The Little House on the Prairie books comprise a series of American children's novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder (b. Laura Elizabeth Ingalls). The stories are based on her childhood and adulthood in the American Midwest (Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Missouri) between 1872 and 1894. Eight of the novels were completed by Wilder, and published by Harper & Brothers in the 1930s and 1940s, during her lifetime. The name "Little House" appears in the first and third novels in the series, while the third is identically titled Little House on the Prairie. The second novel, meanwhile, was about her husband's childhood.

The first draft of a ninth novel was published posthumously in 1971 and is commonly included in the series. A tenth book, the non-fiction On the Way Home, is Laura Ingalls Wilder's diary of the years after 1894, when she, her husband and their daughter moved from DeSmet, South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, where they settled permanently. It was also published posthumously, in 1962, and includes commentary by her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane.

The Little House books have been adapted for stage or screen more than once, most successfully as the American television series Little House on the Prairie, which ran from 1974 to 1983. As well as an anime (Laura, the Prairie Girl and many spin-off books, there are cookbooks and various other licensed products representative of the books.

History

Publishing

The first book of the Little House series, Little House in the Big Woods, was published in 1932. This first book did well when it was first published. In 1953, Harper & Brothers reissued the Little House books in a uniform edition with new illustrations by Garth Williams, commissioned under children’s editor Ursula Nordstrom.

Before writing the Little House series, Laura Ingalls Wilder was a columnist in a farm journal.

Rose Wilder Lane had a heavy hand in the editing of the books, though Laura Ingalls Wilder's voice is still strong. They are considered classics of American children's literature and remain widely read. In a 2012 survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with primarily U.S. audience, Little House in the Big Woods was ranked number 19 among all-time best children's novels, and two of its sequels were ranked among the top 100. Five of the Little House book have been Honor Books for the Newbery Medal. In 1938, On the Banks of Plum Creek was an Honor Book; in 1940, By the Shores of Silver Lake was as well. Later in 1941, The Long Winter became an Honor Book, and the two later Honor Books were The Little Town on the Prairie, in 1942, and Those Happy Golden Years, in 1944. In addition to this, the American Library Association stated that The Long Winter, the seventh book in the series, was a "resource for teaching about pioneer history."

Depiction of minorities

The Little House books include depictions of ethnic minorities, including a heroic black doctor who saves the protagonist's family. Certain criticisms of the Little House books, however, have noted its portrayals of Native Americans. These criticisms highlight negative depictions of Native Americans present in the books, as well as obliviousness, on the part of the books' characters, of their occupation of the Native Americans' land.

An incident related to Wilder's depiction of Native Americans occurred in 1998, when an eight-year-old girl read Little House on the Prairie in her elementary school class. In the book, a minor character says, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." To this, Pa responds, "he didn't know about that. He figured that Indians would be as peaceable as anybody else if they were let alone." The girl came home crying; her mother, Waziyatawin, a citizen of the Wahpetunwan Dakota nation and a scholar of Native American history, challenged the school's use of the book in its classroom. This event, among others, prompted the American Library Association to investigate and ultimately change the name of the Wilder Award to the Children's Literature Legacy Award. This award is given to books that have made a large impact on children's literature in America.

Accuracy to history

Laura Ingalls Wilder's work is autobiographical fiction and Wilder employed artistic licence, including creating composite characters based on multiple real individuals It has been criticized regarding the history of the government's involvement in homesteading,

Connections with politics

While Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the Little House books, it was Rose Wilder Lane who edited them and it was Lane who had the rights after Wilder's death. According to the New York Times, Rose was an "outspoken antigovernment polemicist and is called one of the grandmothers of the libertarian movement." The "Caroline Years" series narrates Wilder's mother, Caroline Quiner's, childhood in Wisconsin. The Rose Years (originally known as the "Rocky Ridge Years") series follows Rose Wilder Lane from childhood in Missouri to early adulthood in San Francisco. It was written by her surrogate grandson Roger MacBride.

Two volumes of Wilder's letters and diaries have also been issued under the Little House imprint: On The Way Home and West From Home, published by HarperCollins in 1962 and 1974 respectively.

