Prairie Fires

Biographer and historian Caroline Fraser, editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series, explains that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Little House on the Prairie novels depict a loving 19th-century American pioneer family whose members remain stalwart and hopeful in the face of unrelenting hardship. Wilder’s books became children’s classics and an excellent television series.

Over time, Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane asserted the truthfulness of every detail, but Fraser uncovers a different story, showing how Wilder’s daughter used these tales for her own purposes.