PIONEER GIRL

Anderson distills his 1992 biography, Laura Ingalls Wilder, into picture-book length, choosing details that readers will encounter, either directly or indirectly, when they get to Wilder's own stories: her family's restless relocations from Wisconsin to Kansas, back to Wisconsin, on to Minnesota, then Iowa, the Dakota Territory, and finally Missouri; the plague of grasshoppers and other misfortunes; the daily round of chores; and the events surrounding her marriage and later life. Andreasen provides lovely, serene paintings; by placing dignified human figures into carefully detailed landscapes infused with a soft golden light, he pays tribute to Garth Williams's classic illustrations before finishing with creamy portraits of the silver-haired Wilder at her writing desk and mailbox. Unlike Alexandra Wallner's Laura Ingalls Wilder (p. 1396), this volume is an engrossing pioneer story on its own, and a wonderful prelude to the Little House books. (Picture book/biography. 7-9)