These Happy Golden Years

Little House, Book 8

By: Laura Ingalls Wilder

Narrated by: Cherry Jones

Fifteen-year-old Laura lives apart from her family for the first time, teaching school in a claim shanty 12 miles from home. She is very homesick but keeps at it so that she can help pay for her sister Mary's tuition at the college for the blind. During school vacations Laura has fun with her singing lessons, going on sleigh rides, and, best of all, helping Almanzo Wilder drive his new buggy. Friendship soon turns to love for Laura and Almanzo in the romantic conclusion of this Little House book.

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts.

©1943, 1971 Little House Heritage Trust (P)2006, 2016 HarperCollins Publishers

Very enjoyable

I love the narrator for all of the Little house books. She is perfect

The story of growing up

It is a Wonderful narrator music and story of growing up. Laura and Almanzo and the trials Laura goes through to become a young woman

iconic

love cherry Jones and the finale of Laura's years with ma and pa. excellent rendition of an excellent book

Perfection!

I loved the story of this book and cherry jones voice narrating it is just perfect!!!

My only complaint was that it wasn’t longer

So much time was covered in this book. So many milestones reached. I feel this could have been made into a few books with more details, however for the most part it didn’t feel rushed. This one had me laughing, scared, happy, crying... name an emotion it was covered. I love each of these books so much, but this is one of my favorites.
As usual Cherry does well with the story, but could use have a little more difference between characters.
Over all I just wish it was longer!

AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING

I turning 11 on 7/21/2022 and I have had this book for years and I HAVE AND STILL DO LOVE IT 💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓 it is a very good combination of the realistic struggles of life to get money and make a living and a dream like romance story

fun fiddle

The woman reading reminded me of my grandmother which fit the story perfectly. The fiddle music and singing was a lovely surprise.

Perfect ending

Such a sweet ending to sweet book and a sweet series. (Yes, I know there’s technically another one. I’ll list the reasons why I’m skipping it, momentarily. :p) It had all the things I’ve loved about this series: The Ingalls family, the setting, seeing how things were during that historical time period, Almanzo, and a very sweet, innocent romance. The familial love and support of the Ingalls family for each other was especially wonderful. I shed a tear of happiness at Laura and Almanzo’s wedding, especially when Pa played all the old songs on his fiddle, and everything else, and just… gah! <3 It made me so happy.

I am truly content with this being the end of the series, which is why I currently have no intention of reading the last book, “The First Four Years”. Having researched it and read a synopsis as well as the actual historical account of Laura and Almanzo’s married life, I guess I just feel like the fact that I already know what happens, plus the fact that it’s a bit of a downer (in spite of still having a hopeful note to it), plus the fact that it’s less polished and questionable as to whether Laura Ingalls Wilder actually intended it to be published at all (the thing I read said she abandoned it) all works together to make me not really that interested in it. Maybe someday I’ll take a look, but honestly, I feel like I already read it, figuratively speaking, and I’m just wanting to leave things on a happy note instead of being made kind of sad. So…yeah. I think I’m just going to call “These Happy Golden Years” the end.

This has been such a wonderful series. On one hand, I almost wish I had discovered it when I was younger so I could have enjoyed it sooner. On the other hand, I’m happy I discovered it as an adult so I could more fully appreciate the history and the deeper themes being presented. I’m sure that if I ever have kids, I’ll be reading these books to them and will revisit them myself many, many times.


Content advisory for those who want to know:

As the series progresses and as Laura matures, the stories mature a little with her. Parents may want to be aware of certain story elements before reading the later books to particularly young children.

In this book, while Laura is teaching at the school she stays with a married couple who are very unpleasant to be around. They argue constantly and seem to hate each other. The wife at one point slaps her toddler’s hands for throwing a plate. Later in the story, Laura wakes up one night to hear the married couple arguing and sees the wife threatening her husband with a butcher knife because the wife thought her husband kicked her in his sleep. It seems that something like this may have happened before because the husband doesn’t seem too afraid and simply talks his wife down until she puts the knife away. The incident scares Laura to the point she no longer wants to stay with the couple, but nothing like that incident happens again.

Near the end of the book, one of Laura’s sisters reminds Laura to keep her bonnet on in the sun or she’ll turn “brown as an Indian”. This is an inside joke and a reference to their Ma telling the girls the very same thing when they were younger.

Excellent!

Cherry Jones does a marvelous job in narrating the book and along with the fiddle, the story comes alive. My family has enjoyed all the books in the series so far.

Loved this story!

Cherry Jones was a excellent reader. She brought Laura to life. This title is a favorite of the Little House series.