Reconsidering Laura Ingalls Wilder: Little House and Beyond ed. by Miranda A. Green-Barteet

Abstract

Reviewed by: Reconsidering Laura Ingalls Wilder: Little House and Beyond ed. by Miranda A. Green-Barteet Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor Green-Barteet, Miranda A., ed. Reconsidering Laura Ingalls Wilder: Little House and Beyond; ed. by Miranda A. Green-Barteet and Anne K. Phillips. University Press of Mississippi, 2019 224p Paper ed. ISBN 978-1-4968-2308-3 $30.00 Green-Barteet, associate professor in both Women's Studies and English and Writing at the University of Western Ontario, and Phillips, a professor of English at Kansas State University, bring together a collection of critical essays focusing on Wilder's works and writings, including not just the Little House series but also letters and Wilder's autobiography. The essays are divided into four sections and cover such topics as the politics of disability in the Little House series (specifically Mary's blindness, situating that character in the context of Helen Keller's work and advocacy); the representation of women and motherhood in the original series and the later 1990 spinoffs; Wilder's place in the American literary canon; the tourism and "Wilder mystique" that have grown up around Wilder's homes; and the books' connections to and interaction with the Ojibwe, Osage, and Dakota tribes. Notes and works cited follow each essay, and an index concludes the book. [End Page 148] Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois