Wilder - Introducing "Wilder"
Episode Date: June 1, 2023See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
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She's a Hollywood Western.
She's Jack Kerouac, but in an app dress with braids.
She is one of the most important American children's authors of the 20th century.
She's the basis for a television show still watched around the world.
I literally wake up in the middle of the night and go,
somebody somewhere is watching the blood of the prey.
Women will come up to me and cry and saying,
my childhood was miserable and little house in the prey
was my escape.
She's been called a hero, a racist, a feminist,
and a propagandist.
Consider a native child in their classroom, reading it aloud,
and they come to that sentence,
the only good Indian is a dead Indian.
She is Laura Ingalls Wilder. Did you know she was a real person?
In the 1930s, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote
the nine little house on the prairie books
based on her childhood on the American frontier.
And in one way or another, she's been with us ever since.
Oh, I love them.
I loved them.
I loved little house in the prairie.
It's just a perfect book.
I've loved Laura for as long as I can remember.
As a kid, I used to map out her travels on my parents' atlas.
And I'm not alone.
Every summer, thousands of people from around the world
pilgrimage to her little houses in tiny towns
in the middle of the country.
Now, I'm going to, I went and searched of Laura, the real Laura. Who is this person I love so much?
Should I love her? The story of Laura is just as complicated as the story of America, because she is America for better and worse.
If we pretend the past was not as controversial and difficult and racist as it was,
then how are we going to deal with the racist issues we're grappling with today?
In a country currently at odds with itself and its history,
could there be a better time for this exploration? There's never been a better time than now. I'm GlonismicNical,
and this is Wilder. Wilder launches June 8th! Listen on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
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