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The eight books written and published by Laura Ingalls Wilder are ''Little House in the Big Woods,'' ''Farmer Boy'' (about her husband, Almanzo Wilder), ''Little House on the Prairie,'' ''On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter'', ''Little Town on the Prairie'' and ''These Happy Golden Years,'' chronicling Laura's life from her childhood in Wisconsin to her marriage in what would later become South Dakota.

Not counting ''Farmer Boy,'' the first three and a half books chronicle the Ingallses' family life as they move from place to place on the American West frontier, partially to carve out a better life and partially to satisfy Pa's "itching foot." ''Farmer Boy'', meanwhile, chronicles a year in the life of nine-year-old Almanzo (the same year his future wife was born), growing up and working hard on his family's prosperous farm near Malone, New York.

The last three and a half books are about the Ingalls family finally settling permanently in the brand-new town of De Smet, Dakota Territory, as Ma has finally put her foot down and demanded that her girls receive a stable education. The Ingallses are also recovering from a bout of scarlet fever, which has left oldest daughter Mary blind. These books focus in on Laura's life as she grows up and struggles to find ways to help her parents survive on the harsh frontier, while also exploring life away from home. Oh, and falling in love with Almanzo, who has also just arrived in De Smet and is now ambitious for his own farm.

There is some contention about how much of the books are purely Laura Ingalls Wilder: the stories are hers, to be sure, but her daughter was a popular author and was instrumental in encouraging her mother to publish her story. While Laura already had a background writing columns for local newspapers, some suggest Rose, who was an accomplished ghostwriter, wrote the books herself, while others suggest she merely offered advice and put Laura in touch with her publishing connections; the truth is likely somewhere between the two extremes. Note that ''The First Four Years'', which was written without Rose's help, is similar in content but noticeably different in style to the rest of the series.

After Wilder's death, her daughter found her journal account of their move from De Smet to Mansfield, Missouri, and had it published as ''On the Way Home.'' This was the kiss of death for Laura's immortality, as, after Rose's death, her lawyer and heir, Roger Lea [=MacBride=], brought to light a manuscript Rose entrusted him with. [=MacBride=] published Laura's ninth book, ''The First Four Years'', along with a collection of letters she wrote to Almanzo while visiting Rose in San Francisco during the World's Fair, ''West From Home.'' Not content to stop there, he also wrote a series of books about Rose, drawing on stories she told him as a child and tossing in a few creative liberties.

[=HarperCollins=] was similarly discontented, as they smelled a [[CashCowFranchise zombie franchise]] in the making (nearly half a century later!), and have since published books about Caroline Quiner Ingalls, Mary Ingalls, Nellie Oleson, and Laura's grandmother Charlotte Tucker and great-grandmother, Martha Morse who grew up in Scotland. Plus ''Old Town in the Green Groves,'' a book about the "lost years" Laura felt were too painful to include in children's books, written by Cynthia Rylant. These extra books vary in quality and success at emulating the charm of the originals, but all are interesting portraits of "America's favorite pioneer family."

A [[Series/LittleHouseOnThePrairie television adaptation]] began airing in 1974.
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!!Tropes relating to Laura's books, and their companions, sequels, prequels, ad nauseam:

* AerithAndBob: The Wilder siblings are named Royal, Eliza-Jane, Almanzo, and Alice. The Rose books mention two others: youngest brother Perley and eldest sister [[OneSteveLimit Laura]].
* AltarTheSpeed: Laura and Almanzo decide to move up the date of their wedding drastically - so drastically that it's held in the minister's parlour and with no guests - because Eliza Jane and Mother Wilder are coming to out from Minnesota to plan a big church wedding neither bride nor groom can afford, plus the harvest season is coming up. When Ma Ingalls protests that they could at least have a small ceremony at the Ingalls home, Laura counters that it wouldn't be fair to have a ceremony purely for the benefit of her family and not give Almanzo's the chance to attend.
* AmazonChaser: Almanzo hints from time to time that part of the reason he likes Laura is her spirit and temper. While Laura spends her teenage years worrying about what people think of her because she sometimes plays ball at recess, Almanzo buys her a pony just for her playtime and later builds her a sled that their dog can pull. When Laura tells him that she isn't comfortable promising to obey him against her better judgment as part of their marriage vows, Almanzo tells her that he's never heard of any woman who actually does, but still agrees to leave out the word 'obey.' There is also the time where a band of Indians came to inspect the Wilder's farm. When Laura slaps one of them, he promptly asks her to leave with him and be his wife.
* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Grace sometimes comes across as this, as she's so much younger than Mary, Laura and Carrie and is frankly a little spoiled because of it.
* ArcWords: "Everything is evened up in the end. The rich have their ice in the summer but the poor get theirs in the winter."
* AuthorAvatar: Obviously. Although Wilder took quite a few liberties for the sake of her story, including combining three young rivals into 'Nellie Oleson' and eliminating a few very rough years in the Ingalls' lives that she apparently couldn't bring herself to write about.
* AutomatonHorses: Averted.
* BarefootPoverty: In ''Little House in Brookfield'' (the first book in "The Caroline Years," prequel series to this one) Caroline's oldest sister goes to church barefoot one day because the family is too poor to buy her new shoes and the old ones pinch her feet something terrible. She thinks her new long dress will cover up her shoeless feet, and she's right for most of the time but eventually gets caught. Her parents are not pleased.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Mr. Corse in ''Farmer Boy''.
* BetaCouple: Cap Garland and Mary Power, until they break up.
** Henry Quiner and Polly Ingalls in ''A Little House of Their Own''.
* BigDamnHeroes: Almanzo and Cap make a cross-country journey in the depths of winter to bring back enough wheat to save the town from starvation.
* BlondesAreEvil: Nellie Oleson.
** Averted with Mary, although Laura is still [[GreenEyedMonster jealous of her]] and considers her to be something of a SpoiledBrat at first (which she later admits was true).
* BookWorm: Caroline, Mary, Rose and Laura herself.
* BrainyBrunette: Laura has brown hair and is consistently at the top of her class. She inherited this trait from her mother Caroline who is also a brunette and extremely studious. Laura's daughter, Rose, has brown hair as well and is something of a prodigy.
** It's not a contrast between the blondes and brunette's in the book, however. Mary, who has blonde hair, is described as being incredibly smart with a great memory. Carrie's intelligence is never really addressed in the books.
* BrotherChuck: Unlike Royal and Eliza Jane, Alice doesn't appear again after ''Farmer Boy.'' Almanzo does mention Laura would like his mother, and he mentions his father when he tells her about his first horse, Starlight. Sadly, Alice's disappearance is probably because she died in Florida at the age of 39.
* CassandraTruth: The Indian in ''The Long Winter'' who warns about "seven months of winter". Most of the townspeople don't put much stock in his claim at first.
* ComingOfAgeStory: The entire series chronicles Laura's life from childhood to adulthood.
* CompositeCharacter: Nellie Oleson... thank God. Laura apparently felt it would be in poor taste to name real people if she was portraying them in a negative light, and so three unpleasant girls Laura knew were rolled into one. And yes, one of them moved from Walnut Grove to De Smet. The descendants of the three girls remain distinctly unimpressed with how much Laura made up. Possibly also Mr. Edwards.
* CostumePorn: Several of the books contain detailed descriptions of the clothes that Laura and her mother made for her and her sisters. One aunt's dress had buttons "shaped like blackberries" which Laura remembered well enough to mention again in later books.
* DaddysGirl: Laura. Pa's pet names for her were "Half-Pint" and "Flutterbudget." And ''not,'' as Cynthia Rylant would have you believe, "Apple Pie" or "Pumpkin Pie."
* DareToBeBadass: In ''These Happy Golden Years'', Almanzo admits to Laura that the forty-below-zero weather made him think twice about coming to drive her home for the weekend, until Cap Garland, seeing him hesitating, told him, "God hates a coward."
-->"So you came because you wouldn't take a dare?" Laura asked.\\
"No, it wasn't a dare," Almanzo said. "I just figured he was right."
* DarkerAndEdgier: Given the reputation of the television adaptation, you might expect that the book series also TastesLikeDiabetes. Instead, they paint a straightforward, reasonably unsentimental picture of the challenges of frontier life.
* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Martha, Laura great-grandmother. [[{{ExecutiveMeddling}} Though the series only covered Martha's pre-teens]], she grew up to marry Lew Tucker, a blacksmith instead of a wealthy lord as was expected. Historical evidence explicity states her family were unhappy with the match.
* DeathGlare: Cap Garland supposedly had one that could intimidate a railroader.
