Little House On The Plasma

I just finished writing a guest blog for a friend of mine. Her blog's all about children's books (www.funbooksforkids.blogspot.com) and, in the process of picking a children's book to write about, I started thinking about my favorite books as a child. Among them were Boxcar Children, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, the C.S. Lewis books, and A Wrinkle in Time. But, hands down, my clear favorite were the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. In fact, just a couple of years ago when we finally moved into our permanent home (one can hope...we had moved 13 times in 10 years up to that point. so far, so good...), I unpacked some boxes that had been in storage for nearly a decade, and found the entire Laura Ingalls Wilder series. I did what any self-respecting 32 year old woman would do...I read them in order over the next three days. If you read the books as a child and haven't revisited them as an adult, I encourage you to do so. As a little girl, I was awed and inspired by the adventure and Laura's pioneer spirit (and more than a little proud that my name was Laura, too). As a mother, the books made me tired for poor Ma Ingalls. I was aware of how much work it took just to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. I noticed the discrepancy in class between the settler Ingalls and the farmer Wilders - I wonder if Almanzo's mom thought he was marrying beneath him. And I felt a little ashamed at how wasteful we've become....for goodness sakes, when Pa butchered a hog, they used every part, even playing ball with the inflated bladder.

But this isn't about the Shakespearean undertones of the Wilder/Ingalls union, Pa's fiddle, or pig organs. It's about the fact that not once when I reread the books did I picture Melissa Gilbert or Michael Landon. Perhaps that's because I read the books before I ever saw the television program. Our house wasn't a big TV house when I was growing up (the two exceptions being That's Incredible! and The Cosby Show). I remember sitting in my friend Sandy's living room after gymnastics practice and Sandy's mom turned on Little House on the Prairie. I was confused at first. Why didn't the show start with Little House in the Big Woods? Why were there story lines that I didn't remember from the books? But then I became interested and, I dare say, addicted to the show. I don't think I missed an episode. But even though I knew the show was based on the books, I was able to separate the characters in print from the characters on the small screen. Michael Landon was a great Pa, but the book Pa was shorter and stockier and far more rugged, with mountain man hair and strong arms. It was the same for the other characters, save Nellie, who was played to print-perfection by Alison Arngrim.

I have to wonder (oh my goodness, that sounds sooooo Carrie Bradshaw, doesn't it?), am I part of the last generation that can separate print and screen? Successful children's books are made into movies so quickly these days the literary imagination barely has time to spark. And it seems like older books are turning into film by the ten-fold. Will my kids, for example, have the ability to picture anyone but Daniel Radcliffe when they read Harry Potter? Will Narnia's White Witch be forever associated with the incomparable Tilda Swinton? When Horton Hears A Who, will children hear only Jim Carrey? By the time my kids are able to read these books, chances are they will have already been saturated by movies, ads, plastic fast-food toy tie-ins, revised book covers, t-shirts, and video games. There's nothing wrong with turning a good book into a good film . . . I just wonder how it changes the reading experience in the first place . . .