When I was a little girl, my ideal place to read was outdoors in some leafy, secret, hidden place. I had lots of these favorite “reading wheres” growing up because I was fortunate enough to live in the country with a sweet backyard but also fields on three sides that held plenty of wild flora and friendly fauna (birds, squirrels, deer) and a lovely woods behind it. It’s a family joke that if anybody said, “Where’s April?” in the first 13 or 14 years of my life, the answer would inevitably be, “reading, in a tree.” Not exactly precise (sometimes I was writing; sometimes I was in more of a bush than a tree), but pretty close.
The most vivid memories I have of this are wrapped up in what I read during those times, mostly long summer days, when time was totally my own and the boundaries of imagination and new worlds to discover were endless. If I thought hard enough, I could probably list the titles of a hundred magic carpets I took while enclosed behind leaves and branches and green in my childhood, even if I couldn’t tell you all about the journey itself or the destination. But there are some books that I simply can’t conjure without also seeing, smelling, hearing, feeling, and — in some cases, even — tasting the reading places of my childhood. To me these books are inextricably wrapped up in the place where I was reading, despite how little in common it had with the settings of the stories.
One series of books stands out especially. I began reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books when I was 8 or 9, and I read the whole series every summer after that for at least three more years. I remember checking them out of the school library one by one in 4th grade, so I guess I even read them during the school year, too. I can confidently say the Little House books are the only series I’ve read more than once (I rarely even read individual books more than once, no matter how much I loved them). There are nine books in the series, but I’ll be honest. I usually skipped number three (Farmer Boy, about Laura’s eventual-husband’s childhood) and number nine (The First Four Years, about Laura’s first years of marriage). I guess I was old enough to find the romance of Laura’s teen years exciting as she set out to be a teacher and was courted by her young man, but I was still young enough to think both boys and marriage were boring.
The other seven books, though. Sigh. They were exotic and strange and yet cozy and familiar. Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, Little Town on the Prairie, The Long Winter, and These Happy Golden Years. Each one so vivid I can almost smell the pages of the paperbacks.
The story of Laura and her family is so entwined with my childhood reading places — with home — that just thinking about them makes me happy. In fact, I apparently expressed so much wistfulness and longing about owning these wonderful books again that I ended up receiving three separate versions of the complete series for Christmas last year. (I am a very fortunate lady that my loved ones listen to requests I don’t even consciously make!) I’m giddy just knowing I can look at these precious books any time I walk into my library. And times three! Despite the guilt of excess, it’s a fantastic feeling to know they are there, as close to me physically as they are to my heart. The connection is so strong between these books, my love of reading, and being a kid in that time and place. Powerful, happy memories.
And really, looking back on this with my 50-something perspective, that’s not surprising at all. I grew up in a simpler time than now, as Laura did, with nature all around me as I read. And I was growing up, as she was, in a loving family, in a home that had comfort and safety from the world, but awareness of the dangers out there, and that still afforded me the chance to explore to my heart’s content. Gosh, was I ever a fortunate kid.
Laura’s and my young worlds were, of course, separated by a hundred years or so. Probably that’s why the books were so compelling that I couldn’t put them down. We meet Laura in the first book when she lives in Wisconsin in a little house in the big woods in the late-ish 19th century. Her Ma and Pa, looking for a bit more space, loaded up a covered wagon and ventured to the frontier by the beginning of the second book. As a result, Laura, the middle daughter of three (until a fourth daughter arrives later) got to live on the prairie, by a creek, on the shores of a lake, and in a little town, all in wild and new country, far from where she was born.
She and her family lived off the land; they had farm animals, grew crops and vegetables, hunted and fished. Laura had chores that were drudgery to her but thrilling to me: churning butter, tending the garden, fetching water from a spring, helping to butcher a hog, feeding animals, even helping to build a house or two. It wasn’t all hard work, though. She went to a one-room school that doubled as a church, and she had friends (and even a mean-girl nemesis) She had music from her Pa’s fiddle most nights. As is true of most who depend on their environment for their livelihood, life wasn’t always easy for the little family. There were conflicts with Native Americans, illnesses, droughts, and one horrible snow storm that lasted all winter. But there were small comforts and beautiful surprises and Christmases that, although meager by modern standards, were resplendent with festive spirit, love, and thoughtfulness.
I should mention that these stories, while chapter books for young-ish readers, do have marvelous illustrations, but that’s not what made them so vibrant to me. It was the collision of worlds. The ability to be fully present under a tree, or in a lawn chair by the porch in the humid heat of a central-Pennsylvania summer, and at the same time deep within a little girl’s memories of the frontier. For me, it was the 1970s all around: the taste of Bubble Yum mixed with sweet tea, the buzz of a lawnmower, cars whizzing by on the road, a sticky haze thick with gnats and mosquitos, the scents of metallic hose water, cut grass, and Coppertone in the air. The minute I was inside those pages, though, I was fully in Laura’s time and place, too. Now I could smell wood smoke, fried pork crackling, and warm hay. I could feel the welcome warmth of a faded patchwork quilt, the dry scuff of prairie grass under my bare feet, and the cool promise of Plum Creek’s muddy shores. I could see the sturdy timber of a solid house, the snow-piled streets of town, the daintiness of the china lady on the mantle, and the bright yellow of a butter pat made with Ma’s special mold. I could hear the thrill of Pa’s fiddle, the throaty dong of a school bell, and the squeak of wagon wheels.
The power of books to transport, even while we are deeply appreciative of our actual surroundings, was magical and, at the same time, so real to me. Even today, the “where I read it” is almost as important to me as what the book was. It’s one of the first things that comes to mind when I think of any good book. And for some cherished reading memories of my childhood, the experience is powerful enough that I can relive it any time I want. I need but close my eyes, and I will be instantly transported to both of those places at once, Laura’s childhood world and mine. And smell the smells and feel the feels. And be content, under a tree and at home.