Ranking The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

A lot of kids who love to read grow up reading fantasy and adventure stories. I always gravitated to more grounded novels. And it never hurt if those stories were based on some truth. One of my favorite series to read was, and still is, the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Being named after Wilder, I’ve always felt close to her despite having very little in common aside from our first names. Most recently, I’ve listened to the audiobook versions of this series read by actress Cherry Jones complete with fiddle music which allowed me to hear the songs featured prominently in the books in the way that the Ingalls family would hear them being played by Pa each night.

Listening to these audiobooks has really put into perspective which books in the series I enjoy the most. I’ve given them all five stars on Goodreads because there isn’t a bad book in the series. But in terms of the order of my favorites, I now have a definitive list. Below I break down the series in order and list my ranking of each book.

Little House in the Big Woods

My Ranking: #1

The first in the series introduces the Ingalls family who live in a log cabin in Pepin, WI. When the story begins, Laura is five years old, and she lives with her Ma, Pa, her older sister, Mary, and her baby sister, Carrie. The family prepares for winter by harvesting the vegetables from their garden, butchering their pig, and stockpiling their home with everything they’ll need to get through the cold months. Throughout the story, the family celebrates Christmas with relatives, goes to a dance at their grandmother’s house to celebrate the maple sugar season, and listen to stories about when Pa was a little boy.

A big chunk of this series is full of descriptions about how the Ingalls family survived out on their own in the big woods. The town of Pepin is nearby, and the girls take their first trip to town which is a bit of a culture shock and not as fun as Laura had hoped.

But other than trips for essentials such as fabric to make their clothes, sugar, and other supplies, most of their resources are made, hunted, or grown themselves. It sounds like it would be boring to hear detailed descriptions about how they make bullets or butter or head cheese, but it’s explained so simply and clearly that it’s interesting and really puts you there with these pioneers.

This book is my favorite in the bunch, mostly because life is simpler when you’re little, and while there are moments of danger, despair, and trouble making, the stakes are low. It’s a great introduction to these characters that you’ll be following for the rest of the series.

Farmer Boy

My Ranking: #2

Farmer Boy follows Almanzo Wilder, the boy who would later become Laura’s husband, as a 10-year-old boy growing up on his parents’ farm in New York. Almanzo loves farming, and most of his story is about working on the farm or trying to get out of school so that he can stay home and work on the farm. He also yearns to own a horse and train it the way his father trains his prize-winning horses.

I love the adventures that Almanzo has in this book, from his father lending his teacher a bull whip to take care of a group of school bullies who threaten to beat him up to going to town for the Fourth of July to the kids being left home alone while their parents go away to visit family for a week and the chaos that ensues. There are a lot of great stories that help you to really get to know the Wilder family and how they work hard to run a successful farm and why it’s so personally important for Almanzo to follow in his father’s footsteps.

Little House on the Prairie

My ranking: #4

Little House on the Prairie returns us to the Ingalls family as the big woods becomes too crowded for them, and they decided to move to Kansas in order to find a new home on the prairie. After several months of traveling in a covered wagon, the family finds a spot and settles down. From there, they build a home from timber in the nearby creek and meet a friendly group of neighbors who help them get established and even save their lives.

The prairie is a lot different from the big woods. There are many more dangers and obstacles that make their first year in their new home very rocky, but they make it through and have some fun along the way.

Little House on the Prairie is the book that defines Laura as a pioneer girl. It’s the first of three moves that take place throughout the series and one of dozens that Wilder will make throughout her lifetime. It’s a story about change, starting over, and literally building a life from the ground up.

On the Banks of Plum Creek

My ranking: #3

The Ingalls family is on the move again, this time to Minnesota where they temporarily settle in an abandoned mud house that has been hollowed out near the creek bed. Once Pa plants a crop of wheat, he begins to buy a bunch of supplies on credit in order to build their dream house out of store-bought boards, complete with a top of the line stove for Ma and several other luxuries.

But when a plague of grasshoppers arrives and eats the crop, Pa has to walk over 200 miles to find work to pay his debts. He returns by winter and one day, on his way to town, a snowstorm hits, and Pa is caught in a blizzard for three days, hiding out in a cave until the storm passes and he gets back to his family safe and sound.

On The Banks of Plum Creek is the first book in the series in which Laura really becomes aware of the dangers that her family faces. In Minnesota, she experiences her first time going to school and church, the introduction of the series’ villain, Nellie Oleson, and the first real money troubles for her family. She’s also caught repeatedly disobeying her parents, and she begins to wrestle between her desire to do as she pleases and her desire to be good. It’s a struggle that sticks with her into adulthood.

By the Shores of Silver Lake

My ranking: #5

The beginning of By the Shores of Silver Lake glosses over a few rough years of the Ingalls family living in Minnesota. The family has just gotten over a terrible illness which claimed Mary’s sight, leaving her permanently blind. Their baby brother also passed away in infancy, and Laura, now 13, has had to pick up the slack as the oldest and healthiest female member of the family, which now includes her baby sister, Grace.

