The Wilder Life

The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie
Wedny McClure
331 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Source: Borders sale
★★★★★

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Wendy McClure loved the Little House books when she was a child and when she rediscovered them as an adult it awakened something in her.  Soon she was traveling with her husband to every Little House landmark, museum, and homestead she could find in the mid-West.  The Wilder Life chronicles her travels and her desires experience Laura.

So when I was a kid I did the obligatory reading of the Little House books and I really enjoyed them.  But recently, as an adult, I've found myself wanting to read them again for inexplicable reasons and this memoir only made me want to read them even more!  I'm not kidding when I say the next time I go to the library (tomorrow?) I might have to take a look to see if there are any copies of Little House in the Big Woods available.

Ms. McClure did a great job with this book.  The description of her travels throughout the mid-west were equally balanced with her inner reflection on why she felt the way she did about the Little House books.  I thought the whole memoir was brilliant.  And what a sport her husband was for going with her, reading all the books, and getting involved!

The only thing that would have made this book even better would have been if there were pictures of the places/items being discussed.  But if you want to see them, you can find them on the book's Facebook page.

If you've ever read the Little House books, I highly recommend The Wilder Life, even if you haven't read the books since you were eight years old.  It's very nostalgic and made me LOL several times.