The books in the prequels are:

Books about Martha Morse:

  • Little House in the Highlands
  • The Far Side of the Loch
  • Down to the Bonny Glen
  • Beyond the Heather hills

Charlotte Tucker books:

  • Little House by Boston Bay
  • On Tide Mill Lane
  • The Road from Roxbury
  • Across the Puddingstone Dam

Books about Caroline Quiner Ingalls:

  • Little House in Brookfield
  • Little Town at the Crossroads
  • Little Clearing in the Woods
  • On Top of Concord Hill
  • Across the Rolling River
  • Little City by the Lake
  • A Little House of Their Own

The Rose Years books:

  • Little House on Rocky Ridge
  • Little Farm in the Ozarks
  • In the Land of the Big Red Apple
  • On the Other Side of the Hill
  • Little Town in the Ozarks
  • New Dawn on Rocky Ridge
  • On the Banks of the Bayou
  • Bachelor Girl

Little House in the Big Woods

Little House in the Big Woods was published in 1932. Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the book is autobiographical, though some parts of the story were embellished or changed to appeal more to an audience, such as Laura's age. In the book, Laura herself turns five years old, when the real-life author had only been three during the events of the book. According to a letter from her daughter, Rose, to biographer William Anderson, the publisher had Laura change her age in the book because it seemed unrealistic for a three-year-old to have specific memories such as she wrote about. The story of Little House in the Big Woods, revolves around the life of the Ingalls family. The family includes mother Caroline Ingalls, father Charles Ingalls, elder daughter Mary Amelia Ingalls, and younger daughter (and protagonist) Laura Ingalls Wilder. Also in the story, though not yet born historically, is Laura's baby sister Carrie.

thumb|right|Little House replica at the [[Little House Wayside in Wisconsin]]

The setting of this book is different from the rest of the series, as the story takes place in the Ingalls' small cabin in the state of Wisconsin, near a town called Pepin. Little House in the Big Woods describes the homesteading skills Laura observed and began to practice during her fifth year. The cousins come for Christmas that year, and Laura receives a doll, which she names Charlotte. Later that winter, the family goes to Grandma Ingalls’s home and has a "sugaring off," when they harvest sap and make maple syrup. They return home with buckets of syrup, enough to last the year. Laura remembered that sugaring off and the dance that followed for the rest of her life.

The book also describes other farm work duties and events, such as the birth of a calf; the availability of milk, butter and cheese; gardening; field work; hunting; gathering; and more. Everyday housework is also described in detail. When Pa went into the woods to hunt, he usually came home with a deer and then smoked the meat for the coming winter. One day he noticed a bee tree and returned from hunting early to get the wash tub and milk pail to collect the honey. When Pa returned home on winter evenings, Laura and Mary always begged him to play his fiddle, but he was too tired from farm work to play during the summertime.

Little House on the Prairie

Little House on the Prairie, published in 1935, is the third book in the Little House series but only the second that features the Ingalls family; it continues directly the story of the inaugural novel, Little House in the Big Woods.

The book tells about the months the Ingalls family spent on the prairie of Kansas, around the town of Independence, Kansas. At the beginning of this story, Pa Ingalls decides to sell the house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin and move the family, via covered wagon, to the Indian Territory near Independence, Kansas, as there were widely circulating stories that the land (under Osage ownership) would be opened to settlement by homesteaders imminently. So Laura, along with Pa and Ma, Mary, and baby Carrie, move to Kansas. Along the way, Pa trades his two horses for two Western mustangs, which Laura and Mary name Pet and Patty.

thumb|right| The author's parents, Caroline and Charles Ingalls

When the family reaches Indian Territory, they meet Mr. Edwards, who is extremely polite to Ma but tells Laura and Mary that he is "a wildcat from Tennessee." Mr. Edwards is an excellent neighbor, who helps the Ingalls in every way he can, beginning with helping Pa erect their house. Pa builds a roof and a floor for their house and digs a well, and the family is finally settled.