* {{Determinator}}: Almanzo and Cap Garland, who in ''The Long Winter'' head out to look for the homestead of a man who might have enough grain to keep the town from starving. They're not even sure where it ''is'', or whether or not the man decided to winter on the prairie or go back East. Given the frequency of blizzards, it's a rather dangerous undertaking, but they find him, persuade him to give them some wheat, and successfully make it back to town. On a more personal note, Almanzo's unwilling to be put off by Laura's initial reluctance to let him court her, which of course paid off in the end.
* DeterminedHomesteadersChildren: All of the Ingalls girls, naturally.
** Also Caroline and the other Quiner siblings.
* DeterminedHomesteadersWife: All of the "protagonist" girls except Rose, but especially Ma.
* DoggedNiceGuy: Almanzo Wilder's initial courtship of Laura takes essentially this form, particularly when she tells him up-front that she's letting him take her to and from her teaching job on the weekends so that she can get home, but doesn't plan to continue to go with him afterwards, so he shouldn't feel any obligation to keep coming to pick her up. Not only does he go right on doing so (in forty-below-zero weather), once her teaching job is over and she's back home, he turns up at her door the next weekend to ask if she'd like to go sleighing. (She would.)
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: ''Little House in the Big Woods'' has less of a narrative than the later books and is organized around a series of stories, probably because Laura was so young at the time.
* EducationMama: Ma, who was a schoolteacher when she was younger and has her heart set on one of her girls following in her footsteps. Everyone thought Mary would be the one, including Mary herself, but her blindness derailed her plans. Laura ends up becoming a schoolteacher, partly to please Ma, but mostly to earn enough money to send Mary to the college for the blind in Vinton, Iowa.
* EmbarrassingFirstName: Almanzo's clearly not too fond of his, (as he explains in-story, it stems from a family tradition of a 'Moorish' soldier named Al-Manzoor who once saved a Wilder ancestor), and you'll note that Laura calls him Manly after they're married.
-->"I think it is a [[DamnedByFaintPraise very interesting name]]," said Laura honestly.
** His sister Eliza Jane also hates her name thanks to an embarrassing ordeal in school. It doesn't help that, once Nellie Oleson tells the other girls ''why'' Eliza Jane hates her name, Laura's friend Ida writes (with a little editing help from Laura) a nasty but humorously catchy limerick about it that half the little boys memorize and then sing loudly through the entire town. Eliza Jane needless to say is not pleased. By the time she pops up in the Rose series, she insists on being called "E.J." (though Laura still calls her 'Eliza Jane' in her letters to Rose).
* EveryoneCanSeeIt: Everybody but Laura catches on to Almanzo's intentions around the time he starts driving a twenty-four mile round trip to bring her home for the weekends during her first teaching job.
-->"If you knew how that Nellie Oleson's always bragging and showing off, and picking on Laura. And now to think that Laura's teaching school, and Almanzo Wilder's beauing her home."\\
"Oh, no! He isn't!" Laura cried out. "It isn't like that at all. He came for me as a favor to Pa."\\
Mary [Power] laughed. "He must think a lot of your Pa!"
* EyeScream: In ''Farmer Boy'', Almanzo and his sister Alice are helping their father burn potato stalks. They get hungry long before lunchtime, and bury a couple potatoes in the pile to roast for a snack. Unfortunately for Almanzo, when he goes to check on them, one explodes right in his face. He manages to shut his eye before it can blind him, but winds up with a nasty burn all over that side of his face.
* FailedASpotCheck: It takes Laura a good year to figure out just why Almanzo keeps seeing her home from church and driving her all over, and when she does she freaks out over it a little. Rather justified by the fact that she's fifteen years old and thus completely clueless about men. ''Ma'', on the other hand, is much more GenreSavvy and for quite a while does not approve.
* FeverDreamEpisode: At one point in the series, the entire Ingalls family falls victim to malaria. Laura documents her experience with the disease, which included odd hallucinations.
* FoodPorn: Especially in ''Farmer Boy'', to the point where it becomes a mild RunningGag. All that hard work in the fields gives little Almanzo a fierce appetite, and his mother is a fabulous cook; just how fabulous is spelled out on nearly every page. Worth noting that this'd be all organic, free-range ingredients, too...
