![]() ![]() Thanksgiving should be entirely up their alley.īut the Little House books are also about deprivation and hunger, about how for the Ingalls family luxuries are always scarce, and even necessities aren’t exactly abundant. They take an almost pornographic pleasure in describing butter-churning and hog-slaughtering and corn-harvesting. The Little House books are obsessed with food and patriotism, and what is Thanksgiving but our national excuse to indulge in both in equal measure? These books are designed to codify the myth of the self-sufficient pioneers, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and living off the fat of the land. But in the entire nine-volume saga, there are only two Thanksgiving scenes. You might think that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s immortal Little House books would suit our purposes perfectly. And it can be helpful, when holidays don’t feel quite right, to return to the holidays of children’s literature, where everything is codified and comfortably familiar. ![]()
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