Pa trades his horses Pet and Patty to the property owner (a man named Hanson) for the land and crops, but later he gets two new horses, Sam and David, called the “Christmas horses". Pa soon builds a new, above-ground, wooden house for the family, borrowing against the wheat crop he's planted. During this story, Laura and Mary go to school in town for the first time, and they meet their teacher, Miss Eva Beadle. They also meet Nellie Oleson, who makes fun of Laura and Mary for being "country girls". Laura plays with her bulldog Jack when she is home, and she and Mary are invited to a party at the Olesons' home. Laura and Mary invite all the girls (including Nellie) to a party at their house to reciprocate. A church is founded in town, led by Reverend Alden, and the family attends a Christmas service where the children see their first Christmas tree. The family soon goes through hard times when a plague of Rocky Mountain locusts decimates their crops. Pa must leave to work the harvest farther east. The book ends with Pa returning safely to the house after being unaccounted for during a severe four-day blizzard.

By the Shores of Silver Lake

By the Shores of Silver Lake was published in 1939 and is fifth in the series.

The story begins when the family is about to leave Plum Creek shortly after the family has recovered from the scarlet fever which caused Mary to become blind. The family welcomes a visit from Aunt Docia, whom they had not seen for several years. She suggests that Pa and Ma move west to the rapidly developing Dakota Territory, where Pa could work in Uncle Henry's railroad camp at very good wages for that era. Ma and Pa agree, since it will allow Pa to look for a homestead while he works. The family has endured many hardships at Plum Creek, and Pa especially is anxious for a new start. After selling his land and farm to neighbors, Pa goes ahead with the wagon and team. Mary is still too weak to travel, so the rest of the family follows later by train.

The day Pa leaves, however, their beloved bulldog Jack is found dead, which saddens Laura greatly. In actuality, the dog upon whom Jack was based was no longer with the family at this point, but the author inserted his death here to serve as a transition between her childhood and her adolescence. Laura also begins to play a more mature role in the family due to Mary's blindness. Pa instructs Laura to "be Mary's eyes" and to assist her in daily life as she learns to cope with her disability. Mary is strong and willing to learn.

The story begins in Dakota Territory at the Ingalls homestead in South Dakota on a hot September day in 1880 as Laura and her father ("Pa") are haying. Pa tells Laura that he knows the winter is going to be hard because muskrats always build a house with thick walls before a hard winter, and this year they have built the thickest walls he has ever seen. In mid October the Ingallses wake with an unusually early blizzard howling around their poorly insulated claim shanty. Soon afterward, Pa receives another warning from an unexpected source: a dignified old Native American man comes to the general store in town to warn the white settlers that there will be seven months of blizzards. Impressed, Pa decides to move the family into town for the winter.

Laura attends school with her younger sister Carrie until the weather becomes too severe to permit them to walk to and from the school building. Blizzard after blizzard sweeps through the town over the next few months. Food and fuel become scarce and expensive, as the town depends on the trains to bring supplies but the frequent blizzards prevent the trains from getting through. Eventually, the railroad company suspends all efforts to dig out the train, stranding the town. For weeks, the Ingallses subsist on potatoes and coarse brown bread, using twisted hay for fuel. As even this meager food runs out, Laura's future husband Almanzo Wilder and his friend Cap Garland risk their lives to bring wheat to the starving townspeople – enough to last the rest of the winter.

As predicted, the blizzards continue for seven months. Finally, the trains begin running again, bringing the Ingallses a Christmas barrel full of good things, including a turkey. In the last chapter, they sit down to enjoy their Christmas dinner in May.

In the fall, the Ingallses quickly prepare for a move to town for the winter. Laura and Carrie attend school in town, and Laura is reunited with her friends Minnie Johnson and Mary Power, and she meets a new girl, Ida Brown. There is a new schoolteacher for the winter term: Eliza Jane Wilder, Almanzo's sister. Nellie Oleson, Laura's nemesis from Plum Creek, has moved to De Smet and is attending the school. Nellie turns the teacher against Laura, and Miss Wilder loses control of the school for a time. A visit by the school board restores order; however, Miss Wilder leaves at the end of the fall term, and she is eventually replaced by Mr. Clewett and then by Mr. Owen, the latter of whom befriends Laura. Through the course of the winter, Laura sets herself to studying, as she only has one year left before she can apply for a teaching certificate. It takes place between 1882 and 1885. As the story begins, Pa is taking Laura from home to her first teaching assignment at the Brewster settlement. Laura, only 15 and a schoolgirl herself, is apprehensive, as this is both the first time she has left home and the first school at which she has taught. She is determined to complete her assignment and earn $40 to help her sister Mary, who is attending Vinton College for the Blind in Iowa.

