Usually when I stick with a book I’m originally not sure I’ll finish it’s because I like the author’s voice. In this case, the voice belonged to Wendy McClure, who recounts her obsession with Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House on the Prairie” series in her funny, tender, offbeat book The Wilder Life.

I read Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a girl, some of them, at least. The one I remember best is On the Banks of Plum Creek, with its Garth Williams illustrations. (I can thank McClure for that tidbit.) My main memory of that book is dropping it in a puddle on the way home from the bus stop in fourth grade. It was a prized library book! How could I let that happen?

But the pages dried, and I continued to immerse myself in the stories of a sod house, a girl in a bonnet, a cloud of grasshoppers and other prairie adventures.

But back to authorial voice. In this case, I liken it to the writer’s grabbing me by the hand and pulling me in a direction I had no intention of going. I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn much more about Laura Ingalls Wilder than I already knew, but darned if I didn’t learn it anyway.

Thank you, Wendy McClure — or something like that.