** As noted in the companion book ''The Little House Cookbook,'' this food porn might be due to the author having spent much of her childhood eating little else but cornbread, salt pork, and the occasional prairie rabbit.
** There are also at least two lengthy passages describing harvest and butchering time, with detailed descriptions of preparing and storing up food in various ways -- these are surprisingly engrossing.
* GrowingUpSucks: Laura, Caroline and Martha struggle with this at times.
* TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: Explicitly, beginning in the first book -- when they're about four and six respectively -- between [[TomboyAndGirlyGirl Laura, who is plain, strong-willed and active, and Mary, who is pretty and perfectly well-behaved.]] Lessens naturally as they grow older, especially after Mary's blindness forces Laura to become her eyes. No doubt describing everything around her for her sister's benefit helped her writing talent, too.
** There's a nice scene in one of the later books where Mary admits that part of the reason it was so easy for her to be "good" when they were little was the pleasure of one-upping Laura -- so really, a lot of the time she wasn't being genuinely "good" at all.
** Ironically there is a similar relationship between Laura's great-grandmother Martha and ''her'' older sister Grisie. Although there is a larger age gap - eight years or so - like Laura, Martha was tomboyish, energetic and mischevious while Grisie was girly, quiet and passive. One can only imagine what would happen if the two pairs met up.
** The difference between Martha and Grisie is further emphasised by their choice of lifestyle. Grisie marries a rich, landowning friend of their father and settles down as a society wife. Martha emigrates to America with the village blacksmith to live the life of a commoner.
* HiddenDepths: In-story, Laura is surprised to realize that her gentle, ladylike mother hates sewing as much she does. In spite of this, both Laura and Ma are skilled seamstresses, as being able to make the family's clothes was an essential accomplishment.
* HypocriticalHumor: Mary confesses to Laura that she would like to write a book, and muses that she also planned to teach school, but now Laura is doing that for her. Laura finds the idea absolutely hysterical and tells her to write her own book.
* IllGirl: It takes Carrie a long time to recover from the malnutrition the family suffered in ''The Long Winter''. She's often mentioned as being "delicate", and suffers frequently from what sound like migraines. At one point she almost faints in school during an unjust punishment, prompting Laura to resent Eliza Jane even more. The fact that EJ picks on sickly little Carrie is what sends Laura over the edge, and makes her give up trying to get the other children to behave.
* ImprobableAge: Laura, who gets her first teaching certificate at the age of fifteen, wonders if she's too young to be a capable teacher. The fact that three of her students are older than her really doesn't help her self-confidence, and she hits some rough patches during her first term because of it. It works out in the end, though.
** That's TruthInTelevision though, straight out of the real life of Clara Barton, who was ''thirteen'' when she first taught school.
** It was also the reason why Laura in ''Little House in the Big Woods'' is older than Laura herself was at the time they lived there. In the book, she is five years old. In reality, she was three years old, and publishers suspected people would not believe a three-year-old would have such vivid memories.
* InnocentInaccurate: A young Laura goes through this twice with the same issue: in ''Little House in the Big Woods'', her cousin Charley ends up [[GoshHornet badly stung by bees]] because [[CryingWolf he keeps screaming when nothing is wrong to make his father and Laura's stop working and come running, only to get no response when he really does stumble into the bees' nest]]; Pa concludes that "it serves the little liar right," and Laura lies awake that night wondering how Charley can be a liar when he didn't ''say'' anything. The other time is in ''On the Banks of Plum Creek''; Laura honestly doesn't realize she's committing LoopholeAbuse re: the strawstack (see below), and she doesn't know why Pa looks shocked when she repeatedly denies sliding down it.
* InWithTheInCrowd: Not even a year after Laura receives a new autograph album, Nellie Oleson finds out about name cards, and arbitrarily changes the fashion amongst the girls at school. Laura is initially reluctant to ask her parents to buy her some, but they eventually get her to admit she wants them and tell her that they want her to have the same nice things as other girls her age. Laura is both guilty and pleased. See also: Laura's hoopskirts (Laura: "They're a bit of a nuisance, but they are in style, and when you're my age, you'll want to be in style.") and bangs (or, as her parents call them, 'lunatic fringe').
* InjunCountry: There are several descriptions of the displaced Indians in ''Little House on the Prairie'', not openly unsympathetic (except from Ma's POV) but still as dangerous {{NobleSavage}}s. Native American educators have some pretty harsh things to say about the books and the true story behind the Native situation at the time.