This first assignment proves difficult for her. Laura must board with the Brewsters in their two-room claim shanty, sleeping on their sofa. The Brewsters are an unhappy family, and Laura is deeply uncomfortable observing husband and wife quarrel. In one particularly unsettling incident, she wakes in the night to see Mrs. Brewster standing over her husband with a knife. It is a bitterly cold winter, and neither the claim shanty nor the school house can be heated adequately. The children she is teaching, some of whom are older than she is herself, test her skills as a teacher. Laura grows more self-assured, and she successfully completes the two-month term. The style is less polished than the other books because it was discovered among Laura's papers after her death and published unedited.

The First Four Years derives its title from a promise Laura made to Almanzo when they became engaged. Laura did not want to be a farm wife, but she consented to try farming for three years. Their daughter Rose is born, then a son who dies at a few weeks old. Wheat crops fail, and Almanzo becomes partially paralyzed as a result of diphtheria. At the end of that time, Laura and Almanzo mutually agree to continue for one more year, a "year of grace", in Laura's words. That summer a fire destroys their house. The book ends at the close of that fourth year, on a rather optimistic note. Laura compares a farmer's hope for success year to year to her father's lifelong hope for a better life farther west. In reality, the continually hot, dry Dakota summers, and overwhelming debt eventually drove them from their land, but they later founded a very successful fruit and dairy farm in Missouri, where they lived comfortably until their respective deaths.

Laura, the Prairie Girl (animated series, 1975)

A Japanese anime television series of 26 episodes (about 24 minutes each), originally titled Sōgen no Shōjo Laura.

Beyond the Prairie (2000, 2001)

Two made for television movies by Marcus Cole, with Meredith Monroe as Laura. Part 1 tells the story of teenage Laura in DeSmet, while the second part is about Laura and Almanzo's (Walton Goggins) marriage and their life in Mansfield, Missouri. It also focuses on the character of Wilder's young daughter, Rose (Skye McCole Bartusiak).

Little House on the Prairie (miniseries)

The 2005 ABC five-hour (6-episode) miniseries attempted to follow closely the books Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie. It starred Cameron Bancroft as Charles Ingalls; Erin Cottrell as Caroline Ingalls; Kyle Chavarria as Laura Ingalls; Danielle Chuchran as Mary Ingalls; and Gregory Sporleder as Mr Edwards. It was directed by David L. Cunningham. In 2006, the mini-series was released on DVD and the 2-disc set runs approximately 255 minutes long.

Little House on the Prairie (Netflix series, 2026)

On January 29, 2025, Netflix announced a new series based on the Little House on the Prairie books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder with CBS Studios in association with Anonymous Content Studios that had been in the works since 2020. The executive producer and showrunner is Rebecca Sonnenshine. Executive producers are Joy Gorman Wettels for Joy Coalition, Trip Friendly (Little House on the Prairie: The Legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder) for Friendly Family Productions, Dana Fox, and Susanna Fogel. Trip Friendly is the son of Ed Friendly, executive producer of the original Little House on the Prairie TV series that aired from 1974-1983.

The series is scheduled to premiere on July 9, 2026.

Stage adaptation

A musical version of the Little House books premiered at the Guthrie Theater, Minnesota on July 26, 2008. The musical has music by Rachel Portman and lyrics by Donna DiNovelli and is directed by Francesca Zambello with choreography by Michele Lynch. The cast includes Melissa Gilbert as "Ma". The musical began a US national tour in October 2009.

Documentary

Little House on the Prairie: The Legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder is a 2015 one-hour documentary film that looks at the life of Wilder. Wilder's story as a writer, wife, and mother is explored through interviews with scholars and historians, archival photography, paintings by frontier artists, and dramatic reenactments.

In 2020, PBS released an American Masters episode titled "Laura Ingalls Wilder: Prairie to Page."

See also

References

Further reading

  • Little House On The Prairie
  • Little House Books
  • Little House on the Prairie historic site, near Independence, Kansas