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Books with author Caroline Fry

  • Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

    Caroline Fraser

    Hardcover (Metropolitan Books, Nov. 21, 2017)
    WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARThe first comprehensive historical biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie booksMillions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls―the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true saga of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser―the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series―masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books.The Little House books, for all the hardships they describe, are paeans to the pioneer spirit, portraying it as triumphant against all odds. But Wilder’s real life was harder and grittier than that, a story of relentless struggle, rootlessness, and poverty. It was only in her sixties, after losing nearly everything in the Great Depression, that she turned to children’s books, recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a celebratory vision of homesteading―and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches episodes in American letters.Spanning nearly a century of epochal change, from the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl, Wilder’s dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national mythology of self-reliance. With fresh insights and new discoveries, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman whose classic stories grip us to this day.
  • Prairie Fires

    CAROLINE FRASER

    Paperback (Picador, Aug. 7, 2018)
    WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDWINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAROne of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the YearThe first comprehensive historical biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie booksMillions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls―the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true saga of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser―the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series―masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books.The Little House books, for all the hardships they describe, are paeans to the pioneer spirit, portraying it as triumphant against all odds. But Wilder’s real life was harder and grittier than that, a story of relentless struggle, rootlessness, and poverty. It was only in her sixties, after losing nearly everything in the Great Depression, that she turned to children’s books, recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a celebratory vision of homesteading―and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches episodes in American letters.Spanning nearly a century of epochal change, from the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl, Wilder’s dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national mythology of self-reliance. With fresh insights and new discoveries, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman whose classic stories grip us to this day.
  • Best Babysitters Ever

    Caroline Cala

    Hardcover (HMH Books for Young Readers, Feb. 5, 2019)
    A funny new middle grade series about three 12-year-old best friends who start a babysitting club in their small California town. Perfect for fans of series like Whatever After and the Dork Diaries. Once upon a time, a girl named Kristy Thomas had a great idea: to form The Baby-Sitters Club with her best friends. And now twelve-year-old Malia Twiggs has had a great idea too. Technically, she had Kristy’s idea. (And technically, little kids seem gross and annoying, but a paycheck is a paycheck). After a little convincing, Malia and her friends Dot and Bree start a babysitting club to earn funds for an epic birthday bash. But babysitting definitely isn’t what they thought it would be. Three friends. No parents. Unlimited snacks. And, okay, occasionally watching other people’s children. What could possibly go wrong?
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  • Best Babysitters Ever

    Caroline Cala

    eBook (HMH Books for Young Readers, Feb. 5, 2019)
    A funny new middle grade series about three 12-year-old best friends who start a babysitting club in their small California town. Perfect for fans of series like Whatever After and the Dork Diaries. Once upon a time, a girl named Kristy Thomas had a great idea: to form The Baby-Sitters Club with her best friends. And now twelve-year-old Malia Twiggs has had a great idea too. Technically, she had Kristy’s idea. (And technically, little kids seem gross and annoying, but a paycheck is a paycheck). After a little convincing, Malia and her friends Dot and Bree start a babysitting club to earn funds for an epic birthday bash. But babysitting definitely isn’t what they thought it would be. Three friends. No parents. Unlimited snacks. And, okay, occasionally watching other people’s children. What could possibly go wrong?
  • The Good, the Bad, and the Bossy

    Caroline Cala

    Hardcover (HMH Books for Young Readers, Aug. 6, 2019)
    Being a boss isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in the second book of the Best Babysitters Ever series. Perfect for fans of Rachel Vail and Sarah Mlynowski.Just when Malia, Dot, and Bree (aka the Best Babysitters Ever) corner the Playa Del Mar babysitting market, their lives get even busier. Malia’s evil older sister ropes her into a thankless internship. Dot must win the science fair. And Bree’s brand new cat turns out to be a holy terror. Meow! Malia is frustrated by the group’s lack of commitment until she has an idea so great it rivals the creation of the club in the first place: they can hire new babysitters and take a cut of their wages! It’s all of the money, and less of the babysitting. This plan is too perfect to fail. Until—spoiler alert—it does, in the most hilarious way possible.
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  • Miss Impossible

    Caroline Cala

    Hardcover (HMH Books for Young Readers, Feb. 4, 2020)
    Babysitting? More like bully-sitting, when Malia, Dot, and Bree get a much older—and scarier—client than they expected. But looks can be deceiving in this LOL-worthy third book in the Best Babysitters Ever series, perfect for fans of Rachel Vail and Sarah Mlynowski.Malia, Dot, and Bree are psyched to land their highest paying job yet—until they get to the house and realize they’re babysitting Zelda Hooper, Bree and Malia’s archnemesis since preschool. Babysitting: not just for babies, apparently. And it’s too much money to walk away from . . . so at least there are no diapers? But all of the babysitting in the world couldn’t prepare the girls for their unusual new charge, and even though Zelda should be the one who’s embarrassed that three girls her age are getting paid to babysit her, she relishes the chance to tease them on her home turf. Is she really evil or just misunderstood? This hilarious third installment in the Best Babysitters Ever series brings back all the characters you love, and love to hate—reminding us that friendship trumps all. Even dirty diapers.
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  • The Good, the Bad, and the Bossy

    Caroline Cala

    eBook (HMH Books for Young Readers, Aug. 6, 2019)
    Being a boss isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in the second book of the Best Babysitters Ever series. Perfect for fans of Rachel Vail and Sarah Mlynowski.Just when Malia, Dot, and Bree (aka the Best Babysitters Ever) corner the Playa Del Mar babysitting market, their lives get even busier. Malia’s evil older sister ropes her into a thankless internship. Dot must win the science fair. And Bree’s brand new cat turns out to be a holy terror. Meow! Malia is frustrated by the group’s lack of commitment until she has an idea so great it rivals the creation of the club in the first place: they can hire new babysitters and take a cut of their wages! It’s all of the money, and less of the babysitting. This plan is too perfect to fail. Until—spoiler alert—it does, in the most hilarious way possible.
  • Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

