Rereading ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Was More Eye-Opening Than the New Netflix Series

I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books as a kid, and I just finished rereading her Little House series with my rising sixth grader.

When Netflix’s eight-part “Little House on the Prairie” reboot landed July 9, and the timing couldn’t have been any better. The only thing to do was to drop everything and binge the series. 

The books versus the Netflix series

The classic book series is a memoir of Wilder’s youth on the Great Plains in the late 1800s. In total, Wilder wrote eight books, plus a ninth published after her death. It’s a tradwife utopia: “Little House in the Big Woods,” “Farmer Boy,” “Little House on the Prairie,” “On the Banks of Plum Creek,” “By the Shores of Silver Lake,” “The Long Winter,” “Little Town on the Prairie” and “These Happy Golden Years.”

I hope the new Netflix series opens her books up to a whole new generation of fans.

That said, the Netflix series is so, so boring. The characters sing constantly. It’s annoying, and even worse, the pacing is painfully slow. I thought the fever dream sequences would never end.

I wasn’t expecting “The Fast and the Furious,” but hello, the Little House books are packed with action. Life on the frontier was gritty. Prairie fires! Locust plagues! Blizzards! Endless fodder for TV drama.

Instead, viewers get to eavesdrop on conversations so dull I’m embarrassed for Ma and Pa.

I got three episodes in and thought, dear God, we’re not even halfway. The books are so near and dear to my heart. I really wanted to like the show.

The old “Little House on the Prairie” TV series, which ran in the 1970s and 1980s, is nothing like the books. (Laura’s blind older sister, Mary, gets married, for one.) Similarly, Netflix takes creative liberties with the original storylines. I didn’t expect Netflix to follow the books blow by blow, but I was bummed by the casting. They couldn’t even find a blond Mary.

The biggest disappointment of the Netflix series is the heavy tone. The books are written from a child’s point of view. They’re charming, delightful stories and readers get to grow up with Laura. Netflix’s remake is from an adult perspective, and it loses that playful quality.

Netflix does, at least, knock Pa off Laura’s pedestal. In Laura’s world, Pa is larger than life and there’s nothing he can’t build or fix. News alert! Pa is flawed, he puts his family in danger and Ma is pissed.

P.S. The sugar cookies at the post office opening are way too perfect. They had royal icing on the frontier?

Reading the books as an adult

At the height of my pioneer-girl phase, I curled my bangs, pinned up my braids and passed around autograph books with my friends.

I wanted to be just like Laura Ingalls Wilder, the real life pioneer girl.

Three decades later, I was surprised how many details I remembered from those cherished books. The joy of drizzling maple syrup in the snow to make candy. How Pa could span Ma’s waist in his hands when they were married. Ma sewing a swan coat for her youngest, Grace. It’s a wholesome picture of life in simpler times.

But there’s a huge difference between reading the series as a child versus as an adult. Laura’s tale went from all-American pioneer adventure to all-American horror story.

What I didn’t remember is how grim the stories are. It’s poverty and struggle, disaster after disaster. Tornados. Debt. Drought. Failed crops. Near starvation.

When Laura heads off to her job as a teacher at age 15, she packed … her other dress.

The first book in the series, “Little House in the Big Woods,” is the most cheerful. There are cousins and Christmas parties. Then the Ingalls take off in their covered wagon and everything goes downhill. Every time Pa, the eternal wanderer, decides to pack up and move, I want to scream at him, “Nooooo, Pa!”

And when 25-year-old Almanzo Wilder comes courting 15-year-old Laura Ingalls? “Nooooo, Laura!” I have a 15-year-old. Laura marries at 18, becomes a mother at 19, and by 21, her infant son dies, her house burns down and her husband becomes disabled. Not quite the uplifting story I remembered reading as a kid. 

You have to remember, these books are a snapshot in time. The Ingalls are illegal squatters. Laura writes over and over again how Ma dislikes Indians; a neighbor flat out says, “The only good Indian is a dead one.” And there’s Pa, who dons blackface for the town’s literary series, much to everyone’s delight.

Through a modern lens, we’re appalled.

The bottom line

My recommendation: Leave the Netflix series alone unless you want to listen to a lot of singing and watch slo-mo pans through tall grass. A second Netflix season is already planned. I’m not holding my breath.

Instead, read or reread the books. They were written for children but give adults plenty to think about.

And don’t forget, Wilder published her first book when she was 65. That gives the rest of us hope; there’s still time.