Oh, I didn't mean that. I am fine with seeing Laura warts and all (and actually enjoy the real stories better sometimes). I just mean that since we really live here, I didn't know if I'd enjoy the book or find myself thinking "it's not like that!" every other minute. :)

I have been unsure about how I feel about this book and whether I wanted to read it, since we live near Walnut Grove (and in the same school district) and our family has taken part in the Wilder Pageant for over a decade. Thanks for the interview.

Thank you for speaking up about this. We live in Minnesota and this week in Iowa several white high school boys posted pictures to social media of themselves dressed up like the KKK with a burning cross. They apparently thought it was funny. Here in Minnesota, a mosque was attacked recently bombed too. It's true that racism has always been around us but lately many people think it's actually acceptable and that it's safe to be outwardly hateful and violent towards others. Our minister has been preaching about racism a lot and about white privilege (which offends some people but it is true that we are privileged in our society to be white, just as we are privileged to live in a free country and in many other ways). I know my children are lucky that they will not face some of the issues that children of color have to grow up with, and it's heartbreaking that children have to grow up with any of this fear and ugliness in the 21st century. We work hard to teach our kids it's not enough to just to accept and love everybody but that we also have a duty to speak up against racism and injustice and work to end it. I'll check out the links. Thanks again!

My hubby is making applesauce right as I type. :) We gather several hundred pounds of apples and pears this time of year from various trees with permission from the owners if they are not going to use them and on public land. There are even some wonderful tasting apples on city property in Mankato that my husband and kids gathered with a $2 homemade apple picker yesterday (buy a broom and duct tape at the dollar store, cut a large hole with a knotch in the side of an empty one liter pop bottle, unscrew the broom from the handle and tape the bottle onto the end of your broom handle). We make it the same way you do, and use a food mill to take out the skins and get a nice consistency.

If you read Laura's actual memoirs, she put all sorts of true, lurid details about the railroad camp, attempted rapes (including of her by a drunken employer), a murder she witnessed between a husband/wife she worked for (I think he set her on fire?), etc. and her daughter Rose constantly told her to rewrite her childhood because it didn't make good children's books. Rose had her change most of the real timetable of her childhood (they moved in all directions in real life, for instance, and back to some places), important details (the little house in the big woods was near town and many neighbors and they often went to parties) and more. Mary's college was paid by the government and not some mysterious benefactor, and she had her put in all this "we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps" business because Rose was a rabid libertarian. The Ingalls Family skipped out on paying rent in one town by leaving in the middle of the night. Laura supported the family for quite some time in her early teens by working at inns in horribly seedy situations because Pa didn't work. It was all whitewashed and changed.

Just wondering what others are using instead of butter to make them dairy free. I was thinking Earth Balance would work, since coconut oil probably wouldn't give the same buttery flavor for the caramels. Did anybody try making these truly dairy free and have advice on what to use? Thanks!