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    These Happy Golden Years
    These Happy Golden Years
    These Happy Golden Years
    Audiobook6 hours

    These Happy Golden Years

    Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder

    Narrated by Cherry Jones

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    About this audiobook

    The eighth book in Laura Ingalls Wilder's treasured Little House series, and the recipient of a Newbery Honor.

    Fifteen-year-old Laura lives apart from her family for the first time, teaching school in a claim shanty twelve miles from home. She is very homesick, but she knows that her earnings can help pay for her sister Mary's tuition at the college for the blind. Only one thing gets her through the lonely weeks—every weekend, Almanzo Wilder arrives at the school to take Laura home for a visit. Friendship soon turns to love for Laura and Almanzo.

    The nine Little House books are inspired by Laura's own childhood and have been cherished by generations of readers as both a unique glimpse into America's frontier history and as heartwarming, unforgettable stories.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 7, 2017
    ISBN9780062657039
    Author

    Laura Ingalls Wilder

    Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) was born in a log cabin in the Wisconsin woods. With her family, she pioneered throughout America’s heartland during the 1870s and 1880s, finally settling in Dakota Territory. She married Almanzo Wilder in 1885; their only daughter, Rose, was born the following year. The Wilders moved to Rocky Ridge Farm at Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894, where they established a permanent home. After years of farming, Laura wrote the first of her beloved Little House books in 1932. The nine Little House books are international classics. Her writings live on into the twenty-first century as America’s quintessential pioneer story.

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    Reviews for These Happy Golden Years

    4/5

    1,401 ratings40 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Timeless classic. Laura and Almanzo marry in this book and settle on his claim.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved it so much! Thank-you for your time and you were great at voices you should be proud ?
    • 5/5
      We have just loved this whole series. It’s so dear and timeless. Thank you for including it in the membership.
    • 5/5
      Just as wonderful as 56 years old as it was 11 or 12 years old.
    • 5/5
      I LOVE THIS BOOK I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD READ IT
    • 5/5
      As always, enjoyed listening to Laura Ingalls Wilder & her life on the frontier. A good reading of it, too—you could hear her smile & I enjoyed her singing the songs Laura sang.
    • 5/5
      What a lovely book!
      It makes me want to cry happy tears!
    • 1/5
      Wow-wee. I haven't read this much about dress patterns and sewing styles since that horrible day in my grandmothers bathroom after some bad lunch meat. While reading this aloud to the kids on the car I couldn't help but continually lapse into a Swedish Chef voice for Pa, An antebellum southern mistress for Ma, An earnest lisp-y twit for Laura and Lenny impression for her sisters (Tell us about the rabbits, George) to keep it the least bit interesting.

      On a side note, Laura Ingalls Wilder is a first rate braggart. Not a chapter goes by without Laura-as-author putting words into her sisters or friends mouths telling Laura-as-character how wonderful and special she is. Easily the most annoying and useless installment in the series.
    • 5/5
      Timeless classic. Laura and Almanzo marry in this book and settle on his claim.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful book! My kids and I enjoyed it so much. The chapter about the tornado was their favorite.
    • 5/5
      I have read this book 10 times and still can’t get enough of it. In this book Laura starts teaching at many schools, Falls in love and gets married.
    • 5/5
      This book sees a 15-year-old Laura gaining more responsibility as a schoolteacher and preparing for her adult life. Her perspective is so fresh and innocent as she mixes the burdens and fears of growing up with her natural inclination to want to be a girl, have fun, and see mean old Nellie Oleson get her comeuppance. The love story between Laura and Almanzo in this book is simply beautiful; it is a tale of romance blossoming from mutual companionship and respect, not from superficial appearances and physical lust. This is a particularly moving story to read if you are at a time of new beginnings in life, such as after a graduation or before a wedding. Laura speaks honestly of the childish hopes and fears hidden inside the grown-ups we all are forced to become, in a way that illustrates magnificently how little the human condition has changed in spite of all else.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely love these books. These were truly the happy golden years!
    • 5/5
      Just love this series!! I will re-listen to this many times in my lifetime. It’s such a life-giving series
    • 5/5
      I loved this book

      Greatest book of all time!!

