At the end of the nineteenth century, nine-year-old Almanzo lives with his family on a big farm in New York State where he raises his own two calves, helps cut ice and shear sheep, and longs for the day he can have his own colt.

Pa's homestead thrives, Laura gets her first job in town, blackbirds eat the corn and oats crops, Mary goes to college, and Laura gets into trouble at school, but becomes a certified school teacher.

Laura and her family are moving west again, this time to the Dakota Territory. Laura really likes their frontier home until the night she and Carrie take a walk and come face to face with a huge prairie wolf!

During their first four years of marriage, Laura and Almanzo Wilder have a child and fight a losing battle in their attempts to succeed at farming on the South Dakota prairie.

"Many girls in elementary and middle school fall in love with the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. What they don't always realize is that Wilder's books are autobiographical. This narrative biography describes more of the details of the young Laura's real life as a young pioneer homesteading with her family on many adventurous journeys. This biography, complete with charming illustrations, points out the differences between the fictional...