Pioneer Girl (The Annotated Autobiography) - Laura Ingalls Wilder (Pamela Smith Hill - Editor)

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am a long-time Little House fan. Not the show but definitely the books. Since early elementary school (I'm now in my 40's). So a long time. And I've lost track of how many times I've read the original series or how many add on books, adaptations for younger children, etc. I've written.
While it took me what felt like an eternity to read this book, it was absolutely worth it. And, as way of excuse, one of the reasons it took me so long was because the book itself is a rather large format. I couldn't just chuck it in my bag and head out, reading it in the nooks and crannies of my day.
Anyway, enough about me. Wilder wrote Pioneer Girl to be an adult book of growing up in the ever expanding western territories of the United States. It went to several agents and through multiple revisions, but was never actually published. However, Wilder pulled heavily from this memoir text to develop her iconic, historical fiction(ish) stories for children. It was so interesting to see where it all began from.
This annotated version was especially interesting because the abundant annotations added so much understanding, context, and clarification.
Now I'm just going to go back to kicking myself that I decided against the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library a few weeks ago when I was in Iowa City. I was right there on the grounds but didn't know that's where the original manuscript of Pioneer Girl is housed until I read this book.

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Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham

Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham by Billy Graham
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Whew! This book took me awhile to get through. Longer than I had even anticipated when first realizing it's length. I think I had it checked out from the library three or four different times getting it finished. There were a lot of names throughout, which made for some tedious reading. It was also sort of chronological but not really. So that made it hard to follow at times.
I'm glad I read it. I did really enjoy the more personal aspects that he wrote about. Shortly after his death, a blogger I read mentioned what a disservice he did to his family through his ministry and if that was really what God called him to. And I have been pondering that ever since. I was glad that he did address this towards the end of his autobiography. It helped me understand where his heart was on that issue.
Just amazing to read all that happened through the life of this one man who chose to surrender to God and act on what he believed God was telling him.

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Night - Elie Wiesel

I read this book in preparation for reading through it with my 8th graders in a few weeks. I will be doing a cooperative unit with the social studies teacher and am really looking forward to it – even though the topic is so dark.


I have read many books about the Holocaust, so I don’t know why I had never heard of Elie Wiesel’s Night. Especially since he received a Nobel Peace Prize for it.

This book is a first-hand account of Mr. Wiesel’s experiences as a Jewish boy during the Nazi regime. The book begins with a little background on his life pre-Hitler. He was studying religion; his father an important figure in his hometown of Transylvania. They hear murmurings of what is to come. At one point, they even receive warnings. However, what is happening to the Jews is too impossible to believe, and it could never happen to them. The story continues as Elie Wiesel is transported and interned at various concentration camps.

The story is both gripping and graphic. Tragic and horrifying.

I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around such atrocities being enacted upon other human beings. I really hope my students can grasp a bit of the story and a bit of the horror. After all, they will be the ones entrusted to make sure such things never occur again.