Amongst my circle of friends - on Twitter, Facebook and IRL, there have been many mentions recently of Laura Ingalls Wilder: the hard life she endured on the prairie and especially, as many of us have faced weekly snowstorms since the holidays, the long winter she chronicled in her novel of the same name. So, in honor of her 144th birthday today, February 7th, I give you, The Long Winter Contest! Comment with your most harrowing winter adventure (whether this year or in years' past) and I'll choose 5 people from everyone who comments by midnight, Wednesday, February 9th to receive a free copy of The Long Winter, plus, since this is also Heroine Love Month over on the Heroine's Bookshelf blog, winners will also receive a copy of The Heroine's Bookshelf: Life Lessons from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder.
And while I'm sure none of us had to endure anything quite so harrowing as our heroine LIW (or her poor Almanzo), tales of downed wires, endless no-school days, and subzero temperatures certainly suffice!
In The Long Winter, the adventures of Laura Ingalls and her family continue as Pa, Ma, Laura, Mary, Carrie, and little Grace bravely face the hard winter of 1880-81 in their little house in the Dakota Territory. Blizzards cover the little town with snow, cutting off all supplies from the outside. Soon there is almost no food left, so young Almanzo Wilder and a friend make a dangerous trip across the prairie to find some wheat. Finally a joyous Christmas is celebrated in a very unusual way in this most exciting of all the Little House books.
Listen to an audio excerpt of The Long Winter, take The Long Winter quiz and check out all the Little House on the Prairie books.
A testament to inspirational women throughout literature, Erin Blakemore’s Heroine's Bookshelf is an exploration of classic heroines and their equally admirable authors that shows today’s women how to best tap into their inner strengths and live life with intelligence, grace, vitality and aplomb. This collection of unforgettable characters—including Anne Shirley, Jo March, Scarlett O’Hara, and Jane Eyre—and outstanding authors—like Jane Austen, Harper Lee, and Laura Ingalls Wilder—is an impassioned look at literature’s most compelling heroines, both on the page and off. Readers who found inspiration in books by Toni Morrison, Maud Hart Lovelace, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Alice Walker, or who were moved by literary-themed memoirs like Shelf Discovery and Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume, get ready to return to the well of women’s classic literature with The Heroine's Bookshelf.
Browse inside The Heroine's Bookshelf and check out Erin Blakemore's blog where all this month bloggers are celebrating their favorite literary heroines.
