Little Town on the Prairie is an autobiographical children's novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and published in 1941, the seventh of nine books in her Little House series. The story is set in De Smet, South Dakota. It opens in the spring after the Long Winter, and ends as Laura becomes a schoolteacher so she can help her sister, Mary, stay at a school for the blind in Vinton, Iowa. It tells the story of 15-year-old Laura's first paid job outside the home and her last terms of schooling. At the end of the book, Laura receives a teacher's certificate, and is employed to teach at the Brewster settlement, 12 miles (19 km) away.