Laura Ingalls is the main character in the story and the alter ego of the author of the “Little House” series—she even shares the author’s name. When Little House in the Big Woods begins, she is a four-year-old middle child living in Pepin, Wisconsin. When it ends a year later, she is five years old. Her first experiences in the book involve the awareness of the wild animals around the small gray house where she lives. Unlike her older sister, Mary, who is described as a good, well-mannered girl, Laura sometimes runs and makes noise when she shouldn’t (in an age in which children were taught to be seen and not heard) and forgets to say thank you when she is emotional. She occasionally expresses a feeling of restriction in terms of her clothes, activities, and behavior. Overall, she is a well-disposed, strong, idealistic child who tries to follow the rules and already understands how important it is to pull her own weight with housework and other duties.

Laura sometimes struggles with selfishness as well. During the course of the story, she experiences many “firsts” because she is so young; she sees wolves, receives her first rag doll, attends a dance at Grandpa’s house, has maple sugar candy, goes into town, meets new people, and sees her first machines.