Just like we did last week, we are going to compare some of the Little House books to the Little House on the Prairie television show. If you missed our first post, which compared Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie to the pilot, you can find it here.
Wilder's readers were introduced to her future husband in the second book of the Little House series, Farmer Boy. While readers meet Almanzo and his family--Mother, Father, Royal, Eliza Jane, and Alice, other than setting up the beautiful Morgan horses that Laura finds so attractive when we see Almanzo again in The Long Winter and Little Town on the Prairie, and his love for farming, television viewers don't meet Almanzo until Season 6 of Little House on the Prairie, when he is an adult. The only glimpse viewers will get of Almanzo's childhood is in the Season 8 episode, "A Christmas They Never Forgot."
The first noticeable difference between the books and the show is in location. The Long Winter and Little Town on the Prairie take place in the town of De Smet, South Dakota. With rare exception, the television show remained in Walnut Grove, Minnesota.
As Season 6 of Little House on the Prairie opens, it is the start of a new school year with a new teacher, Eliza Jane Wilder. Book readers will recall, however, that Almanzo and his older brother Royal were "batching" it in De Smet (pg 59) prior to Eliza Jane taking a homestead in town (pg 124).
Unlike his TV counterpart, book Almanzo can cook--at least pancakes (pg 101), and has a set of beautiful Morgan horses named Prince and Lady. Though TV Almanzo never hunted, in The Long Winter, he joins the men to hunt antelope and almost loses Lady, who he had allowed to be ridden by a man in town.
Readers of The Long Winter don't see much of Almanzo again until he and Cap Garland travel to get the seed wheat that saves the town from starvation when the trains can't make it through (pgs 264-285 & 295-302).
In the episode "Family Tree," Miss Wilder assigns the schoolchildren a project to work on their genealogy. She pulls down a chart of her family tree. Now, keeping in mind that this episode aired close to four years prior to the Internet being invented, lovers of Laura Ingalls Wilder history will find some mistakes.
- Perley Day Wilder's name is spelled Parley.
- Their paternal grandfather's name is incorrectly stated as Parley Day Wilder, instead of Abel Wilder. Their parental grandmother is listed as Alice Wilder instead of Hannah (Payne) Wilder.
- Their maternal grandparents are shown as Royal and Angeline Martin, not Justin Day II and Diadema (Bateman) Day.
- Some birthdates are incorrect: James Wilder's should be 1813; Angeline's should be 1819; Eliza Jane's is actually 1850; Almanzo's is 1857; and the youngest Wilder brother, Perley Day, was born in 1869.
Almanzo's oldest sister, Laura, was never mentioned in the books, because the author felt it would be too confusing. She does, however, appear on Miss Wilder's family tree in that episode, despite not appearing in the Season 8 Christmas episode.
Book readers see more of Almanzo Wilder in Little Town on the Prairie. They will be quick to notice that Almanzo is captivated by Laura in books, versus Laura being captivated by Almanzo in the show. It will be Almanzo who offers her a ride to school and gives her his name card (pg 197). Almanzo will start asking to see Laura home from community events (279). So, despite Nellie taunting Laura and her classmates that she will be seen in Almanzo's new buggy, Laura will get that honor. Laura, however, is more impressed with the horses.
In the show, Almanzo dates a couple of young women from town, Christie Norton ("Annabelle") and Sarah ("Silent Promise"), while Laura pines away, hoping he waits until she gets older. Their friendship won't blossom into love until she gets her teaching certificate, which happens at the end of Little Town on the Prairie and in the episode "Sweet Sixteen." Though show fans will get that satisfaction at the end of the "Sweet Sixteen" episode, book fans will need to wait until the next book in the series, These Happy Golden Years, for them to be a couple.
As long time fans of the show have heard, Michael Landon proceeded with caution in portraying Laura and Almanzo's relationship, considering fans had watched Melissa Gilbert (Laura) grow up on television and the age difference between the characters and Dean Butler (Almanzo) and Gilbert in real life.
The show also portrays Caroline's and Charles's reactions to Almanzo differently. It is book Caroline who is concerned about Almanzo walking Laura home, because she is still young (pg 279), versus the numerous episodes where Charles expresses concern for Laura's infatuation with the much older Almanzo. He even tries to push Laura toward Perley Day Wilder when he shows up in Walnut Grove unexpectedly ("Wilder and Wilder").
Eliza Jane Wilder arrives as the new school teacher in De Smet (pg 124) and befriends Nellie Oleson, who readers had met in On the Banks of Plum Creek. Nellie's circumstances have changed, and so have Laura's to some degree. Laura finds herself the town girl, versus Nellie now being the country girl. In the show, Laura remained the country girl and Nellie lived in town. Miss Wilder couldn't build a friendship with Nellie on the show, because once she arrived, Nellie had passed her final school exam and graduated, giving a commencement speech before being given Walnut Grove's first--and only--restaurant as a gift from Harriet and Nels.
Though Laura and Eliza Jane were seen as having a friendly relationship on Little House on the Prairie, their book relationship was tumultuous. Nellie led Miss Wilder to believe that Laura felt she could run the school because Charles was on the school board (pg 180). As a result, the teacher, who could not manage her classroom, took it out on Laura and Carrie.
Little House on the Prairie worked in some of the shenanigans that the book Miss Wilder experienced into the episode "The Werewolf of Walnut Grove." Some of the school days unfold in chapters 13 - 15 of Little Town on the Prairie. Lack of discipline creates an environment where the older boys are constantly causing issues, like Bart Slater did in the television episode. The show's writers have Albert Ingalls sit on a tack placed on his seat by Bart, just like Charley did in the book. They even have Bart chant the poem Ida and Laura created in the book based on Eliza Jane's school nickname.
While there are definite differences in how the books were brought to life by Michael Landon and his team, it's nice to see much of what happened in the books ends up in some fashion in the show.
