Minnie and I decided to jump into the Little House universe with the most virulently racist book in the series, Little House on the Prairie itself. (Speaking of virulent racism, we are waiting to read Farmer Boy until after we jump over to the Victorian (Edwardian?) London world of Frances Hodgson Burnett for a spell). Minnie LOVED Little House and handled the racism that is the LITERAL PLOT pretty well because of her slavery/segregation unit from from kindergarten. By this I mean she understood it as the reflection of a particular moment in American history and was able to talk though some of the ways that views of white superiority have shaped America. This is WAY DIFFERENT than how kids my age understood the book, comfortably steeped in pioneer mythos and the white supremacist dream of manifest destiny (the book and the gen x-ers who read it).
But! She was not a fan of the ending, which features the family fleeing "Indian Territory," back in their covered wagon, and camping out on the prairie them same way they did at the start of the book before they built their little house. Laura drifts off to sleep under the stars listening to Pa's fiddle.
"Bruh," Minnie said. "That's it? That's the whole end? SHE JUST WENT TO SLEEP?"
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