I loved the Little House on the Prairie book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder as a girl, and read all eight books to my son when he was about 6. After that, I went in search of a similar series with a male protagonist and found the Little Britches series by Ralph Moody.

The Little Britches series includes eight books, and, IMHO, is superior to the “Little House” series in several ways.

• Ralph’s life is a lot more fun than Laura’s — he’s an entrepreneur and gets into a lot of adventures
• The series has a deeper, wider view of life and human experience — characters and situations are nuanced and not everyone is perfect.
• The series is as fun for adults as it is for kids, and, though the protagonist is male, there are strong female characters.

Ralph vs. Laura

Ralph was born a little more than 30 years after Laura Ingalls Wilder, in 1898, in New Hampshire. His family moves to Colorado in search of a better climate for his ailing father who likely has contracted lung disease while working in coal mines. While Laura is an observer, particularly of her natural environment, Ralph is an adventurer, a doer, a closer observer of people, and an entrepreneur. The events that punctuate his childhood (an accident on a horse-drawn plow that almost kills him at age eight); a scheme to haul abandoned railroad ties that presents another near miss with death; a gig guiding cattle through town with his classmates as hired hands; peddling baked goods to army wives after his father’s death, to name just a few, pack more excitement into a single chapter than we get in the entire “Little House” series.

Ralph the Entrepreneur

Ralph the entrepreneur is incredibly hard-working, resilient, and compassionate. Through his adventures, he handles a great many difficult characters with grace: his cantankerous and verbally abusive grandfather in The Fields of Home; the tenant farmer who beats and is finally murdered by his mustang in The Dry Divide; and a free-riding road companion in Shaking the Nickel Bush. Ralph can recognize latent skills in the people he encounters, from the harvest hands in The Dry Divide who turn out to be expert carpenters, hay pitchers, and saddle men; to the restauranteur’s brother in The Horse of a Different Color who turns out to be expert in both the slaughterhouse and at the drafting table; to the telephone operator Effie who uses her telephone operator role to drum up business for Ralph and help farmers in foreclosure.

Diverse Careers

Ralph’s work as a hauler, delivery boy, salvager of collapsed Medford bridge material, launderer, farmer, stunt rider, traveling cowboy artist, farm hand, wheat hauler, stockman, bank agent, contract purveyor of meat, and then retail butcher (to name a few!) engage us in a great diversity of worlds that are removed in time but not so dissimilar from today. Ralph moves quickly from opportunity to opportunity, from wealth to penury, and back again. He doesn’t get caught in any of it but simply takes stock, watches for the next thing, and moves on.

Books in the Little Britches Series

1. Little Britches – Ralph’s family moves to Colorado for his father’s health
2. Man of the Family – At 11, Ralph becomes the primary earner
3. The Home Ranch – At 12, Ralph works on a ranch for the summer
4. Mary Emma and Company – The family moves to Medford, MA
5. The Fields of Home – at 15, Ralph goes to live with his recalcitrant Grandfather in Maine and makes the farm blossom
6. Shaking the Nickel Bush – At 19, Ralph works as a stunt rider and itinerant artist following WWI
7. The Dry Divide – Ralph goes to work bringing the harvest and ends up on top
8. Horse of a Different Color – Ralph wins and loses big in the livestock business

Why are these Books not Better Known?

These books are contagious and I have trouble understanding why they aren’t more well known. One reason may be that they are not classified as children’s books. My husband and I are quite careful about content for our six-year-old (the Harry Potter series rates as too scary, after book two), and these books, in our judgment, were entirely appropriate for our child, though some of the business dealings in the later books get harder for a younger child to follow.

Questions for Enthusiasts

Here are the questions I’d have for Ralph Moody enthusiasts. Why did Ralph leave Gould Farm? What was his experience with city life after his marriage to Edna? (The series stops at the marriage, so we never know). Does anyone know anything more about the delightful Uncle Levi? How was it that Ralph died at his sister Elizabeth’s house in Medford, and not at the home of one of his children? Is Elizabeth (Ralph’s youngest sister) still living, and/or are any of her descendants still in the area? I would welcome email or comments from anyone who has more info.

Additional Resources

1. The best biography of Ralph Moody is from the city of Littleton, Colorado. I’m hoping someone there might one day provide me some more detailed info about Ralph’s life, and his descendants.
2. Wikipedia entry on Ralph Moody.
3. Another Ralph Moody fan appears to have located Gould Farm in Maine (the farm that’s featured in the Fields of Home book.
4. Christian Science Monitor article about John Gould, Ralph Moody’s first cousin and also a writer.
5. Harry Nutting and picture of him, Annie Nutting, and their home (where Ralph weeded Danelions in 1909 or 1910 after his father’s death).
6. Ralph Moody day in McCook, NE.
7. Two comments from Mike Edwards fill in a lot of detail about why Ralph left Gould farm, when he came back East, and where he died.