Everyone should read this book, and I'm not kidding.

So did you think I would be talking about Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder?  Well I am!

The boys and I started reading the Little House books a while back.  First is Little House in the Big Woods, then Little House on the Prairie, and third is Farmer Boy.  The first two are about Laura Ingalls, which you know already, unless you grew up in another country or at the bottom of a hole--or are too young to remember the TV show Little House on the Prairie.  Farmer Boy is about Laura's husband Almanzo, when he was a boy on a farm in New York.

Things my boys and I learned from reading this book:

• It was very cold in the winter.  Like 40 degrees below zero cold, and no heat in the bedroom at night.
• Almanzo started school when he was around nine years old. 
•  He only went for a few weeks that year, and was trying hard to finish what he needed so that he could work on the farm full-time. 
• He worked hard and he liked being a farmer.
• Almanzo hated school and tried constantly to take on more farm responsibilities so that he did not have to go to school.
• By the standards of the time, his family was pretty well off.  But they still worked very hard and did almost everything themselves.  
• Almanzo wore moccassins--even in the snow--until he was nine years old.  Even then, when his father had boots made for him, it was supposedly spoiling him.  Now go back to the first point, where it was very cold in the winter.
• Almanzo had his own young oxen team and his own pig.  He did all the care and feeding of them, in addition to all his regular farm chores. 

Since we started reading this book, Stuart has been more and more willing to help with chores around the house.  I have been trying to give him more responsibility, too--although it he wants to break colts we have a problem.