    Caroline Fraser

    eBook (Fleet, Nov. 23, 2017)
    WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE'Just as gripping as the original novels . . . As pacy and vivid as one of Wilder's own narratives, this surprising biography is immensely revealing both about Wilder and about America's founding myths' Sunday Times'"Little House" devotees will appreciate the extraordinary care and energy Fraser devotes to uncovering the details of a life that has been expertly veiled by myth' New York Times Book ReviewMillions of readers of the 'Little House' books believe they know Laura Ingalls Wilder - the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains as her family chased their American dream. But the true story of her life has never been fully told.Drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries and public records, Caroline Fraser masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder's biography, uncovering the grown-up story behind the best-loved childhood epic of pioneer life.Set against nearly a century of unimaginable change, from the Homestead Act and the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, Wilder's life was full of drama and adversity. Settling on the frontier amid land-rush speculation, her family endured Biblical tribulations of locusts and drought, poverty and want, before she left at the age of eighteen to marry Almanzo. This is where the books end, but there is so much more to tell; deep in debt after a series of personal tragedies, Laura and Almanzo uprooted themselves once again, crisscrossing the country, taking menial jobs to support the family. In middle age, she began writing a farm advice column, prodded by her journalist daughter Rose. And at the age of sixty, fearing the loss of almost everything in the Depression, she turned to children's books, recasting her extraordinarily difficult childhood as a triumphal vision of homesteading - achieving fame and fortune in the process. Laura Ingalls Wilder's life is one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches stories in American letters. Offering fresh insight and new discoveries, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman who defined the American pioneer character, and whose artful blend of fact and fiction grips us to this day.
  • Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

    Caroline Fraser

    Library Binding (Thorndike Press Large Print, June 27, 2018)
    The first comprehensive historical biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie booksOne of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the YearMillions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls?the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true saga of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser?the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series?masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder's biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books.The Little House books, for all the hardships they describe, are paeans to the pioneer spirit, portraying it as triumphant against all odds. But Wilder's real life was harder and grittier than that, a story of relentless struggle, rootlessness, and poverty. It was only in her sixties, after losing nearly everything in the Great Depression, that she turned to children's books, recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a celebratory vision of homesteading?and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches episodes in American letters.Spanning nearly a century of epochal change, from the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl, Wilder's dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national mythology of self-reliance. With fresh insights and new discoveries, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman whose classic stories grip us to this day.
  • Miss Impossible

    Caroline Cala

    eBook (HMH Books for Young Readers, Feb. 4, 2020)
    Babysitting? More like bully-sitting, when Malia, Dot, and Bree get a much older—and scarier—client than they expected. But looks can be deceiving in this LOL-worthy third book in the Best Babysitters Ever series, perfect for fans of Rachel Vail and Sarah Mlynowski.Malia, Dot, and Bree are psyched to land their highest paying job yet—until they get to the house and realize they’re babysitting Zelda Hooper, Bree and Malia’s archnemesis since preschool. Babysitting: not just for babies, apparently. And it’s too much money to walk away from . . . so at least there are no diapers? But all of the babysitting in the world couldn’t prepare the girls for their unusual new charge, and even though Zelda should be the one who’s embarrassed that three girls her age are getting paid to babysit her, she relishes the chance to tease them on her home turf. Is she really evil or just misunderstood? This hilarious third installment in the Best Babysitters Ever series brings back all the characters you love, and love to hate—reminding us that friendship trumps all. Even dirty diapers.
  • God's Perfect Child

    Caroline Fraser

    Paperback (Picador, Aug. 6, 2019)
    From Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former Christian Scientist Caroline Fraser comes the first unvarnished account of one of America's most controversial and little-understood religious movements.Millions of Americans – from Lady Astor to Ginger Rogers to Watergate conspirator H. R. Haldeman – have been touched by the Church of Christ, Scientist. Founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879, Christian Science was based on a belief that intense contemplation of the perfection of God can heal all ills – an extreme expression of the American faith in self-reliance. In this unflinching investigation, Caroline Fraser, herself raised in a Scientist household, shows how the Church transformed itself from a small, eccentric sect into a politically powerful and socially respectable religion, and explores the human cost of Christian Science's remarkable rise.Fraser examines the strange life and psychology of Mary Baker Eddy, who lived in dread of a kind of witchcraft she called Malicious Animal Magnetism. She takes us into the closed world of Eddy's followers, who refuse to acknowledge the existence of illness and death and reject modern medicine, even at the cost of their children's lives. She reveals just how Christian Science managed to gain extraordinary legal and Congressional sanction for its dubious practices and tracks its enormous influence on new-age beliefs and other modern healing cults.A passionate exposé of zealotry, God's Perfect Child tells one of the most dramatic and little-known stories in American religious history.
  • Best Babysitters Ever

    Caroline Cala

    Paperback (Egmont, Feb. 7, 2019)
    The first in a new laugh-out-loud series about three 12-year-old best friends who set up a babysitting business. When Bree, Malia and Dot find an old copy of the book The Babysitter's Club, they come up with a totally original idea – to set up their own babysitting business. I mean, they 100% unqualified and don't really like kids, but those are just details! And barring the odd disaster when the kids run riot and cover Bree in paint, it’s going well, until Malia’s evil older sister and her friends start up a rival business . . . the battle is on to see who will be crowned Best. Babysitters. EVER. Perfect for 8+ fans of Dork Diaries and Meg Cabot
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