* IWasQuiteALooker: Ma was not as slim as she used to be, after five pregnancies, but described how tiny her waist was when she and Pa first met at one point (at the time the book is set, extremely small waistlines were in fashion and corsets were standard wear).
* JailBaitWait: Maybe. Thirteen-year-old Laura first meets Almanzo when she and Carrie run across the field he and Royal are working in, having gotten lost on their way home from an errand in town. The narrative mentions explicitly that he won't stop staring at her. One might wonder how much time he spent waiting for her to get old enough to court.
* TheKlutz: Definitely Martha. Laura on occasion.
* LadyOfAdventure: All the little house girls naturally. Martha and Laura are particularly significant as the former was the first to emigrate to America and the latter was the original pioneer girl.
* LawOfInverseFertility: In a rather shocking moment in ''The First Four Years'', Laura and Almanzo take newborn Rose to show to the Boasts, the young couple befriended by the Ingallses, who have no children. As they leave, Mr. Boast comes back out of the house and awkwardly offers to trade his best horse for the baby, explaining that Laura and Almanzo can have other children, but he and Mrs. Boast can't: "We never can."
* LoopholeAbuse: In ''On the Banks of Plum Creek'', after being told she and Mary could no longer slide down the haystack, Laura decides that she can still ''roll'' down it. While she doesn't get punished for it, her father does then clarify that she is no longer to even ''touch'' the haystack.
* MayDecemberRomance: A very mild example. In the books Laura shaved a few years off her and Almanzo's age gap--he was ten years her senior, meaning when he started courting her she was fifteen and he was twenty-five. That wouldn't have been seen as at all odd in the 1880's, when an age disparity in a couple might easily be twenty years, but by the time she wrote ''Little Town on the Prairie'' and ''These Happy Golden Years'' it would have been considered a little skeevy. (Though not so startling as, in ''By the Shores of Silver Lake'', the story of a girl who was married at ''thirteen''; even Laura and her friend Lena are shocked by that, as they're both nearly the same age.)
** Almanzo's given age in the books varies wildly over the series, possibly to assuage readers over this very issue. In ''The Long Winter'' it's implied that he's under 21, the age one had to be to file a claim on a homestead. He tells Royal that he's "21 or as good as." Laura was about 14, making their age difference only 5-6 years. However, the 10-year age gap comes to light in ''The First Four Years'' when it's mentioned explicitly that when Laura turned 19, Almanzo turned 29.
* MisplacedKindergartenTeacher: New schoolmarm Eliza Jane gives a speech on her first day about how she intends to rule by love, not fear: [[TastesLikeDiabetes "Birds in their little nests agree!"]]. Laura and her friends find it embarrassing and don't think it will go over well when the older boys start coming to school... as it turns out, they're all too right.
* MyCard: The first time Laura and Almanzo properly speak to one another, they exchange name cards.
* NationalStereotypes: Occasionally. A couple of these come out of nowhere: A storekeeper named Gerald Fuller shows up several times in ''Little Town on the Prairie'' and is never mentioned to be different in any way from the rest of the townsfolk, except for one line where he's described as speaking "in his English way": ''"I say, there's talent enough for a musical program, what?"'' And we meet Laura's friend Mary Power's mother once or twice and she likewise has no distinguishing features, but when she resurfaces in ''The First Four Years'' to help Laura deliver her baby, suddenly she's a "jolly Irishwoman" who talks like [[Series/FatherTed Mrs. Doyle]].
* NiceGuy: Almanzo, who drove Laura forty miles to work on a weekly basis. Charles, Laura's Pa and Caroline's husband qualifies as well.
** Also Lew who helped smuggle Martha craft supplies when she was sick in bed. (Including giving her his own knife). ''"Martha had no doubt he'd do as she asked. Lew Tucker was the type of boy who'd walk through the tempest to help a friend."''
* NobodyPoops: The issue is never touched on in the books, although we know pretty much every other detail of the Ingallses' various houses and daily routine, and it's a rather intriguing if potentially {{Squick}}y question to ponder (in particular, how they managed during the months of blizzards). There are also, of course, NoPeriodsPeriod, and Carrie and Grace are carefully born between books even though this is inaccurate in Carrie's case.
