Laurapalooza 2010

Saturday July 17

Walnut Grove, MN

Itinerary

About 2 p.m.: Arrive in Walnut Grove

11 a.m. to 6 p.m.: **Family Festival, Walnut Grove City Park

**Art Exhibit                                    3 p.m. to 8 p.m.

**Museum Tours                        All day until pageant starts

3:30 p.m. Dean Butler Speaks, Museum

4 p.m. Load at WG School for bus tour to Plum Creek.

6 p.m.  Pageant Supper

8 p.m.  LIW Pageant Singers, Pageant site

9-9:30 p.m. Start (Dusk) LIW Pageant

**These activities are interchangeable.

Amy here: All ticketed items were included in the trip fee, and those who registered for the trip will have a special stamp on their name tags indicating they’ve paid for Walnut Grove. We’ve left plenty of time in the schedule for shopping, looking, and enjoying the area.

Looking forward to it!
Amy

“I declare,” Ma said. “It never rains but it pours.”

~from These Happy Golden Years, Chapter 20

One of the most frequent questions I have received over the years from those who love Laura’s books is, “Why hasn’t there been a factual documentary made about Laura’s life?”

Why indeed? A highly fictional television series gained wide popularity during the 1970s and early 80s. A movie and its sequel, touting themselves as the “true” story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, disappointed fans with its startling inaccuracies in 2000 and 2002. And in 2005, a Disney miniseries of Little House on the Prairie aired, closer to the mark than the original television series, but still containing significant deviations from the original book, even leaving out poor Carrie altogether!

These have left Laura’s readers wondering, when will someone produce a Wilder-related show that finally gets the story right?

That time has come, and as Ma says, it never rains but it pours. Wilder devotees not only have Dean Butler’s  The Legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder to look forward to this summer, but the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum in Mansfield, Missouri, has produced a documentary of its own.

Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Life Stories of a Pioneer Girl was commissioned by the Wilder Home, which gives it an advantage most tv producers wouldn’t have had — access to original documents, photographs, and artifacts owned by the museum. The 25 minute documentary tells the story of the Ingalls family’s travels, with emphasis on the Wilders’ time in Mansfield.

This is an excellent resource for teachers to use in their classrooms, or for librarians or Wilder presenters to include in their programs. The documentary aired on Ozark Public Television in May, and is now available for purchase at the Wilder Home.

There is truly something for everyone in this beautiful documentary. Those new to Laura’s books will enjoy learning more about the characters, and how the “Little House” books came to be. Readers who have not had the privilege of visiting the Wilder Home in Missouri will be pleased at this opportunity to tour the home virtually and to see many of the artifacts housed in the museum.  Lifelong readers will cherish the ability to hear Pa’s fiddle played, and to listen to Laura’s own voice. Even the most avid of fans will delight in photographs that, to my knowledge, have never before been published or displayed.

This is a wonderful addition to Laura’s legacy and we are grateful to the fine folks at the Wilder Home for their hard work in the production of this long-needed program.

Buy yours today!

This website.

Got 15 minutes to kill? If you don’t, find them. Then sit back, get comfortable and watch the first trailer. Then the second trailer. Then comes the unexpected treat: the behind-the-scenes look at making the documentary. Full title: The Legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t tear up once twice a few times while watching these videos. But I’m not going to be all public about that, because, well, you know.

It’s not easy being a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan in a Lindsay Lohan world.

But, as I do with any new publication having to do with Little House, I ordered it immediately upon its release… but happened to read others’ reviews before I had a chance to pick up the book myself. And those reviews — from diehard Little House fans, mind you, not from the general public — weren’t great, to be quite honest. Complaints of lengthy episode summaries and “no juicy tidbits” and overall disappoinment left me apathetic at best about digging in for myself, especially with a whole stack of really good books I was eager to devour in my “to-read” pile.

But at last, I sighed and picked up the book to see for myself just what I thought of it. So here’s my opinion — the good and the bad.

First, the good:

I personally really liked Melissa Gilbert’s Prairie Tale, but the language used and the behaviors described in the book were too much for some fans, and other fans protested that there wasn’t nearly enough about Little House in the book to suit them. Those people will LOVE The Way I See It. This autobiography is nearly as prim and proper as Mary Ingalls herself. It’s profanity-free and mentions of Hollywood corruption (and always about others, not Melissa herself) are few and far between. And if Melissa Gilbert didn’t have enough about Little House to suit you, Melissa Anderson is here to serve! Nearly the entire book is nothing but Little House — there are a few paragraphs here and there of other projects Melissa was involved in, but the book is definitely primarily about her life on Little House, as the subtitle indicates.

