Critical Evaluation of Little House on the Prairie

The Kuhlman article was very enlightening as to her views regarding the well known Little House on the Prairie books. As a child I too read these books and seemed to thoroughly enjoy them. It was not until after reading this article that my opinion on them has been drastically changed. Kuhlman makes a great statement that "Literature is a powerful tool for fostering understanding and influencing beliefs" (L\o& Leahy, 1997), and this books proves to be a prime example. Often time youth become so familiar with consistently hearing and seeing inaccurate representations of other groups that it quickly becomes the norm to them. I believe i fall into the category of a person who was so familiar with inaccurate representations of other minority groups that i mistook them for the norm. I found Kuhlman's interaction with the fifth grade class she visited to be very interesting. She showed that not all children will be directly affect, but those who are do not let it go unmentioned. As a future teacher i appreciated Kuhlam's advice in first taking a critical look at the book before presenting it to a classroom of impressionable children. She recommended questions to ask yourself as a reader, and to pose to the children as well.