** The closest the books come is ''Little Town in the Ozarks'', written in the '90s by Roger Lea MacBride, where Rose is recovering from an illness and briefly acknowledges that she hates using a chamber pot, but is still too weak and dizzy to make it to the town's privy.
* OfCorsetHurts: Laura is ''not'' fond of her corset; she describes it as "a sad affliction to her". She actually looks forward to the hard work of bringing in the crops, because it means she can leave it off. She also can't follow her mother's and sister's example -- they both ''sleep'' in theirs, which she gives up on fairly early on. Carrie isn't too keen on the idea, either, and Laura tells her to be grateful to be without one while she has the chance.
* OldNewBorrowedAndBlue: When Ma Ingalls objects to Laura using her new black cashmere dress as her wedding dress, citing the saying "married in black, you'll wish yourself back," Laura cheerfully invokes this trope in response, saying she'll wear the dress with her old blue-lined bonnet and borrow Ma's gold brooch. Ma concedes that there is probably not much truth in such sayings.
* OneSteveLimit: Carrie's just a nickname, she was named after her mother, Caroline. Almanzo's oldest sister was also left out of ''Farmer Boy'' so as to not confuse readers, since her name was ''also'' Laura -- which is also why Almanzo called his wife "Bess" or "Bessie" (her middle name being Elizabeth). Laura's friend, Mary Power, is also always referred to by her full name - as to avoid confusion with Laura's sister.
* OutdoorsyGal: Laura obviously as she prefers working on the farm with her Pa, to helping with housework. However Martha also qualifies as she spends most of her time roaming Scottish moors and playing with her father's tenants.
* OverprotectiveDad: Averted with Pa, who has no problem with the much older Almanzo's courtship of Laura, nor of that courtship mostly consisting of driving around behind unbroken horses. ''Ma'' isn't too pleased about it; at one point she opines that it seems Almanzo wants to break Laura's neck, and she hopes he breaks his own first.
* PerspectiveFlip: ''Nellie Oleson Meets Laura Ingalls'' tells the events of ''On The Banks of Plum Creek'' from Nellie's point-of-view.
* PetTheDog: Eliza Jane is usually not portrayed in the best light, but she does one good moment: after Almanzo ruins the wallpaper in their mother's parlor - by throwing a blacking brush at Eliza Jane, no less - EJ finds the leftover paper in the attic and patches it up before Mother and Father find out.
* PlotRelevantAgeUp: In ''Little House in the Big Woods'', Laura is portrayed as being about five years old. In reality, she was only three. A publisher had her increase her age because it seemed unrealistic that a three-year-old would have such specific memories.
* PluckyGirl: Most of the female characters; the 1880's frontier life tended to require it.
* RadishCure: In ''Little Town on the Prairie'', Miss Wilder attempts to employ this trope by commanding Carrie Ingalls and her seatmate to put their books away and rock their desk as punishment for rocking it while studying. It's mostly an effort to get at Laura by picking on her little sister, and it backfires dramatically (and awesomely) when Miss Wilder demands that sickly little Carrie, abandoned by her seatmate, continue to rock the desk by herself - Laura declares that she'll rock the desk if Miss Wilder wants it rocked, and she proceeds to do just that, so loudly that nobody in the entire schoolroom can hear the lesson.
** She doesn't just rock it, she rips the bolts out of the floor. As she puts it, 'not for nothing did Pa always say she was as strong as a little French horse'.
* RapunzelHair: In ''These Happy Golden Years'', Laura's hair is described as falling past her knees when it's loose. Ma also mentions that when she and Pa were first married, her hair was so long she could sit on the braids. At that point in time long hair was considered a defining trait of femininity, so most women grew it as much as they could, and rarely (if ever) cut it.
** Pa cut Mary's hair short during her bout with scarlet fever (a common practice at the time, since it was thought that cutting off hair could reduce fever). Ma takes great pains to hide this when they're out in public. There is also a scene where Almanzo has taken Laura and their friends driving, and Cap Garland keeps stealing hairpins from Mary Power, and Laura, who knows Mary's "beautiful large knot of hair" is fake and might fall off at any moment, has to rescue her by shoving some snow down the back of Cap's shirt.
* RebelliousSpirit: Martha, Laura and Rose.
* RedOniBlueOni: Wild and adventurous Laura typically wears red, while composed and ladylike Mary typically wears blue.
