Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Ingalls Wilder was born on February 7, 1867, near Pepin, Wisconsin. From 1882–1885 she was a teacher in South Dakota. She married Almanzo Wilder in 1885. In the 1910s Wilder’s daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, by then grown up and a reporter for the San Francisco Bulletin, encouraged her to write about her childhood. In 1932 Laura Wilder published Little House in the Big Woods, the first book in what would become an autobiographical series of children’s books, collectively called the “Little House” books. Just as Little House in the Big Woods recounts her life in Pepin, Wisconsin, each of her books focuses on one of the more memorable places she lived. Wilder completed the last book in the “Little House” series in 1943. On February 10, 1957, she died at age 90, on her farm in Mansfield, Missouri. The books eventually turned into a television series, “Little House on the Prairie.”

Little House in the Big Woods Little House on the Prairie Farmer Boy On the Banks of Plum Creek By the Shores of Silver Lake The Long Winter Little Town on the Prairie These Happy Golden Years The First Four Years

“Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small, but it was strong “Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small, but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds could make it flicker because it would not give up.” ― Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter “There's no great loss without some small gain.” ― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie “We'd never get anything fixed to suit us if we waited for things to suit us before we started.” ― Laura Ingalls Wilder, By the Shores of Silver Lake “Never bet your money on another man's game.” ― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

Wilder Medal Wilder was five times one of the runners-up for the annual Newberry Medal, the premier ALA book award for children's literature. In 1954 the American Library Association inaugurated an occasional career award for children's writers and illustrators, named for her and first awarded to her. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal recognizes "substantial and lasting contributions to children's literature". It has been conferred 19 times in sixty years to 2013, biennially from 2001.

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