The Long Winter

The story "The Long Winter," like all the books in the autobiographical series by American writer Laura Ingalls Wilder, is a lesson in life: never give up, never lose hope, believe and have faith!

The main character, Laura, is fourteen years... old. Her large family faces trials once again. Cold and hunger are their main enemies. Additionally, a considerable amount of money is needed for Mary, Laura's older sister, to attend a college for the blind. So Laura gets a job to help her sister. She has to engage in an unlikable activity – stitching, but like all the Ingalls, she does not complain; she simply does what she believes is her duty.

An impressive part of the book is dedicated to the young and desperate Almanzo Wilder (Laura Ingalls' future husband), who, risking his life, braves the frost and blizzards and ventures into deep wilderness with a friend to fetch supplies, bringing back several sacks of wheat and thus saving Laura's family and their neighbors from imminent demise.

Love and care for one another help the family overcome all difficulties. And, of course, father Charles, a man of extraordinary resilience and spirit, is capable of turning the whole world upside down for the happiness of his beloved wife and daughters.

Thanks to the vivid depiction of daily life – the aroma of coffee in the mornings, pumpkin pie, milk frozen in the bucket, Christmas gifts that reached the Ingalls only in May – the family's pioneering days touch the reader and provoke a desire to compare their own modern teenage coming-of-age with Laura's.

Recommended for family reading, as well as for middle school adolescents, especially girls.