* RegalRinglets: "Nasty" Nellie Olson's hair, as shown in the famous Williams illustrations, is a classic example of this style.
* SadistTeacher: Eliza Jane picks on sickly little sister Carrie to make Laura mad, because she's under the impression Laura is throwing her weight around due to Pa being on the school board. Possibly a TakeThat, since the real Laura and Eliza Jane didn't get along very well at all; see also EJ being portrayed as a bossy little brat in ''Farmer Boy''.
* SceneryPorn: Loving descriptions of the prairie scenery are a staple of the series.
* ScienceMarchesOn: Mary's blindness is blamed on scarlet fever in the books. Modern studies suggest that she had contracted meningoencephalitis, a type of brain inflammation, which caused her blindness. The 'scarlet fever' diagnosis was probably a misdiagnosis, common back then.
* ShipperOnDeck: Laura for Mary Power and Cap Garland. And to a minor degree, Mary Power for Laura and Almanzo. Pa Ingalls seems to encourage Laura and Almanzo's courtship as well.
* SiblingYinYang: Laura and Mary. Martha and Grisie.
** Also Carrie and Grace. The former is quiet and shy, while the latter is loud and confident.
** Caroline (academic and bookish) and her sister Martha (practical and sophisticated) are a mild case.
* StarCrossedLovers: Historically Martha and Lew. She was from well-off society while he was a skilled labourer. The books were developing this before ExecutiveMeddling ended the series. In real life they emigrated to America to get married and start a family freely.
* SpiritedYoungLady: Laura develops into a middle-class American version of this, while Mary remains a ProperLady (see TomboyAndGirlyGirl, below).
** Martha definitely qualifies as the daughter of a laird (Lord) who prefers foot-racing to sewing.
* TechnicianVersusPerformer: Mary and Laura have a bit of this dynamic when it comes to school. They're both incredibly smart girls, but Mary is more LiteralMinded, she's very serious, unsentimental, and unromantic, especially after she goes blind. Laura is friendlier and more imaginative. When she's seeing out loud for Mary, her descriptions are very poetic and evocative, but Mary often corrects her "queer notions," because what she's describing is impossible. Mary doesn't like metaphors, either, and Laura has to stop herself from using them.
* TextileWorkIsFeminine: True to the cliché, tomboy Laura hates sewing and ladylike Mary has no problem with it. It comes as a surprise to Laura when she realizes one day that Ma hates it too and just never complains.
* TheOneGuy & ThemeNaming: Among the authors of the books. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Maria D. Wilkes, Celia Wilkins, Melissa Wiley, and... Roger Lea MacBride? If you're looking for these books in a library, Rose's will probably be shelved a little ways off from the others...
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Laura and Mary respectively, when they're little. Mary enjoys sewing and knitting, whereas Laura would much rather be outside, either playing or helping Pa. When neighbors come to visit in ''Little House in the Big Woods'', Mary and the neighbor girl play nicely in the house, while Laura and the boy go climb trees. Laura becomes less of a tomboy as she grows up, but she never does learn to like sewing - although she took a lot of seamstressing jobs to help her family financially.
** In the Rose Years series, whistling is mentioned as something Laura enjoys, though it's not considered very lady-like.
** And again, Martha and Grisie, with the same outdoors vs knitting debate taking place a hundred years earlier.
* {{Tomboy}}: As mentioned above Laura and Martha.
* TomboyPrincess: While not royalty Martha is the daughter of a Laird, the Scottish version of a Lord so is technically aristocracy.
* TongueOnTheFlagpole: During a cold snap in ''Farmer Boy'', Almanzo muses that ''some'' kids are foolish enough to [[SchmuckBait take the dare]] to lick a pump handle, but he knows better.
* {{Tsundere}}: Laura puts up a sharp front because she doesn't dare show much affection for Almanzo. This changes after he proves himself by saving the town... and she proves herself ''extremely'' handy at outmaneuvering her rival Nellie.
* WhipItGood: A gang of rough older boys comes to Almanzo's school every winter to beat up the teacher and drive him away... until this year's model, small, soft-spoken Mr. Corse, literally drives them out IndianaJones-style with a borrowed bullwhip.
* WriteWhoYouKnow: JustifiedTrope, since the books are partially autobiographical.
* UptownGirl: Martha for Lew. She is part of the Scottish aristocratic class while he is a working class blacksmith. See StarCrossedLovers above for more details.
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