"no, miss"

Shouldn't it be a requirement for anybody writing a "Little House" spinoff book to have actually studied the series?

Today, I received and read Mary Ingalls on Her Own. And I was left with nothing positive to say. Instead of concentrating on a nasty fellow student who ends up leaving, why not have written something memorable and positive about a student you close the book and want to know more about? Why not conform to series history rather than try to impress with one or two "real life" discrepencies and a whole lot of memories from the television show?

There is a statement in the afterword that says, "I (the author) don't know for sure if the real Miss Mattice was blind or sighted, but our fictional Miss Mattice can see." Lorana Mattice was indeed blind. Why not research that fact and write appropriately, use the name of an actual sighted teacher if you want a sighted teacher, instead of the name of an actual blind teacher but make her sighted? It was confusing enough to have two characters named "Mattie" and "Mattice" anyway. And why the "Yes, Miss" and "No, Miss"? Do they not say "ma'am" in Iowa?

Random bits:

Back home, she could make her way around town almost as well as anyone. - When? That first year when there was no town? During the Hard Winter?

Ma would place her china shepherdess on the mantel when everything else had been unpacked. And that was how the Ingalls family knew they were home again. - Except that there hadn't been a mantle since Indian Territory, had there?

[I went back and deleted a few here. You're welcome.]

When they moved from Minnesota to Dakota Territory, Laura had faithfully narrated the world to Mary.... it seemed that Mary's sightless eyes had actually seen every inch of their journey from Minnesota to Silver Lake, and then on to De Smet.

I rest my case.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 1:33 AM