When Laura’s aunt comes to visit and offers Pa a job in De Smet, South Dakota, he decides to take it, and the family embarks on their first train ride to their new home near Silver Lake. There, they stay in town until Pa finds a homestead and builds a rough version of what will become their permanent home. Until he can stake his claim, the family stays in town where they find ways to earn money and start to save to send Mary to college for the blind.

This book is Laura’s coming of age story. She begins to think about growing up and all that that will entail. When she hears about a girl not much older than her getting married, it scares her as she’s not ready to grow up. But she does like the independence and respectability that comes with growing up. She finds ways to be helpful to her family, particularly Mary, acting as her “eyes” by describing everything she sees, creating a framework for her descriptive storytelling style.

By the Shores of Silver Lake is a book that starts out dark and becomes more hopeful. It’s another story about the family starting over and contains that universal theme of what it feels like to become a teenager and that pull between adulthood and childhood.

The Long Winter

My ranking: #8

The Long Winter is probably the darkest book in the series. Picking up not long after the events of By the Shores of Silver Lake, Pa gets word about a pending terrible winter, and the family decides to spend the winter months in town rather than in their shabby claim shanty.

It’s a decision that ends up saving their lives as the blizzards start in October and don’t end until May. During that time, the trains bringing supplies to town can’t get through and ultimately end up giving up on getting there altogether until spring. In the meantime, the stores run out of supplies, and hunting is scarce. As a result, the town begins to starve.

The gray, mundane daily tasks of twisting hay to burn to keep warm and grinding wheat in a coffee grinder to make bread really begin to weigh on the family. Then, two young men in town, Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland, decide to travel miles away to check out the lead on a man who has a stockpile of grain that they hope he will sell.

The Long Winter is a book where Laura tends to take a backseat to the larger, more concentrated plot. There are large chunks of story which depicts Pa’s associations with the other members in town as well as scenes featuring Almanzo, Cap, and Almanzo’s brother, Royal, and the plan that they make in order to find this life-saving grain.

It truly is a tense situation where the Ingalls family are not quite themselves. It’s a great read for when you have cabin fever in the dead of winter and are looking for a story that shares in your misery. It teaches you to count yourself lucky that your long winter is nothing like theirs.

Little Town on the Prairie

My ranking: #9

Little Town on the Prairie sees Mary finally enroll in the school for the blind while Laura begins to work towards earning her teaching certificate so that she can get a job to help the family bring in some income to help with their expenses. She does temporarily get a sewing job in town, earning her first pay and motivating her to work hard to earn even more as a teacher.

Deep down, Laura doesn’t really want to teach, but the desire to help her family is more important than her desire to stay home and work around their homestead. But butting heads with her teacher and Almanzo’s sister, Eliza Jane, nearly ruins those chances when she gets sent home a few times for defending herself and Carrie from Nellie Oleson’s nasty rumors that she’s been spreading about her.

Laura also becomes part of a tight-knit friends group at school. Together, they attend parties, town meetings, and school events. As a result, she becomes even more independent from her family and begins to catch the eye of Almanzo Wilder.

Little Town on the Prairie is a bit longer than it needs to be. The beginning, especially, doesn’t have much going on until Mary leaves for college. Town is where the action is, and Laura finds herself spending a lot of time there. It’s the first time in a long time when she is able to enjoy herself, and it’s her last hurrah until she finds herself with a teaching certificate by the end of the book, sending her on her way towards her short-lived teaching career.

These Happy Golden Years

My ranking: #6

At the start of These Happy Golden Years, Laura heads out to her first teaching assignment 12 miles away from home. As a result, she has to sleep away from home with a very volatile family who freaks her out and makes her wonder how she’s going to make it through the duration of this job. Lucky for her, Almanzo Wilder arrives every Friday afternoon to drive her home for the weekend, giving her the break that she needs to recharge before she has to head back to work for the next week.

When the job ends, Laura returns home and begins to court Almanzo who eventually proposes. Laura accepts, and she begins to prepare for life as a married woman.

These Happy Golden Years is Laura’s first introduction to adulthood at the mere age of 15. But she handles the transition well, having found someone who respects her and loves her for who she is. I love how this story shows how fast the transition from your teen years to adulthood can be, particularly for a pioneer girl who we’ve seen grow from a little girl into a woman and how much she has been through in that time.

The First Four Years

My ranking: #7

The First Four Years is the black sheep of the Little House series as it’s shorter and formatted differently than the others. Each chapter chronicles a year in the first four years of Laura and Almanzo’s marriage. The two go through a lot as the couple try to make a go of it as farmers and all of the trials and tragedies that come their way.

The early years of the Wilders’ marriage is something to be desired. The highlight of this era is the birth of their daughter, Rose, while the low point is a fire that destroys their house not long after their infant son dies. But this book shows that there’s nowhere to go but forward as they continue to hustle to build a life for themselves, one that eventually leads them to success on Rocky Ridge Farm as told in an entirely different series which closes the book on the Little House series.

What is your favorite book in the Little House series? Leave your answers in the comments below!

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