Have you heard the news that Netflix recently greenlit a reboot of Little House? Which made me think back to how much I loved this series growing up. But, in case you haven’t read the books, the Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series gives readers a glimpse into the life of a pioneer family in the late 19th century.
In a log cabin near Pepin, Wisconsin, on February 7, 1867 Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was born. When Laura was still a baby, Pa and Ma decided to move to a farm near Keytesville, Missouri, and the family lived there about a year. Then they moved to land on the prairie south of Independence, Kansas. After two years in their little house on the prairie, the Ingallses went back to the Big Woods to live in the same house. This time the family stayed in the Big Woods for three years. These were the years that Laura wrote about in her first book, Little House in the Big Woods.
Through the course of the series, the Ingalls family faces significant challenges. The real-life Mary Ingalls, Laura’s older sister, lost her sight at 14 due to an illness believed to be viral meningoencephalitis, not scarlet fever as portrayed in the books. The family also lived through the Great Grasshopper Plague of 1875, which devastated crops across the Midwest, leaving families like the Ingalls struggling to survive. However, the harshness is also met with touching moments, such as when Pa, or Charles Ingalls often plays the fiddle or when
Laura’s love of reading and storytelling was nurtured by Ma aka Caroline, who was highly educated for a woman of her time and insisted her children prioritize learning. As a child, Laura was drawn to the Bible and classic literature, despite the family’s limited access to books.
This love of reading would serve Laura well later in life. After years of financial struggles and failed farming attempts with her husband, Almanzo Wilder, she turned to journalism, writing articles for rural newspapers before penning her famous series. Her first book was published when she was in her 60s, proving it’s never too late to follow a passion.
Now, it’s exciting to think a new generation will get to experience the world of the Ingalls family. My biggest hope is the Netflix series encourages people to pick the novels up again, because we all know–the book is always better!
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