Little House (book series)

***Little House on the Prairie*** is a book written by Laura Ingalls Wilder in 1935. It is one part of series of books about Wilder's childhood in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Kansas during the late 19th century. The books have been made many times into movies and television series. Some other writers have also written books about Laura and her relatives.

The books became famous during the 20th century.  During the 21st century, scholars began to look at them closely as literature and as art.  Wilder has been criticized for the way she shows Native Americans and black Americans.

## "Little House" books

_Pioneer Girl_ was one of the first books Ingalls-Wilder wrote, but she could not find a publisher that wanted to print it.  _Pioneer Girl_ is a nonfiction story of Wilder's life.  Her daughter told her to write fictional stories instead.  The Little House series is a different from the true story of Ingalls-Wilder's life.  She was trying to tell a happy story and to show manifest destiny as a good thing.  She wanted the story to make sense, so she left things out if they did not fit her ideas.  The fictional books do not talk about when her family moved east to Iowa or her little brother who died young.  She also invented fictional characters and made combination characters: Nellie Olson is one person in the fictional books but she was based on more than one person in real life.

In 2015, an edited version of _Pioneer Girl_ was published. It has many footnotes explaining things for twenty-first-century readers.

### Original books

- _Little House in the Big Woods_ (1932)
- _Farmer Boy_ (1933)
- _Little House on the Prairie_ (1935)
- _On the Banks of Plum Creek_ (1937)
- _By the Shores of Silver Lake_ (1939)
- _The Long Winter_ (1940)
- _Little Town on the Prairie_ (1941)
- _These Happy Golden Years_ (1943)
- _On the Way Home_ (1962)
- _The First Four Years_ (1971),
- _West From Home_ (1974)
- _The Road Back_ (2006)

### Nonfiction

- _Pioneer Girl_ (2015)

### TV movies

- _Little House on the Prairie_ (1974)
- _Little House Years_ (1978)
- _Little House: Look Back to Yesterday_ (1983)
- _Little House: Bless All the dear Children_ (1984)
- _Little House: The Last Farewell_ (1984)
- _Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder_ (1997)
- _Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder II_ (1998)
- _Little House on the Prairie_ (2005) - miniseries

### TV shows

- _Jackanory - Little House in the Big Woods_ (1966)
- _Jackanory - Farmer Boy_ (1968)
- _Little House on the Prairie_ / _Little House: A New Beginning_ (1974-1983) - live action
- _Laura the Prairie Girl_ (1975) - animated

## Native Americans in the books

In 2018, the Association for Library Service to Children changed the name of its _Laura Ingalls Wilder Award_ to the _Children’s Literature Legacy Award_ because people did not like the way Wilder wrote about Native Americans in _Little House on the Prairie_.  They said the book had "dated cultural attitudes toward Indigenous people and people of color that contradict modern acceptance, celebration, and understanding of diverse communities."  For example, in the book, one white character says "the only good Indian is a dead Indian." Some of the words Ingalls use to describe Native Americans makes them sound like non-human animals.  Other people disagreed, saying the book showed how complicated things between Native Americans and white settlers were.  For example, it shows that the Ingalls family is on Indian land illegally, which means they must leave.  It shows Laura asking her parents why they are in Indian territory if they don't want to be near Indians.

## Other websites

- Little House Wiki: Little House on the Prairie