The Long Winter ~ Review

One of our favorite winter snuggle-up books is The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Part of the Little House series, this Newbery Honor winner finds the family snowed in without supplies.

“They can’t get the trains through,” said Pa. “They no sooner get a train through a cut than a blizzard comes and snows it in again. They’ve got two trains between here and Tracy, snowed under between cuts. Every time they cleared a cut they threw up the snow on both sides, and now all the cuts are packed full of snow to the top of the snowbanks. And at Tracy the superintendent ran out of patience.”

The Long Winter was first published in 1940. It tells of the winter of 1880–1881, one of the worst on record for the De Smet area. Life is slowed down to the bare necessities of hunting for food, grinding wheat for bread in the coffee grinder, and twisting hay to make fuel for the fire.

With the community starving, help comes from an unexpected source.

One of our 8 Winter Reading List Favorites. Exciting — and cold! — read.