Plains Spoken

When Judith Helton performs her one-woman show based on the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who wrote the beloved children’s book “The Little House on the Prairie,” her aim is to take kids into the past.

Saturday afternoon at Glendale Central Library, kids may join her on a trip to the Great Plains of America 100 years ago--when folks lived in homes dug into wilderness riverbanks and worried that oxen would wander onto the roof and crash into the sitting room.

“One of my stories I always tell,” says Helton, assuming the character of the author, “is ‘On the Banks of Plum Creek,’ in which exactly such a thing happened to my family.”

On Saturday, in character as Laura Ingalls Wilder, she will also show photos”of myself as a little girl,” answer questions about pioneer life and lead the kids who attend in a “circle dance” to the tune of a popular 19th century song called “Captain Jinx.”

Helton, the modern person, is no stranger to the reality of life on the American Plains. A native of Carbondale, Ill., her roots go back far enough to have had a grandmother who could remember her own father talking about how hot it was the day he watched Abe Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas deliver speeches in Springfield on July 17, 1858.

These “roots,” Helton says, aid her in her effort to provide a “visceral experience” for kids who attend her performances. And, she said, “Even if they haven’t ever seen a live theater piece and aren’t yet aware of the give and take involved between the performer and the audience, they get it right away. By the end of the performance, they realize it’s totally different from watching TV or a movie.”

In recounting both what actually happened to Wilder, who lived all over the Midwest between 1867 and 1957, and what appears in Wilder’s nine books, Helton gives kids a little lesson in “the difference between truth and novels.”

Children will hear about the author’s life, how she condensed time and characters when she wrote her novels. “I’m amazed how quickly they comprehend [this],” Helton says of her young audiences. And in the question periods after her performances, “Kids say they saw in their minds pictures from the stories--that they were there.”

The Van Nuys-based actress’ work takes her around the U.S., performing one-woman shows based on the lives of Wilder and other distinguished American women such as Abigail Adams, the first first lady to move into the White House, and gold rush entertainer Lotta Crabtree.

These shows not only offer an intro to live theater but also provide a revelation of another kind. Helton’s performances recount the odyssey of the Wilder family through forests and plains as the family, in effect, helped settle the country.

“A lot of children weren’t aware of the settlement of the country [state by state],” Helton said. “They thought it had always been here, full of people, as they know it today.” Neither are they aware that two centuries have passed since Abigail Adams arranged the very first ball at the White House.

“After one of my performances,” Helton says with a smile, “I overheard one child saying to another, ‘Gee, we have history too, just like they have in Europe.’ ”

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Additional Note on Books: In a recent column about original editions of classic children’s books, it was asserted by this columnist that “The Poky Little Puppy” was out of print. Currently, both a $1.99 and a $3.99 version are in print from Golden Books. And later this year the company will publish “The New Adventures of the Poky Little Puppy,” a series of new stories with new illustrations.

BE THERE

“An Afternoon With Laura Ingalls Wilder),” actress Judith Helton’s one-woman show based on the life of the author of the “Little House” novels, Saturday, 2-3 p.m., Children’s Room, Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St. Free. Call (818) 548-2035.