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I'm a gigantic raving fan of children's literature and young adult literature and so I am

obviously also a huge raving fan of the work of Lauren Ingalls Wilder, the Little House books.

I cannot even express how much I love these books and if you have not read the Little House books

since you were a child, I really urge you to read them again as an adult because they are such

masterpieces and as an adult you'll get more out of them because you bring more to them.

And one of the things that I noticed rereading the Little House books as an adult is the portrait

of Pa. Now as a child, I saw a pa, you know, as this heroic figure, he's so brave, he's so resourceful,

he can make anything, he can fix anything, he can solve any problem and not only that, he's full

of jokes and stories and he's always playing his fiddle and there's so much music, he's such a wonderful

father. And I was also dimly aware as a child of the fact that sometimes Pa seemed to make some kind

of questionable financial decisions that wasn't a very strong note to me. Well when you reread

the books as an adult, you see much more that Pa's making some really questionable decisions and

really financial problems that the family is facing and you understand much more clearly the nature

of the conflict between Ma and Pa and this issue of whether they're going to live near a town.

So it's interesting to see that come out, you know, another element of the portrait.

Now so because I am such a huge fan of Loringles Wilder, I was really excited when a new book just

came out, the selected letters of Loringles Wilder. And I was very struck by this letter that

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