Netflix Offers a Fresh Take on Beloved Series With New ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Adaptation [PHOTOS]
Half-pint is back on TV.
Netflix’s adaptation of Little House on the Prairie premieres July 9. But the new version of the beloved story of a little girl named Laura and her pioneer family will look a little different than the beloved 1970s take on the story starring Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon. (Both shows are based on the series of semi-autobiographical books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.)
Netflix’s ‘Little House on the Prairie’ expands on the book’s ‘iconic moments’
The 2026 show – which Netflix has already renewed for season 2 – draws heavily on Wilder’s original books. Specifically, it’s based on Little House on the Prairie, the third installment of the series.
The creators of the Netflix series focussed on “taking all the iconic moments from the books [that] seemed to really leap off the page, and then finding a way to expand on some of those stories and some of those characters to create something that felt very much like modern television,” showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine told EW.
Netflix’s Little House will also draw on real history from outside the books.
“The spirit of the [original] show is going to overlap. We’re also using a little bit of the history of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s real life, which the show did as well… and there are things we incorporated in the show that are from outside the books, that were part of her life, or a part of history at that time,” Sonnenshine said.
New adaptation of will ‘tell both sides’ of the pioneer story
Wilder’s book chronicled the Ingalls family’s move from Wisconsin to Kansas in the mid-19th century. They set up a homestead on land that was part of Osage territory, which was not open to white settlers. The Netflix series will include Osage characters portrayed by Native actors. It will also address more directly the impact westward expansion had on Native populations. (Wilder’s original books, which were first published in the 1930s and 1940s, have been widely criticized for their racist depictions of indigenous people.)
“If you’re going to tell the story, then you need to tell both sides,” Juliet O’Keefe, the show’s Osage cultural consultant, told Tudum.
In her research for the series, O’Keefe looked to artifacts and documents from the Osage Nation Museum in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. The museum’s staff also assisted with hair, makeup, and costume design, she told Osage News.
“I have worked with several other tribes now in my career, and none of them have the treasure trove that we do as the Osage Nation – to be able to revert back to our history and how valuable that is to our knowledge of our own history,” she said.
Meet the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ cast
Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie stars Luke Bracey as Charles “Pa” Ingalls and Crosby Fitzgerald as his wife, Caroline Ingalls. Skywalker Hughes plays Mary Ingalls and Alice Halsey plays Laura Ingalls. Warren Christie plays Ingalls family friend and fellow settler John Edwards and Jocko Simms plays Dr. George Tann. (Tann was a Black doctor who saved the lives of the real-life Ingalls family when they contracted malaria).
Meegwun Fairbrother plays William Mitchell, a mixed-race Osage man who lives in Kansas with his family. Alyssa Wapanatâhk portrays his wife, White Sun. Wren Zhawenim Gotts plays their daughter, Good Eagle.
Wapanatâhk told Tudum that she was excited to be a part of expanding the world of Little House to include more diverse stories.
“I knew the Osage family weren’t included in the original series, and I thought, ‘Oh my god, we’re going to make some type of movement and change,” she said.
Little House on the Prairie premieres July 9 on Netflix.
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