When Melissa Anderson (no longer desiring to be called Melissa Sue Anderson as her Little House fans know her) published her book, The Way I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House, reactions from fans were mixed. Some were ecstatic, eagerly looking forward to hearing “Mary’s” side of the story. Others not so much — with Melissa Gilbert’s Prairie Tale out last year, and news of Alison Arngrim’s upcoming Confessions of a Prairie Bitch already making its rounds in the Little House world, some raised an eyebrow at yet another autobiography from a Little House actress. My own reaction? I’m not sure I really had one.

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!)