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The first South Dakota Biography Series book
2008 WILLA Literary Award Winner, Scholarly Nonfiction Category, Women Writing the West
Indie Excellence Awards 2008 Winner, Biography Category
This is "a fascinating and remarkable book that deserves a place on the shelf of every Laura fan."—The Homesteader
"Pamela Smith Hill has [created] a work of considerable scholarship and insight. . . . She has dealt along the way with numerous issues raised by critics and by the general readership, together with other matters that few have previously thought to discuss. In all of this, her extensive research, her careful scholarship and her measured style, combined with her obvious enthusiasm for her subject, have produced a work which we believe adds in substantial measure to the critical literature involving Wilder and Lane."—The Little House Heritage Trust
In Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer’s Life, Pamela Smith Hill delves into the complex and often fascinating relationships Wilder formed throughout her life that led to the writing of her classic Little House series. Using Wilder’s stories, personal correspondence, an unpublished autobiography, and experiences in South Dakota, Hill has produced a historical-literary biography of the famous and much-loved author. Following the course of Wilder’s life, and her real family’s journey west, Hill provides a context, both familial and literary, for Wilder’s writing career.
More Praise:
"I can hardly say enough good things about this book. It's exactly the sort of Laura Ingalls Wilder biography I've been wishing for: straightforward, non-fiction, with a steady focus on Laura, giving equal weight to both the true details of her life and to her writing."—sarahmillerbooks.com
"This will most likely be the definitive published source for 'Pioneer Girl.'"—The Homesteader "In some ways, Laura fans have been waiting for the second half of this book since the 1994 publication of William Holtz's Ghost in the Little House."—The Homesteader "If you've ever wanted to peek behind the scenes of the "Little House" series and other vignettes, this is your book. . . . This biography is sometimes happy, sometimes sad, but always a page turner."—Roundup Magazine
"Hill skillfully examines the complex relationship between Wilder and her daughter."—Kansas History
"Hill's dissecton of the personal and professional interactions between these two women, as mother and daughter and as collaborating (and rival) artists, is performed with delicacy and tact that, nevertheless, confirms Laura Ingalls Wilder's place in the canon of American writers."—Nebraska History
This book "is a thoughtful and sometimes compelling portrait that will provide readers with new insight into both the Little House books and Laura Ingalls Wilder."—The Lion and the Unicorn
"Hill's absorbing book chronicles Wilder's original writing efforts, and how her daughter guided her (not actually wrote her books, as suggested in Holtz's Ghost in the Little House) into the creation of a more dramatic narrative. In addition, this volume supplies more details of Wilder's life that have not shown up in biographies, including the fact that a young couple and their newborn baby lived with the family during "the long winter," and that Laura was once almost assaulted by a drunken man whose wife she was caring for. Highly recommended if you are interested in the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder."—Cozynook.blogspot.com
"I vote for Pamela Smith Hill’s book. I’ve read all of the Bio’s about Laura and felt that this one was one of the best. It gave a very clear portrait of the relationship Laura and Rose had while writing the books. It pointed out very clearly that even if Rose had some participation with editing/story development, the stories were Laura’s. Smith points out that Rose’s experience with writing fiction was limited, that she wrote for magazines and was not generally considered a fiction writer. Only short stories."—Lori Berg, BeyondLittleHouse.com
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