Best 1932 Adventures (9)
By:
April 13, 2017
One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1932 adventure novels. Happy 85th anniversary!
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s children’s frontier adventure Little House in the Big Woods.
Not a thrilling adventure — but a charming Robinsonade, of sorts, which details a year (1871–1872) in the life of the Ingalls family, Wisconsin homesteaders who live in a log cabin. Through the eyes of five-year-old Laura, we watch Pa hunt for fresh meat, trap for furs, take care of their livestock, plow the field, and play the fiddle; Ma, meanwhile, cooks, cleans, gardens, and takes care of the girls. The girls help with chores and tasks — from making cheese and weaving hats to making maple syrup and putting up food for the winter. Though the story does not contain the more mature themes — danger from Indians, serious illness, death, drought, crop destruction — addressed in the author’s subsequent Little House books, it’s still a story about survival. There’s a run-in with a bear, and another with wolves; always, lurking in the background, is the prospect of starvation.
Fun facts: This autobiographical novel, the first in a series of nine Little House books, has been named one of the Top 20 children’s novels of all time.
Let me know if I’ve missed any 1932 adventures that you particularly admire.