“The mowing machine’s whirring sounded cheerfully from the old buffalo wallow south of the claim shanty, where bluestem grass stood thick and tall and Pa was cutting it for hay.”

From Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House: The Long Winter.

Since Pa found the perfect piece of land in the Dakota Territory, the family has been living in a small shack on the property, which has worked for the Ingalls family until now.  Once Pa notices the way other people and animals are preparing for an exceptionally rough winter, he moves the family into town in the storefront building that he built after he finished working for the railroad.  Winter kicks off with an early blizzard and the cold weather carries on relentlessly for months while Laura, her family, and the rest of the town’s residents struggle to keep warm and safe.  As the supplies dwindle in the face of the extreme cold and deadly blizzards, the only connection to the outside world is the train, but the frequency of the snow storms soon leaves the town without even those limited supplies.  The Ingalls family must be creative in their efforts to find fuel to burn for heat, but another pressing danger is the lack of food that the long winter has brought about.  As the Ingalls struggle to survive until spring, their love for each other and the kindness of their neighbors, like the young Almonzo and Cap, helps sustain them all for longer than they thought possible.

The sixth book in Wilder’s iconic Little House series is captivating from start to finish.  The characters and the bond that the main characters share develop the story in deeper ways than would be possible just through the highly-descriptive events.   Filled with a more somber and dangerous situations, The Long Winter has a slightly different attitude than the other books in the series, but it is a book that is impossible to put down.