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    The Long Winter
    The Long Winter
    The Long Winter
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Long Winter

    Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder

    Narrated by Cherry Jones

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

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

    The town of De Smet in the Dakota Territory is hit with terrible blizzards in the hard winter of 1880-81, and the Ingalls family must ration their food and coal. When the supply train doesn’t arrive, all supplies are cut off from the outside. Soon there is almost no food left, so young Almanzo Wilder and a friend must make a dangerous trip in search of provisions.

    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
    ISBN9780062657015
    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 The Long Winter

    4.5/5

    1,650 ratings58 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I love this book so much it is so cool.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book so much thank-you for such a good discription and marvelous voices.?❤️?
    • 4/5
      Laura and her family are trapped in their town by a succession of blizzards, and the food is rapidly running out. Laura does an excellent job of capturing both the claustrophobic despair of their situation and the never-say-die outlook of her family.
    • 5/5
      I'm enjoying all of the Little House books, but this one has been the best to date.

      First, Laura's a teenager here. She's assumed many more grown-up responsibilities around the Ingalls' home. Not only is her work becoming more critical to the operation of the household, she's starting to be let in on the dangers of her family's life in a way that she's not been before. In The Long Winter, Laura faces the very real possibility of losing her family and her own life. She witnesses her parents shift their ideals, strange as they seem to modern audiences, to suit the needs of the family. Ma lets Laura help Pa with the summer haying despite her claim that only immigrants let their daughters do such work. Laura's assistance not only helps Pa avoid sunstroke, but it contributes greatly to their survival in the long winter.

      One thing I love about this book is that Ma finally loses it. She doesn't go completely ape, but she snaps at Pa and just in general acts much more like I do on a daily basis (but without the profanity). I feel like I can relate to her better now, even though the hardships that cause her to lose it are relentless blizzards and the impending starvation of her family while I lose it when over something like my husband leaving the empty cat food cans in the sink rather than rinsing them out immediately and putting them in the recycling. Still, the proof that Ma ever loses it at all helps me feel a greater kinship to her.

      I also really enjoyed the bits of discussion in this book about the double-edged sword of technological advance. Whether it's Ma complaining about their reliance on kerosene or Pa concerned about their reliance on the trains, the point is that while technology brings us great gifts, we quickly become dependent upon their fruits and find we can't live without them.

      I find that I often use the Little House books as a model for how I ought to live my life. We experienced a four-day power outage in our New England home after the freak snowstorm last October, and listening to The Long Winter (I listened to the audiobook read by Cherry Jones), I constantly thought back to just how ill-suited our home (and our family) is to inclement weather. When we're cut off from electricity, we can do nothing. Our food spoils, we can't heat our home, we can't cook, we have no hot water. Luckily we're on city water and sewer and don't rely on a sump to flush our toilets and run the taps, or we'd not have been able to stay in our home during that cold, dark four days. My thoughts turned to how to make our home less reliant on the "grid" and I realized (yet again) how little my husband and I know about the workings of our dwelling. While I wouldn't want to live in a 250-square-foot home with my family, I can certainly see how doing so would (could) simplify our lives. I find myself yearning for knowledge about sustainable energy sources and uber-insulation and woodstoves, but in the end, daily life intercedes and I get tied up once again in the daily tasks of doing dishes and washing clothes. That and the knowledge that the longest we've lived in any home in our adult lives is two years is enough to discourage us from any major renovations, regardless of the purpose.

      In the end, though, the thing that struck me was how close their family is. They have restraint and concern for the other family members and don't just blurt things out whenever they think of them. They don't yell at each other. They don't clamor for the bigger share of possessions or food or parental affection. When they're down (and they're not down unless the wolf's not just slavering at the door but has pulled up a chair for supper), they sing together or read together or just sit together and tell stories. Maybe learning how to make hay or how to ground wheat in a coffee grinder aren't the lessons I should be getting from the Little House books.

