Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote a total of eight books in the "Little House" series. The books have sold over sixty million copies worldwide, in more than forty languages.
Wilder's books tell about people and events that are partly based on her memories of growing up in Kansas and South Dakota in the middle of the eighteen hundreds. Pioneer(拓荒者) life has long since disappeared in those areas. Yet the music she grew up with is alive and well.
The "Little House on the Prairie" television series is perhaps the best-known version of the Laura Ingalls Wilder stories. It was broadcast for eight seasons, beinning in nineteen seventy-four. The shows have since been translated into eighteen languages.
"They're about discovery and struggle and getting over difficulties. They're about family and about making your way in the world," says Dean Butler, who played Laura Ingalls' husband Almonzo Wilder in the TV series.
Dale Cockrell, a professor at Vanderbilt University, had already published a book on the "Little House" songs, seven sheet(乐谱) music books and nearly fifty musical recordings. He learned about the songs when he began reading the "Little House" books to his eight-year-old son. He realized that nowhere had he seen a fuller collection of popular music from the nineteenth century.
"Just about any form of popular music that would have been heard and enjoyed by audiences from the eighteen sixties to the eighteen eighties is included in the books," says Dale Cockrell.
