterpretation of human nature"? This book for children is an account of what happened to the main character as related to the author by her husband!)

Farmer Boy
By Laura Ingalls Wilder
First published in 1933

I read the book Farmer Boy. The main character is Almonzo Wilder. The book is about his farming family in the 19th century. I enjoyed the story because it has so much detail. It shows all of the chores that they did, and all of the food that they ate.
They had to get up at the crack of dawn to do their chores. Everyone in the family did different chores. Some of their chores were sheep shearing, cow milking, feeding chickens, training the calves to plow the field, filling the ice house and making all of their food and clothes.
My favorite chapter was titled County Fair. It was about when the Wilder family went to the fair, and tried to win all sorts of ribbons. They all worked very hard to get ready to go to the fair. They grew pumpkins and make spices. Almonzo's pumpkin won the blue ribbon.
They had everything at the fair. From horses to fair games. Almonzo's father would not let him play any of the fair games because he said "never bet money on another man's game''. Everyone had a great time at the fair.
I also liked when the mother and father went away for a week. The children were on their own. The kids did not do their chores. Instead, they made candy, cake and ice cream. Lucy the pig got some candy, and her mouth got stuck closed. They did their chores at the last minute before father and mother came home.
I would recommend Farmer Boy to a person who needed to do research on the 19th century, or anyone who wanted a book for pure enjoyment. I learned how hard life would be on a farm back in the 1800's, why children disliked school, and why they always were so well behaved. ...

I've never read any of Wilder's books except this one. I've never even seen "Little House on the Prarie." The first thing I thought while reading this book is, "Did people really live like this?" Sure, the kids in the book had some fun, but mostly their lives were work, from sun up to sun down. The father, in the winter (40 degress below zero) had to get up at midnight and make the cows move around, otherwise they would freeze where they stood. Thank God for modern technology, which has made our lives so much more easy and pleasant. I recommend this novel for everyone. Wilder writes in a simple, sparse style, one you might call "Hemingway for children." Hard to believe people had to live like this, just in order to have enough to eat.