My First Fangirl Fixation

I remember the first author I ever knew by name. I remember her because I'm still one of her greatest fans. Her books captivated me when I was young, and I still reread her entire series on a regular basis because I find the stories such a comfort. I own a very well-worn set of paperbacks and am slowly collecting hardback editions, not because they are hard to find but because I want each hardback to be special.

And kind of telling, this author actually wrote a very sweet love story, one that captured my heart when I was a kid even though I had no idea what a romance novel was.

I'm talking about Laura Ingalls Wilder, writer of the Little House books.

In true fan form, I've always gobbled up anything having to do with LIW. I bought every book published with her name on it or associated with it. I watched the Little House on the Prairie television series during it's 10-season run, experiencing that unique frustration of book lovers when the television show took dramatic license and diverged wildly from the books, then accepting the show for what it was in its own right. Well, maybe not so much those last three seasons...

When I happened upon Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, produced by CBS and aired on Lifetime, of course I had to watch. This site does a good job explaining what was wrong with the movie; mostly that in order to condense a good 8 years worth of story into a two-hour movie and in order to make things palatable to today's viewing audience, a lot of creative license was taken. Again, that stuff annoyed me to a certain degree, as did the actor who played Almanzo Wilder (his teeth had me absolutely fixated whenever he was on screen). But I enjoyed it all the same.

And I got an itching to reread LIW's books. Now I understand why my TBR never seems to get any smaller.