Farmer Boy

Farmer Boy

Front dustjacket with Sewell illustration
Author	Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrator	Helen Sewell Garth Williams (1953)
Country	United States
Series	Little House
Genre	Children's novel, farm life
Publisher	Harper & Brothers
Publication date	October 1, 1933
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	230; 371 pp.
OCLC	15872400
LC Class	PZ7.W6461 Far
Preceded by	Little House in the Big Woods
Followed by	Little House on the Prairie

Farmer Boy is a children's historical novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and published in 1933. It was the second-published book in the Little House series but its story is not related to the first, which the story of the third novel directly continues. Thus the latter, Little House on the Prairie, is sometimes called the second book in the series, or the second volume of "the Laura Years".

Farmer Boy is based on the childhood of Laura's husband, Almanzo Wilder, who grew up in the 1860s near the town of Malone in upstate New York. The book covers more than one year in Almanzo's life, beginning just before his ninth birthday, and following at least two harvest cycles. It describes in detail the endless chores involved in running the Wilder family farm. Young as he is, Almanzo rises before 5 a.m. every day to milk several cows and feed stock. In the growing season, he plants and tends crops; in winter, he hauls logs, helps fill the ice house, trains a team of young oxen, and sometimes—when his father can spare him—goes to school. The novel includes stories of Almanzo's brother Royal, and his sisters Eliza Jane, and Alice.

Since Almanzo (1857-1949) was born in February 1857, the novel is set in 1866–1867, prior to the birth of the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957). The book features Almanzo's brother Royal (1847–1925) and sisters Eliza Jane (1850–1930) and Alice (1853–1892). Meanwhile, he also had a sister Laura (1844–1899), who at the time and events in the novel was already about 22 and had presumably moved out. He later had a brother, Perley Day (1869–1934), who was not yet born at the time Farmer Boy is set. the cows names are Star and Bright.

Virginia Kirkus established her pre-publication review service and its semimonthly bulletin Kirkus Reviews (a later name) in January 1933. As children's book editor from 1926, she had handled Ingalls Wilder's debut novel Little House in the Big Woods for Harper & Brothers, which had published it early in 1932 and cut its children's department as an economy measure some months later, for about a year. According to its online archive, Kirkus provided a short review of Farmer Boy in the issue dated October 1, 1933, which was also the novel's publication date at Harper: "A juvenile As the Earth Turns. The story of a vanishing phase of American life, with delightful illustrations by Helen Sewell."As the Earth Turns by Gladys Hasty Carroll was released by Macmillan on May 2 with advanced sales of 20,000 and as the Book-of-the-Month Club selection for May. It featured one year on a family farm in Maine.