Is It Time to Stop Saying Michael Landon Strayed Too Far from the Books?

Readers have graciously followed me through numerous posts comparing the Little House books to the Little House on the Prairie television show. Here they are again if you missed them:

"Little House in the Big Woods & Little House on the Prairie Versus Little House on the Prairie Pilot"

Click here to read the first post.

"The Long Winter & Little Town on the Prairie Versus Season 6 of Little House on the Prairie"

Click here to read the second post.

"Laura and Almanzo's Courtship - These Happy Golden Years Versus Season 6 of Little House on the Prairie & the Episode 'Laura Ingalls Wilder' (Season 7)"

Click here to read the third post.

"Laura and Almanzo's Married Life - The First Four Years Versus Seasons 7 - 9 of Little House on the Prairie" 

Click here to read the fourth post.

"On the Banks of Plum Creek Versus Season 1 of Little House on the Prairie"

Click here to read the fifth post.

There tend to be three groups of Laura Ingalls Wilder fans: 

• Fans of the books and Wilder's real life, 
• Fans of the television show, and 
• Fans who willingly accept and appreciate that they exist in the same universe. 

With news of a planned Little House on the Prairie production coming from Netflix (see here), there is a new division in Laura land: those who plan to watch it and those who have already sworn it off due to their dedication and love for the original television series. I remain cautiously optimistic, just like when the 2005 Little House on the Prairie mini-series and the television movies, Beyond the Prairie and Beyond the Prairie II, aired. 

I also totally understand the reservations of others. Michael Landon, who the world lost in 1991, had a vision for bringing the story of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family to life for viewers that has resonated with people across the globe for more than half a century. The show has not been off the air since 1974. People found themselves rewatching and discussing Little House on the Prairie during the COVID-19 pandemic. Check out one viewer's article here. In 2024, Little House on the Prairie garnered 13.3 billion minutes of streamed viewing time, which topped viewing minutes for everything else out there, including new shows. Check out this Dateline article that talks about it by clicking here. Others have tried to recreate Landon's magic with the same source material, but have been nowhere near as successful. And there is a growing movement toward modern homesteading that embraces frugal living, self-sufficiency, and environmental consciousness. Those themes run throughout the show, even if that last one wasn't fully developed or discussed. 

But, I digress...

When we compare the books to the Little House on the Prairie television show, what are themes we see running through them?

Books

• The importance of family and working together for the common good
• How to be resourceful, especially when times are tough
• The enjoyment of the simpler things in life
• The need to be resilient, work hard, and persevere to survive 
• The importance of community--school, church, town

Television Show

• The importance of family and working together for the common good
• How to be resourceful, especially when times are tough
• The enjoyment of the simpler things in life
• The need to be resilient, work hard, and persevere to survive 
• The importance of community--school, church, town
• Acceptance of and respect for others
• Women as equal partners

When we boil it right down to this, Michael Landon embraced the core themes of the source material. Did he add characters that never existed? Yes, but the stories he wrote for those characters still embraced everything fans love about the Little House books and the themes Wilder wrote about in her sixties.

More than two decades after the first parent expressed concerns for Wilder's depiction of Native Americans, Landon was writing shows for her fans that espoused acceptance of and respect for others in episodes like "Injun Kid," and "The Wisdom of Solomon" and "The Craftsman," which elevate the source material and allow for engaging, meaningful discussions between modern readers and viewers. 

Perhaps the Almanzo and Laura romance storyline is the best example for those who say he strayed too far from the books. Could anyone, however, see a twenty-something-year-old man pursuing a fifteen-year-old girl as acceptable in the late 70s? What was Landon to do? And after some nonsense in the early days of their marriage, can't we say that Landon captured the true partnership between Laura and Almanzo that we see reflected in the books and in real-life accounts?

Even in Season 9, when one could truly say the show had some out-there episodes, did Landon ever regularly deviate from the core themes of Wilder's books? I believe he didn't.

Michael Landon's magic was in being able to take scenes and themes from the books and either reimagining those scenes or crafting new stories based on those themes that touched the hearts of Laura fans. Clearly, he sought to honor Wilder's work while bringing it to the small screen. Landon had one foot in Wilder's world and the other in his, creating an enduring, cherished show that fans will continue to love for decades to come. 