Now the bad — with still a bit of good mixed in:

There were two aspects of this book I personally did not like. The first is the way she occasionally describes incidents from real life written as a script. I can see, however, that as an actress from such an early age, she may look back at memories and see them in her mind as a script, whereas I, an avid reader from an early age, view memories in eloquent prose. It certainly was a unique approach, however, and novelty is always a pleasant added touch.

The second negative about this book was, as others had already pointed out, the episode play-by-plays. In some instances, it made sense — for example, to refresh the reader’s memory about a particular episode because she was then going to expound on something that occurred behind-the-scenes, or her feelings about some aspect of the episode. However, there were other episodes that I got frustrated after reading such descriptive paraphrases, only to reach the end of the episode description and that was it. No trivia. No additional information that anyone who watched the show on tv didn’t already know. No thoughts or feelings about the filming of that episode. Those left me wondering, “WHY did she just tell me all of this? What was its purpose? For anyone who has already watched it, we already know what happened — and for anyone who hasn’t, wouldn’t it be more enjoyable for them just to watch the episode than hear someone’s line by line retelling of it?”

That said, I was more pleased with the book than I expected to be. The “no juicy tidbits” wasn’t quite true — if trash talk on the other actors is what you’re looking for, this isn’t the place to find it. But for me, there were a lot of behind-the-scenes-of-Little-House juicy tidbits. Information about where certain episodes were filmed, about how special effects were performed, about how the filming and editing were done was plentiful and I found it quite interesting. I only wish there’d been even more of that, with fewer episode guides.

Overall, I think the average Little House fan will find it a pleasant and enjoyable read. Have you read the book? Do you agree? Let us know what you thought about it in the comments. (But no spoilers please!)

We told you about Melissa Gilbert’s Prairie Tale: A Memoir last year. Melissa played the part of “Laura” on the popular television series Little House on the Prairie.

Alison Arngrim, better known as Nellie Oleson, has written Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated. The book will be released next month, and Alison will be signing copies at Walnut Grove, Minnesota, on July 24, 2010.

And Melissa Sue Anderson (Mary) has just released her own autobiography, The Way I See It: A Look Back at my Life on Little House. Little House fans won’t want to miss her interview on the Today Show.

If the embedded video does not work, visit the Today Show website here, and scroll forward to 8:44 am.

What do you think?

Me, I think Pa wouldn’t go for it. But that young cuss, Almanzo? As drawn to debt as he was? Maybe …

(I love how the writer is so obviously a fan of the books.)

Costumed volunteers will join our residential attendees for Wednesday nights ice cream social, and Julie Shrader, executive director of the Betsy-Tacy Society, is planning family activities for Friday morning, July 16, of the conference, to run concurrently with educator and craft workshops. In the works? A walking tour of Betsy’s neighborhood, with young Betsy escorting her new friend Laura around her town, storytelling, and other surprises.

Additionally, the Betsy-Tacy houses will be open for tours and other activities, including a visit from illustrator Cheryl Harness, on Saturday afternoon.

Betsy and Tacy, the two little girls at the heart of the series of books written by Mankato native Maud Hart Lovelace, were based on Maud and her childhood best friend, Bick. The two lived across the street from each other in Mankato, and these houses have been lovingly restored by the society. A third friend, known as Tib in the books, lived around the corner and down the street from Betsy and Tacy. Her childhood home is currently for sale, and the society hopes to purchase it.

The Betsy-Tacy books are all currently in print, and the final six books were recently reissued in new editions with forewards from famous fans of the books such as Anna Quindlen.

Since Maud wrote her books just after Laura wrote hers, Maud is said to have refused to read the Little House books in order to avoid any accusations of plagiarism. Both women wrote about young girls and women growing up in the Midwest. One story suggests that Maud, then living in California, waited until she was completely finished with the series, then went to her library to say, “NOW I can read the Wilder books.”

I can only hope she enjoyed them!

Join us in Deep Valley this summer.

It’s ready.

Here’s the trailer.

As of now, I’ve been unable to find information on why she left, and I would rather not speculate publicly. Whatever her circumstances, our best wishes go out to her until her return.

In the meantime, the role of Laura will be played by the understudy, Megan Campanile.