For the month of July, I’m planning a series of posts about readalikes: what to read (or what to suggest to your favorite child reader) when you’ve read all of your favorite author’s books or all of the books of a certain genre that you know of, and you don’t know what to read next. Here are a few suggestions for Little House on the Prairie fans.

First up, author Melissa Wiley has written a series of books about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s grandmother and great-grandmother:
Books about Martha Morse, Laura’s great-grandmother by Melissa Wiley:
Little House in the Highlands
The Far Side of the Loch
Down to the Bonny Glen
Beyond the Heather Hills

Books about Charlotte Tucker, Laura’s grandmother, also by Melissa Wiley:
Little House by Boston Bay
On Tide Mill Lane
The Road from Roxbury
Across the Puddingstone Dam

Another duo, Maria Wilkes and Celia Wilkins, has written about Laura’s mother’s childhood.
Books about Caroline Quiner Ingalls, Laura’s mother, by Maria Wilkes & Celia Wilkins:
Little House in Brookfield
Little Town at the Crossroads
Little Clearing in the Woods
On Top of Concord Hill
Across the Rolling River
Little City by the Lake
A Little House of Their Own

Books about Laura’s daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, by her heir, Roger Lea MacBride:
Little House on Rocky Ridge
Little Farm in the Ozarks
In the Land of the Big Red Apple
The Other Side of the Hill
Little Town in the Ozarks
New Dawn on Rocky Ridge
On the Banks of the Bayou
Bachelor Girl

Then, there’s this set published by Harper Collins and written by various well-known authors who are also Little House fans:
Old Town in the Green Groves (Little House) by Cynthia Rylant.
Nellie Oleson Meets Laura Ingalls (Little House) by Heather Williams.
Mary Ingalls on Her Own (Little House Sequel) by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel.

Carol Ryrie Brink published Caddie Woodlawn in 1935, and it received the Newbery Medal in 1936. It’s about a girl growing up on the frontier in Wisconsin, before and during the Civil War (1860’s). Caddie is set during much the same time period as the Little House books by Ms. Wilder. A second book with more stories about Caddie and her family is called Magical Melons.

Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark House is about Omakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe. It’s a good counter-balance to the portrayal of Native American people in the Little House books, which tends to be somewhat negative and stereotypical. The books in the series so far are:
The Birchbark House
The Game of Silence
The Porcupine Year
Chickadee
Makoons

Latsch Family Farm series by Anne Pellowski. These are a series of five novels about life in the Polish Catholic farm communities in Trempealeau County, Wisconsin. Each book tells about one year in the life of the author’s great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, and the author herself in the last book, Stairstep Farm. The books, which do not need to be read in chronological order, are:
First Farm in the Valley: Anna’s Story
Willow Wind Farm: Betsy’s Story
Betsy’s Up-and-Down Year
Winding Valley Farm: Annie’s Story
Stairstep Farm: Anna Rose’s Story

The Orphan Train Adventures series are also worthy and exciting reads for lovers of frontier-setting fiction. The books tell about the adventures of a family of orphans from New York City who are split up and sent west on the Orphan Train to live with frontier families.
A Family Apart (Orphan Train Adventures, #1)
Caught in the Act (Orphan Train Adventures, #2)
In The Face of Danger (Orphan Train Adventures, #3)
A Dangerous Promise (Orphan Train Adventures, #4)
Keeping Secrets (Orphan Train Adventures, #5)
A Place to Belong (Orphan Train Adventures, #6)
Circle of Love (Orphan Train Adventures, #7)

If you finish all of these and still want more you can always enjoy a few nonfiction spin-offs:
The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker. Illustrated by Garth Williams.
My Little House Sewing Book by Margaret Irwin.
My Little House Craft Book by Carolyn Strom Collins.
The World of Little House by Carolyn Strom Collins.
Laura Ingalls Wilder by Gwenda Blair.

All of the above books are for approximately the same maturity and reading level as the original Little House books. Tomorrow I’ll post about what to read when you’ve sort of outgrown Little House but still want to read prairie and frontier adventures: Little House for young adults.