Rebecca Sonnenshine read the first page of the “Little House on the Prairie” series as a girl to prove to her older cousin that she knew how to read. Now, she is creating a Netflix show based on the beloved books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
“They’re very important books in my life,” said Sonnenshine, the showrunner and executive producer of Netflix’s “Little House on the Prairie.” “I read them probably 100 times. They were very much the way I formed as a reader and a writer.”
Sonnenshine and Warren Christie, the actor who plays John Edwards in the new Netflix series, spoke with OSV News ahead of the show’s premiere on the streaming platform July 9. The eight-episode series follows the Ingalls family as they travel to the American frontier to build a new life on the prairie in the 19th century. Through ups and downs, joys and struggles, the Ingalls hold onto what is most important: family, faith, community and hope.
In a departure from the books and previous adaptations, the Ingalls also befriend the original inhabitants of the prairie: the Osage people, who have ties to Catholicism.
Rated TV-PG for suggested parental guidance, the show stars Christie as well as Alice Halsey as Laura Ingalls; Luke Bracey as Laura’s “Pa,” Charles; Crosby Fitzgerald as Laura’s “Ma,” Caroline; and Skywalker Hughes as Laura’s older sister, Mary.
The Netflix series draws inspiration from the third book in the wildly popular “Little House” series, a collection of semi-autographical children’s novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder published in the 1930s and 1940s. The show comes after more than 73 million copies have been sold worldwide, according to Netflix. The show also follows a popular television adaptation that aired in the 1970s and 1980s.
A family’s love story
Sonnenshine has repeatedly described her new series, which has already been renewed for a second season, as “a love story about a family.”
“The thing about the books is that when you read them, you really feel this bond between all these family members,” she told OSV News. “You feel the love that they have for each other.”
Her adaptation also shows how the Ingalls’ love and care extend to the people around them, like John Edwards (also known as “Mr. Edwards” in the books).
“When we meet him, he’s not in the best of places,” Christie said of his character, who has a major role in the Netflix series. “He’s close to being at the end of his rope … and then stumbles upon this family and suddenly there’s hope.”
Sonnenshine said the creators of this series wanted to include as much as possible from the books. They also borrowed content from books in the series beyond the eponymous “Little House on the Prairie” and added some new, complementary stories based on people in the Ingalls’ community in southeastern Kansas.
An encounter with the Osage people
In particular, the creators wanted the Ingalls family to meet new people and have those people tell them something about themselves. One of these moments comes when the series introduces viewers to Osage people, who call the prairie home.
“The books, they mention the Osage all the time. There’s chapters devoted to them, but (the Ingalls) never actually get to know them,” Sonnenshine said. “I thought, well, we’re in 2026 now, so we can definitely get to know them.”
The makers wanted to introduce an Osage family that, in many ways, resembles the Ingalls family. The show explores this family’s way of life, their marriage and their parenting style. The point of contact between the two families is Laura Ingalls and the Osage family’s daughter, Good Eagle (Wren Zhawenim Gotts).
“Because kids don’t bring any of the baggage to a relationship that sometimes adults do — they just see another kid that they want to know and play with and get to have fun with,” Sonnenshine said. “Through these two characters, we brought these two families together and got a peek into their world.”
A nod to faith
The series also explores the faith of both families, beginning with the Ingalls. They celebrate Christmas and help build their town’s church.
The Ingalls have “a great deal of faith and goodness and doing good works and being good people,” Sonnenshine said. “They sing these beautiful hymns.”
One of those hymns is “Sweet By and By,” which John Edwards sings.
“It’s not just about picking these beautiful hymns, it’s about picking these songs that were important, and important in that moment,” Christie said, crediting Sonnenshine for the music.
Christie called “Sweet By and By” — a hymn about grief and hope — a perfect example.
“The timing of that song, what it means, what it then helps to create, is really, really important,” he said.
A hint of Catholicism
The series also explores the faith of the Osage people. Like the Ingalls, “the Osage have their faith, which is also imbued with Catholicism as well as Osage beliefs,” Sonnenshine said.
At one point, Good Eagle’s father, William Mitchell (Meegwun Fairbrother), refers to Father John Schoenmakers, a real-life early Jesuit missionary who ministered to the Osage people.
“He ran the mission school for the Osage,” Sonnenshine said. “He was very loved by the Osage community, so we wanted to include that, that the Osage were actually very well educated — maybe even more so than our characters — because they were taught by the Jesuits.”
“It’s kind of a facet of Osage culture at the time which we found really interesting,” she said.
A series of lessons
Both Sonnenshine and Christie pointed to the importance of community in the show. People needed each other to survive in the American West. They still need each other today, Sonnenshine said.
“We need each other, and we need community,” Sonnenshine said. “It’s very important to reach out to others, help others to think about how you can do good in the world.”
She also hoped that the show would encourage people to be present with those around them despite the distractions of the modern world.
“It’s a hard life, we romanticize a little bit, like, ‘Oh, the simple life,'” she said of life on the frontier. “But there is something to it that is very grounding and very mindful about it — and I think everybody can have that in their lives. They can put aside social media and just be with people.”
After reflecting on John Edwards’ path, Christie said the biggest thing he would take away from the series is that there is always hope.
“Nowadays, times are tough, a lot of people are going through different things,” he said. “Even in the darkest of times, there’s always hope.”
Katie Yoder is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Maryland.