Guest post: Beyond The Silver Lake: Pioneer Girl Reveals Truth about Mary’s Blindness by Lisa Wilson

There is a line that epitomizes the moment that Mary Ingalls lost her sight in 1879, at the age of 14. It comes from the novel ‘By the Shores ofSilver Lake’. Laura writes:

Mary and Carrie and baby Grace and Ma all had scarlet fever. Far worst of all, the fever had settled in Mary’s eyes and Mary was blind.

Scarlet fever was a serious disease back in the 1800s and as many as 30 percent of children suffering from it died. It was used as a literary device in many novels of the era, with readers able to relate to the fever and how fatal it could be. In Little Women, Beth succumbs to scarlet fever and dies tragically, and the child in the Velveteen Rabbit also contracts it. Mary Ingalls' blindness being caused by the fever seems highly plausible.

Recently, however, newevidence has come to light that scarlet fever may not have been the cause of Mary’s blindness at all. In all likelihood it was viral meningoencephalitis, or ‘brain disease’ as it was known then.

Laura’s Memoir helped Researchers

The popularity of the Little House books remains strong today, with 3 being cited in the School Library Journal’s 2012 list of favorite children’s books, and this is the reason so much interest has been sparked about the revelation behind Mary’s illness.

Scarlet fever, even today, is received with dread, as parents overreact to news that their child has the infection, reports NBCNews. Many parents connect scarlet fever to literary classics such as Little Women or Little House on the Prairie, when in fact today it is likened to strep throat with a rash. In the 1800s, however it was a different matter. Scarlet fever ravaged towns, preying on young children' with a particularly bad epidemic hitting Fredericksburg in 1861, claiming at least a hundred lives, according to a resident. The disease hit a poignant chord with the nation and this is why it has been used as a popular literary device ever since.

Dr Tarini, writing in the journal Pediatrics, has been studying newspapers of the era as well as epidemiological data about blindness to come to her findings with her co-authors. They also found Laura Ingalls’ memoir Pioneer Girl to be incredibly useful when collating their research. Laura wrote a letter to her daughter in 1937 about Mary’s illness, and how a doctor had called it ‘spinal meningitis (sic) some sort of spinal sickness’. In all likelihood, Tarini reflects, the disease was changed before the novel went to print to make it easier for children to understand, as scarlet fever was already known to so many. Tarini believes that the meningoencephalitis affected the optic nerves in Mary’s eyes, causing her vision loss.

The Reality of Pioneer Life

The Little House books have a wholesome appeal for so many and are a beloved part of our culture and history, but pioneer life was far from easy, and this is reflected in Laura Ingalls’ memoir. Themes of alcoholism and violence pervade the Little House books, bringing a real sense of dark reality to the stories.

Alison Gazarek writes about Laura in Bloom magazine. As a young adult, Laura carried a revolver around with her when she spent time in Florida because of the tension there, and she worked in a hotel in Iowa where she witnessed alcoholism and occasional violence. These events had an impact on her writing. Along with scenes of Indians visiting Walnut Grove, crop failures and plagues of grasshoppers, there are tensions between characters, with occasional alcohol abuse being prevalent in certain chapters that is also portrayed in the television series.

Chronic consumption of alcohol was common in the 1800s, with many believing that it was good for the health. Americans would consume alcohol at different points of the day (called ‘eleveners’) instead of coffee or tea, and laborers would stop in the fields for a jug. Whiskey was considered ‘absolutely indispensable to man and boy’ in the 1800s and was seen as being as important as bread. In the 21^st Century, addiction is seen as a very serious and destructive illness and sufferers receive the best help available, from withdrawal centers such as those in Idaho, with full support from their families. This is a far cry from the pioneer attitudes of the 1800s, when whiskey was truly believed to be vital to a man’s constitution.


Laura Ingalls’ account of pioneer life is a fascinating reminder of the past, and we can see how the serious themes of a harsh frontier experience seeped into the memorable Little House books.