Wide Open Spaces
Netflix’s Little House On The Prairie Makes A Key Change From The Book
Here’s a recap of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s 1935 novel — just in time for the new adaptation.
Fifty years after Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie novels were chronicled in a beloved TV series — which remains a frequent flyer on my FYP — a new adaptation has entered the chat. Streaming now, Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie series follows the writer as a young girl whose family sets out from Wisconsin to build a new life in remote Kansas.
The show expands that perspective to include the Indigenous families who already lived on that land, enlisting the help of Osage cultural consultant Julie O’Keefe. “If you’re going to tell the story, then you need to tell both sides,” O’Keefe told Netflix.
Whether you’re new to the Ingalls family or it’s been a while since you read about them in school, here’s a quick recap of the Little House on the Prairie plot summary and book ending. (And if you get absorbed, luckily, a second season is already on the way.)
The book begins with Laura (born in 1867) and her family — Ma, Pa, and sisters Mary and Caroline — saying goodbye to their loved ones in Wisconsin. Pa (or Charles) finds it getting too crowded and wants to live somewhere with more space. Their journey is tumultuous and includes a creek crossing where family dog Jack disappears in an apparent drowning. But don’t worry! The dog finds his way back to the family after they set up camp that night.
They begin building their home outside Independence, Kansas, and befriend their new neighbor, Mr. Edwards. The book details their many challenges — illness, wolves, a wildfire — as well as encounters with the local Indigenous people, and the settlers’ prejudice toward them. Pa pushes back against some of his neighbors’ racist attitudes, and befriends a member of the Osage Nation who says he argued for peaceful relations with the settlers.
But ultimately, the Ingalls are not here for long. A year into their new life, they learn that this territory was not, in fact, free to settle in. Unwilling to be removed by soldiers, Pa preemptively moves his family away. The book ends with the family back in the wagon, and the next Little House book, On the Banks of Plum Creek, chronicles their life near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, which Netflix has confirmed will be the setting of Season 2.
