A little less little

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, July 10th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: back to the American frontier.

It’s been more than 90 years since Laura Ingalls Wilder first introduced readers to her pioneer family. Now Netflix has launched a new adaptation of Little House on the Prairie.

EICHER: WORLD reviewer Steve Limkeman says this version captures much of the warmth that has made the books a family favorite for generations.

STEVE LIMKEMAN: After the end of the Civil War, the Ingalls family felt the Big Woods of Wisconsin were growing too crowded for them. So Ma and Pa don their pioneer spirit, pack up a covered wagon with their young girls Mary and Laura, and head southwest to the great plains of Kansas to stake their claim.

MARY & LAURA: The Ingalls are coming, hurrah, hurrah / The Ingalls are coming to Kansas now / The Ingalls are coming, hurrah, hurrah / The Ingalls are coming, hurrah.

Netflix’s first season of Little House on the Prairie adapts Laura’s beloved autobiographical novel. And a second season is already scheduled to tackle the next exciting chapter of the family’s adventures. The book series has sold more than 70 million copies in more than 100 different countries since its publication during the Great Depression. It’s a testament to the power this story has to warm the hearts of families as they relax by their hearths, dreaming of life on the American frontier.

Fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic book will be delighted that the show has retained the innocent, childlike curiosity and amazement of its narrator. The young Alice Halsey gives an enchanting performance as Laura.

LAURA: Ma, look! She’s an Indian doll, right? What do you think her name is? Can I keep her?

Buoyed by her father’s steady presence and his consistent optimism, Laura is determined to charm each new acquaintance she makes. She rarely fails to win over their hearts. Though Laura is brimming with wide-eyed wonder, the show doesn’t limit itself to her perspective. The adults on the Western frontier offer Pa a more sobering picture of the dangers on the prairie. After witnessing their wagon nearly capsize crossing a river, the town doctor gives this caution.

DR. TANN: I’ve seen entire families freeze to death out here, starve to death, get taken by fever, wolves, madness. It is a myth that men can make it out here alone.

In dealing with the Ingalls’ encounters with wolves, wildfire, and other perils of the wilderness, the show’s suspense is not quite as artful as the novel. However, the simple joys of the family establishing a new home on the frontier are just as wonderful as viewers might hope. The series revels in simple pleasures like singing hymns under the stars and dancing a jig as Pa plays the fiddle. The sense of peace and belonging that their neighbor, Mr. Edwards, gains through his friendship with the Ingalls creates a familiar kinship between the viewers and our kind hosts as they invite us into this chapter of their lives.

INGALLS & MR. EDWARDS: Charlie he’s a nice young man / Charlie he’s a dandy / Every time he goes to town he brings the girls some candy / I don’t want your weevily wheat / I don’t want your barley / I’ll take some flour in half an hour and bake a cake for Charlie.

The Ingalls have settled in American Indian territory, and the Osage nation plays a bigger part in this adaptation. Rather than being relegated to the role of an existential threat on the edge of civilization, the Osage are both compassionate citizens and bitter rivals for their ancestral lands. Laura’s touching friendship with an indigenous girl her own age serves as a poetic bridge between two worlds whose older generations are generally more skeptical about whether they can—or ought—to make peace with one another. After an unexpected confrontation with two young Osage men rattles the girls, Pa seeks out some measure of security from a friend.

PA: I can’t have strangers walking into my house uninvited.

MITCHELL: I think they’d say the same thing.

By dwelling on the complexities of the larger narrative of westward expansion, the show loses out on some of the intimate society of the Ingalls under the big sky. Seeing the wide world from little Laura’s perspective is what makes the book so magical, and the series suffers insofar as it departs from her limited capacity to make sense of it all. For example, we get contentious small town politics and a contrived family fallout between Pa and his father back in Wisconsin.

But the show’s tone can be best expressed in the impromptu speech that Laura gives at the first Founder’s Day celebration of the town of Independence.

LAURA: Independence isn’t about self-reliance or liberty or freedom or any of those things. It’s a place to come together.

This community-oriented adaptation is a heartwarming vision of how America was made. The frontier is open for family viewing.

I’m Steve Limkeman.

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