A Prairie Girl’s Faith Book Review

As a young girl I was a huge fan of all the Laura Ingalls’ Books!  I read every single book in the series and even tried some of the extra books written by Laura’s daughter, Rose.  You can imagine how excited I was as an adult to find this lovely book, “A Prairie Girl’s Faith” by Stephen W. Hines which is an exploration into “The Spiritual Legacy of Laurie Ingall’s Wilder.”

This book had many interesting thoughts and research on Laurie’s and Rose’s Spirituality, but it also included many findings on music, recipes and writings of the pioneer’s of this time period.  After reading this book, I yearn for more from Laura, herself on her own spiritual beliefs and growth.  Many findings seem to be supposition and the remainder of the book seems to be snippets of the rest of the Ingalls lives found through reading her newspaper articles.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but found it to be somewhat disjointed from the actual idea that it was on Laura’s spiritual legacy and each chapter seemed to be a different topic, not necessarily in line with the title. As a musician, I especially enjoyed much of the history and discussion of the hymns and songs of the pioneers, although, I’m not certain they were unique to the Ingall’s family.  For the fan of Laura Ingall’s Wilder, I do recommend this as a good read.  It may leave the reader wanting to read many of the resources in the Bibliography as well.

I received this book from Waterbrook Multnomah in exchange for this review, but all opinions are my own.