Lark Rise to Candleford

Reading this book reminded me of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, only partly because the protagonist in both is a young girl named Laura. This trilogy ( Lark Rise to Candleford is three books in one) is about a young girl growing up in a rural hamlet in England in the 1880's and 90's. It is really the barely fictionalized memoir of Flora Thompson, who grew up in a rural hamlet at that time. The first two parts of the book are more about what life was like for country people at that time than they are about Laura herself. How did people spend their time, what did they eat, what did they do for work, what was school like, what was church like, what were the holidays for people in a country villages, what were the customs that were followed—all of these questions are addressed. In the second part, Over To Candleford, Laura and her family visit relatives in the town of Candleford and the book begins to be more about family relations and the relationship between the hamlet of Lark Rise and the town of Candleford. In the third part, Candleford Green, Laura goes to work in the Candleford post office as a young woman and the book begins to address the changes that were happening in society and focuses more on Laura herself. It's a hefty book, but really lovely and interesting reading. I'd never heard of Flora Thompson before I ran across the BBC TV series that was based on this book. She is a treasured