      But then, our coffee grinder is electric, too.
    • 5/5
      The Little House books were some of my favorites and The Long Winter was at the top of the pile. A long, treacherous winter tests the Ingalls family in new ways and they rise to the occasion. I'm re-reading it at the moment. Somehow the Little House books (except Little House on the Prairie which was my least favorite) never get old.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This was a good book but I wish nelley Olson was in the book

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I love this book I think anyone should reed it

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The best of all the Little House Books! This book tells of the struggles of surviving under the brutal weather conditions without supplies. Both Ma and Pa are very creative in coming up with with ways to make food and fuel last longer.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      A harrowing true story of a seven month blizzard in the Dakota Territories. No trees for using fuel, and the trains stopped running so there was no coal. Daily survival was a terrible struggle as the Ingalls's family take turns twisting slough grass into "sticks" and the daily bread was made from wheat seeds in a coffee grinder! When you read this, spring, summer, fall, or winter, you will feel COLD creeping in on you. Great survival story!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The best of all the Little House Books! This book tells of the struggles of surviving under the brutal weather conditions without supplies. Both Ma and Pa are very creative in coming up with with ways to make food and fuel last longer.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This book describes the Ingalls' family's daily activities during a season of multiple blizzards that threaten their town's survival by cutting off food supplies. The story is less interesting in terms of narrative things but works wonders with its vivid descriptions. I read this on a warm spring day and couldn't help but feel cold. While the day-to-day struggle seems repetitive at times, this serves as a poignant reminder that nature affected every aspect of daily life for these settlers, from whether they went to school to where in the house they ate their meals to how early they went to bed. A lifestyle so far removed from our modern conveniences really transports readers back to a different time and place. This book might work well if taught or read in conjunction with historical lessons on pioneer settlement to highlight another aspect of the dangers and risks of westward expansion.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Wrong title, wrong book! This is narration of book 6
    • 3/5
      The first Little House novel to get badly repetitive, which I guess is inevitable in a story about seven months of blizzards, but still a little boring for a children's book.
    • 4/5
      Book 6 in the Little House series is a horrifically grim story of six months of the family surviving a terrible winter. Constant blizzards, temperatures of minus forty*. The trains stop running as the cuttings fill with snow, and so they all know there is not enough food or coal to survive the winter, and they slowly eke out what they have. It is a book of literally months of twisting hay into ropes to burn it, and grinding grain painfully slowly by hand in a coffee mill. Everyone is slowly starving to death, and their life has shrunk to a tiny circle around the stove, and they are tired and depressed. We even see Ma and Pa snap at each other for once.But there are glimmers of hope in it all. Pa finds Almanzo's hidden grain and saves them from starving. Almanzo makes a heroic ride through the blizzards with Cap to get more grain for the town. They do what they can to keep their spirits up, reciting famous speeches and singing hymns. And somehow they hold on until April and the trains come through again.It is odd reading it as an adult. We know Laura and Almanzo are going to end up together, but I hadn't realised until this one how attractive actually having food - pancakes and salt pork! - can be in a man when all you have is raw wheat. And Almanzo definitely saves the day by going out through the blizzard to the settler and buying his grain for the town - but the settler is hording his grain for exactly the same reason Almanzo is, and Almanzo is happy to take the risk and the heroics, but not happy to just feed the whole town from his future and his best seed grain.I can't not comment on the cover of this book. It is ridiculous. It feels like someone was told 'there is a little house book called the Long Winter, can you draw a cover?' and never actually read the book. Smiling children with ruddy cheeks throw snowballs at each other and sledge down a hill. This is a winter that leaves them gaunt and pinched and unable to think, a winter where even in the first blizzard they are nearly all frozen to death just trying to walk home from school. Snowballs and scarfs it is not.* I tried to translate that from fahrenheit to celsius, to get a feel for how terrible it was, but actually, it's the cross over point, it's minus forty in both scales. Petrifying.
    • 4/5
      It just gets better and better (as, if the conspiracy theorists are right, her daughter takes a firm hand in editing/rewriting). How wonderful to read of being snowed in for so long (the cover's misleading, it's mostly a tale of being stuck in a house, worried about food and heat, for months) during the current Covid-19 crisis. Puts my complaints (can't dine out, can't hit the gym, can't rehearse my musical) to shame. I have food, heat, power, the internet, TV, every book ever written ready to download to my Kindle, and I have nothing to worry about.

