PRAIRIE FIRES. The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

A life-and-times biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the beloved Little House series of books.

Her triumphal vision of homesteading has influenced generations to believe in the self-sufficiency of the American farm. But the dramatic tension in her work—the quality that keeps bringing people back to it—springs from the fact that she knew better than anyone that homesteading broke more lives than it sustained. The point is not that Wilder was deceptive or intentionally misled readers. She loved to tell a good story, even if it wasn't entirely true, but she was also driven to remake herself and her history. She was bound to the land and believed wholeheartedly in an idealistic vision of the family farm. By burnishing her experiences and simplifying her story for children, she restored to her parents the stability that eluded them in life and created an enduring mythology of American selfreliance.
PRAIRIE FIRES explores the meaning of that myth and its lasting appeal by telling the story of Wilder's real life.
Caroline Fraser's first book, God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, was
selected as a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Book Review Best
Book. Her second book, Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution, was named one
of Library Journal's best science and technology titles of the year. She is the editor of the Library of America's two-volume edition of Wilder's novels and her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and Outside magazine, among others. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.