      Excellent book

    • 5/5
      Such great details of her romance and marriage .
    • 5/5
      I sobbed like a baby. What a wonderful book. What a wholesome world.
    • 4/5
      Well, we have known it was going to happen all series, so I don't feel it is much of a spoiler to say this is the book where Laura and Almanzo finally get together. I really enjoyed this - Laura as a young woman has a more varied and interesting set of relationships in her life than Laura as a child, and I even found myself fond of Pa now, playing the fiddle, and lovingly supporting Laura in her growing adulthood.For a romance, it is surprisingly dominated by many many chapters of excellent descriptions of horses. Pulling sleighs, pulling buggies, horses just being tamed, horses starting to be obedient - when Ma says 'Laura, do you like him, or his horses?' I really did laugh out loud. But they are such lovely horses, spirited and swift and glossy.There are so many good aspects of Laura's character in this book - Laura learning how to be a school teacher and dealing with trying to have control over boys older than she is; Laura staying at the Brewster's, and trying to be a good cheerful helpful non-complaining person, while Mrs Brewster is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and wandering the house at night with a knife; Laura spending all her wages on an organ for Mary, and then trying to be supportive and happy when Mary decides to go and stay with a friend for the summer instead. She's not just a saint though, Laura deliberately spooking the horses so Nellie gets scared when Nellie has her eye on Almanzo is quite cheeky!The last bit is a sudden tone change, it is a bit like 'oh, there should always be a horrible prairie disaster, we had better mention one', so it stops being weddings and singing clubs and compliant school children, and becomes 'and then a cyclone killed children and destroyed entire houses'. But, err, not Laura's for once!
    • 4/5
      Laura is now 15(?) years old and has her first teaching job. But it’s taking her away from her family and she needs to board with people near the new school… and the wife/mother doesn’t seem to like her much. Lucky for Laura, Almanzo decides to come bring her home on weekends. And the job is only for a couple of months. Once she is done, she can go back to her own schooling. This is the start of this installment of Laura’s childhood/growing up in the late 1800s. The rest of the book follows her to more teaching jobs and with her and Almanzo’s courtship. I really enjoyed this one, as well. It feels like not as much happened in this one as in some of the others, but we followed the seasons through a few more years as Laura (and Mary) grow up and are branching out on their own. From the title of this one, I always thought they would be much older (“Golden Years”) in this book, but I suppose the meaning of the phrase might be different now. I found it interesting that she could go back and forth between teaching and being a student (with her regular class!). Obviously she didn’t need to finish school to become a teacher. I really do love the descriptions of the prairie and of the weather.
    • 4/5
      Laura continues her schooling, while also teaching school, as Almanzo Wilder patiently woos her. One of the better books in this uneven series.
    • 5/5
      Laura is now working as a teacher and making money for her family. It’s been such a joy to watch her grow up and it’s hard to believe she’s a woman now. Almanzo courts her with buggy rides and I loved watching her show her strength and fearless nature as she becomes more comfortable around him. Definitely one of my favorites in the series. “The last time always seems sad, but it isn’t really. The end of one thing is only the beginning of another.”
    • 4/5
      “I will build a little house in the grove on the tree claim. It will have to be a little house. Do you mind?”“I have always lived in little houses. I like them,” Laura answered.Laura moves from home and begins her teaching career- at 15 years of age! And she gets engaged to Almanzo Wilder! And we all know how that usually turns out! :-)This book is a cute one, as the courtship of Laura and Almanzo gradually plays out along many a buggy ride! It's been a long ride since the first book, and it's been interesting watching little Half Pint grow. I don't know what the last book will bring, but I think the end of this one is the way it should have ended:"It's a wonderful night," Almanzo said."It is a beautiful world," Laura answered, and in memory she heard the voice of Pa's fiddle and the echo of a song, "Golden years are passing by, These happy, golden years."Honestly, how could the series have ended any better? I'll guess I'll see...
    • 4/5
      I love the sweet romance between Laura and Almanzo. Laura works to help her family and her sister Mary. She has very little, but her family is loving and happy.
    • 4/5
      Substance: The courtship of Almanzo ripens into marriage in a delightful story of Laura's coming-of-age , when that term meant "growing into adulthood responsibilities" rather than just having sex for the first time (the book ends with the cabin door not just closed, but never even touched.Style: As usual.Note to the PC Mafia: You could find something to complain of here, but, at the time, it was considered good clean fun rather than racist cultural appropriationSecond note to the Revisionist Historians: For the second time, Ingalls chronicles the actions by the US government and army to prevent or punish settlers encroaching on the land belonging to the Native Americans aka Indians.Laura is going on 16 years when the book starts and ages 2 years; time is c. 1882-1884.
    • 5/5
      I love this book. It was always my favorite of the series. I thought it was romatic and beautiful in its simplicity. I read it more times as i could count as a kid and a teen.
    • 5/5
      my absolute favorite Little House book.
    • 4/5
      Summary: Laura grows up and finds herself teaching school and finding her soul mate. Little House makes me long for those simple times when we enjoyed simple things and worked hard each day. Though the days are gone I can still chose to implement some of those lovely true principles into my home and into my heart.Quotes: "Everything is simple when you are alone, or at home, but as soon as you meet other people you are in difficulties. ""I hope that each of you can get more schooling, but if you cannot, you can study at home as Lincoln did. An education is worth striving for, and if you can not have much help in getting one you can each help yourself to an education if you try. "
    • 5/5
      See review for Little House #1
    • 4/5
      When we meet up with Laura again she is fifteen years old and off to teach school at the Brewster settlement, twelve miles away. This is a period of great confusion for her. On the one hand, she is still a child, wanting to go to school to learn and to be with friends. On the other hand, she is a young adult, wanting to teach school to earn money for her family. Mary is away at a school for the blind and needs help with tuition. As she says, "only yesterday she was a schoolgirl; now she was a schoolteacher" (p 1). During this time Laura's fashion sense is becoming more adult with floor-length dresses and fancy hats. She takes up sewing on Saturdays to earn money for new clothes. She is starting the receive the attention of Almanzo Wilder as well. While this attention is, at first, unsettling to Laura she begins to look forward to his cutter (winter) and buggy (summer) rides. Soon they are courting under the guise of taming wild horses, but I don't think I will be spoiling anything to admit their inevitable engagement seemed sudden and uneventful to me.Probably the most interesting part of the story was when Laura was negotiating her wedding vows with Almanzo. She doesn't want the ceremony to include the word "obey" in it. Almanzo is fine with that but when Laura learns the reverend also feels strongly about not including the vow of "obey" she is shocked. Yet she is not a feminist. She doesn't want the privileged of voting. Interesting.
    • 4/5
      "These Happy Golden Years" is one of my favorites in the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It picks up with Laura when she is 15 years old as she starts teaching for the first time and travels away from home. The center of the book is really the courtship between herself and her future husband, Almanzo Wilder. Like many other books in the series, it's a fascinating look at life as a pioneer out west -- it's particularly interesting to see how the country around the Ingalls family grows as well.