      (Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!
    • 2/5
      The Ingall's family suffers through about 50 blizzards in one winter. That sums of most of the plot. This volume is weaker than the previous three or so, because not much happens, and what does happen, just happens over and over again. Pages 150 to 250 could virtually be omitted entirely without missing any of the plot, and you'd still have plenty of blizzards to read about.
    • 5/5
      Such a wonderful cozy book. I'm currently re-reading it to Asher. Wonderful!
    • 5/5
      4.5 starsThe Ingalls family has come to the Dakotas and is homesteading there. When there are early signs of a really bad winter, Pa decides they should move into town and live in their store, which is better insulated against the cold to come. This turns out to be a good choice, as this particular winter turns out to have blizzard after blizzard after blizzard hit, with few breaks in between. Due to all the blizzards, trains can’t get through to bring additional supplies – food, coal (for heat), etc. I love these books! The series is so much fun to reread. This one, I thought, was so good at describing/capturing the cold of the prairie winters. I grew up on the Canadian Prairies and it can be cold. Of course, we are now very lucky to have the heating we do. I can’t imagine that kind of cold inside the house or the isolation they would have felt at the time, as well, with the trains not able to get to them! This really is an amazing series.
    • 4/5
      This one was intense! The small community where the Ingalls live is stranded in a seven month blizzard. No trains with supplies are coming and everyone is beginning to starve. I know I’ll remember the vivid picture of Pa twisting hay to make logs for the fire and the girls using the coffee grinder on the wheat. The scene where the students head from school into town in the midst of a blizzard was harrowing. I loved getting to know Almanzo better.
    • 4/5
      Well, the title sort of gives the main plot of this story away, but it's still a good read! The Ingalls family is in the town of De Smet in the Dakota Territory, and they are hit hard by the brutal winter of 1880-1881. Like running out of food hard! The heroic efforts of Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland (and their horses) are pretty amazing to read, and the Christmas in May is as heartwarming as can be! A bleak story throughout, but as you can guess by the numbering of these books, they make it through! On to #7!
    • 4/5
      I can only imagine how hard that winter was. Going months without ever really being warm.I had forgotten what a rough life Laura had.
    • 5/5
      I re-read this one a couple of times. It was intense. Probably the best of the lot - had plenty of socio-political commentary, too.
    • 4/5
      Audio book performed by Cherry Jones

      In this installment of Wilder’s “Little House” novels the Ingalls family is living on a claim in South Dakota. As the novel opens it is late summer / early fall and Laura is helping her father mow/stack/store hay. Pa goes into town and happens to come across an Indian who communicates that this will be an extremely harsh winter – seven months of big snows. Pa, who has already begun to feel uneasy because he’s noticed unusual animal activity on the prairie, decides to move the family into town – immediately.
      As it turns out he made a good choice. Blizzard after blizzard descends on the prairie with a vengeance. Some in town try to profit from the hard times, but in general families and neighbors work to help one another survive this natural disaster.

      I love Wilder’s books, and this one is no exception. They are full of adventure, love of family, and the kind of pioneer attitude that developed this country. She shows the good and bad of this time period, never diminishing the kind of hard labor required and the dangers present. But she also incorporates life lessons without being overly preachy.

      Cherry Jones does a great job narrating this series.
    • 4/5
      Substance: The prediction of an unusually long and severe winter persuades the Ingalls family to move from their claim shanty out by the Big Slough into their empty office building in town. It was a wise decision. The hardships endured by all the pioneers are incredible and unbelievable if this were not an attested autobiographical work, and not out of the norm of other reminiscences.Style: I continue to be impressed by the author's lyrical descriptions of even negative environments, and her character insights and descriptions.I only wish I knew more of Pa Ingalls's songs.Laura is going on 14 years when the book starts.
    • 4/5
      It was a little disheartening to read this book during our own long, interminable Minnesota winter, but as I read about Laura's struggles twisting straw to feed the fire after the coal ran out and nearly starving to death, I was more grateful for my cushy middle-class life.
    • 5/5
      (The long winter) shows one of the most humanity ethic which is (cooperation) with other people especially your family. Seven months winter with heavy snow and blizzard after blizzard let the movement of any train very difficult. They could not bring food or going to school. That was the hardest winter on that town.
    • 4/5
      A very long winter in which the characters come close to starvation. A harrowing reminder of the challenges of pioneer life.
    • 4/5
      This is probably my favorite of the Little House books. I admire the tenacity of the Ingalls family, and that of the others who founded De Smet. When I was small, I had a crush on Almanzo, risking his life to get the wheat and save everyone. As I said in my review of 'On the Banks of Plum Creek', a modern reader can still take away a lesson of never giving up, no matter what life throws your way. Modern Americans don't have the same challenges to tackle that the Ingalls (and Wilder!) families experienced, but we have our own problems to solve. Pa's right. Never give up until it's licked.
    • 5/5
      See review for Little House #1
    • 5/5
      This is definitely one of the best books in the Little House series. I was 8 or 9 when I first read it, and at the time I thought it was kind of boring because "nothing happens". However, by the time I was about 15 it was one of my favorites. The Long Winter is very well written and suspenseful. It really is amazing how everyone survived.