So far, this is my least favorite of the series.

Laura moves quite a few times in this book - from the last homestead (where Mary loses her sight), to a shanty where her father works for the railway company, to the prospector's house for the winter, to their half a house as they are staking their claim. That's a lot of moves for one person in a year, and it was frankly boring to read about. This book is also the saddest one to boot, between Mary losing her sight, and the family dog, Jack, dying.

Nothing really happens during the books - it was fun / fascinating reading about the family's trip by train to meet Laura's father, but that was first thing in the beginning of the book, and then the rest of book drags.

Pa sings a lot during this book - complete with song lyrics - and this just felt like filler to me, like Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't have enough to write about during the year, so she added a bunch of songs. Which stinks, because there was a ton of things she could have written about that would have been fascinating!