Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

First published: 1935; illustrated

Type of work: Domestic realism

Themes: Family, jobs and work, nature, and race and ethnicity

Time of work: 1869

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Kansas (Indian Territory)

Principal Characters:

• Laura Ingalls, a small girl who observes how her pioneer family adapts to challenges and hardship
• Pa Ingalls, a resourceful and resilient man, who is adept not only with tools but also at playing the fiddle
• Ma Ingalls, a homemaker and hostess for unexpected visitors
• Mary Ingalls, Laura’s older and more obedient sister
• Carrie Ingalls, Laura’s baby sister
• Jack, the faithful bulldog, who is playful and protective

The Story

The story of Little House on the Prairie covers a year during which Laura’s family moves by covered wagon from Wisconsin to Kansas to build a new home on the open prairie in Indian territory. Their adventures reveal a family with admirable pioneer spirit. The major focus is on the girl Laura, who is shown observing and reacting to her father’s practical skills and courage. He must cope with limited resources, uncertainty, and dangers in this unfamiliar and difficult environment and while building the new house.

For both their day-to-day existence and their efforts to create a new home, they are restricted to whatever they brought with them in the covered wagon or to what they can find to eat or build with on the prairie. They are never certain how the Indians will treat them. They are frightened by wolves, illness, a fire in the chimney, a panther, a prairie fire, and by any occasion when Pa is later than expected in coming home.

The family’s relationships with the people they meet are nearly all congenial and contribute to feelings of trust and to mutual advantages, though their social opportunities are very limited. A bachelor neighbor named Edwards shows up to help in building the house; later, Pa helps Mr. Edwards on his own house. On Christmas Eve, Mr. Edwards risks his life by swimming a cold, swollen creek so that he can deliver to the children gifts entrusted to him by Santa Claus. By helping some Texas cowboys herd their cattle safely through the area, Pa gains a chunk of beef, a cow, and a calf, all of which enrich the family resources. Other settlers in the neighborhood, Mr. and Mrs. Scott, help the Ingallses on various occasions. The Ingallses give food to the Indians whenever they visit. Pa never actually works with the Indians, but he is pleased when one Indian tells of having killed the panther that was a danger in the neighborhood. Most of the time, the Indians pass by the house silently but peacefully.

The family’s joys often occur in recovery from apparent loss. They are delighted when their beloved watchdog, whom they fear has drowned while crossing a river, shows up at their camp at night. He is weary and bedraggled but uninjured and very welcome. Ma Ingalls is injured, but not seriously, when helping Pa lift logs. Pa has a close call when he and Mr. Rogers breathe gas while digging the well. The family is fortunately saved when Dr. Tan, a black man, gives medicine to them when all are sick from the ague.

They recover from much adversity. Their greatest defeat, however—their eviction from the land on which they had built their house and planted crops—is accepted quietly and philosophically. They had been misinformed as to their right to settle there; the land still belonged to the Indians. Pa acts quickly and decisively to move on, but he does not say where they will go next.

Context

Little House on the Prairie is Wilder’s third book overall and her second, and perhaps best known, in the series chronicling her own early life. Each of her stories is told by a third-person narrator explaining events realistically but with focus on a character also named Laura, who grows in age and sophistication in the successive books. In Little House on the Prairie, the narrator explains events in the language and manner consistent with what one might consider appropriate for a five-year-old girl. Laura is the only character who reveals her inner thoughts and feelings to the reader. These thoughts and feelings are those of a young girl with limited knowledge, who sometimes is envious and resents her older sister’s more obedient behavior and yellow curls. She trusts her father and watchdog to protect her from any danger, and she reacts uncritically to rapid changes in family circumstances or events over which she has no control. She is praised by her father for handing him tools and holding things in place while helping him make a door, but after collecting scattered beads at the deserted Indian camp, she reveals ungenerous thoughts. When Mary promptly offers to give the beads she has gathered to Baby Carrie, Laura feels pressured to give up her beads also to complete Carrie’s string, though she really desires to keep the beads herself. Momentarily, she wants to slap her older sister for being too good an example to follow.

Readers are invited to identify with Laura and to be sympathetic observers of the family’s difficulties and joys in this adventurous life. Though no rival of such distinguished Midwestern writers as Willa Cather and Mark Twain for sophisticated representation of social conflicts, Wilder contributes to the history of the frontier movement in depicting the drama in such ordinary families as the Ingallses.

Bibliography

Anderson, William. Laura Ingalls Wilder Country. New York: HarperPerennial, 1990. An illustrated history of Laura Ingalls Wilder, covering family history, the settings of each of the Little House books, Rose Wilder Lane, Rocky Ridge Farm, and Wilder’s final years. Punctuated with a well-written and informative text.

Dorris, Michael. “Trusting the Words.” Booklist 89 (June 1, 1993): 1820. A thought-provoking article by a well-known American Indian author. Deals with the issues of racism and bigotry as they relate to the Little House series and Little House on the Prairie in particular.

Holtz, William. The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993. An excellent biography of Wilder’s only child, journalist Rose Wilder Lane. Well documented and persuasive, Holtz’s research gives credence to the theory that Lane “ghosted” much of her mother’s work on the Little House series. A controversial book among Wilder fans, this work also presents an intriguing study of their difficult mother-daughter relationship.

Moore, Rosa Ann. “Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Orange Notebooks and the Art of the Little House Books.” Children’s Literature 4 (1975): 105-119. Librarian and scholar Moore shares her insights into the development and writing of the Little House books.

Moore, Rosa Ann. “The Little House Books: Rose-Colored Classics.” Children’s Literature 7 (1978): 7-16. Moore’s further studies of Wilder’s manuscripts reveal new thoughts about the authorship of the Little House books and the role of Rose Wilder Lane in thei creation.

Wilder, Laura Ingalls, and Rose Wilder Lane. A Little House Sampler. Edited by William Anderson. New York: HarperPerennial, 1989. A collection of lesser-known writings by Wilder and daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. Magazine excerpts, Wilder’s newspaper column for the Missouri Ruralist, and unpublished bits of manuscript offer insight into Wilder as an individual and a writer.

Zochert, Donald. Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1976. The only solid biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Sensitively written, it is geared to the juvenile reader but has much to offer the adult as well. Well researched and substantiated by interviews with key acquaintances.