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Little House on the Prairie

Nine books, and a nine season television series that is mostly original drama using their names.

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Where to start with Little House on the Prairie

Start with Little House in the Big Woods and read the numbered order. Publication order and story order match for everything except one book, and there is no trap in the sequence itself. The trap is on screen, where the famous television series is mostly not an adaptation.

  1. 1
    Little House in the Big Woods Little House in the Big Woods

    Wisconsin, and the natural way in. Note that the books' own order does not match the family's real history: the Ingalls family actually went to Kansas first and then returned to Wisconsin, and Wilder deliberately reordered and compressed events.

  2. 2
    Farmer Boy, whenever you like before book eight Farmer Boy

    Published second and about Almanzo Wilder rather than Laura, set several years earlier in New York. Children who came for Laura often stall here, and nothing is lost by moving it later, so long as you read it before These Happy Golden Years, where Almanzo becomes central.

  3. 3
    These Happy Golden Years These Happy Golden Years

    The end of the series Wilder actually finished, and a natural place to stop.

  4. 4
    The 2005 miniseries, if you want the books on screen Little House on the Prairie (2005 miniseries)

    Six parts, roughly five hours, adapting the first two books, and judged at the time to be considerably more faithful than the 1970s series. This is the version to recommend to a reader.

Then what? The First Four Years is canonical but is an unrevised draft found among Wilder's papers after her death: darker, flatter, written for adults, and not shaped by the editing that produced the other eight. Read it knowing that. Pioneer Girl, her original 1930 autobiography, is the adult companion and reveals what she cut and why, including a drunken neighbour and domestic violence, so it belongs after the novels rather than before. For the television series, start with the 1974 pilot, then season one, and for completionists finish with the three television films, saving The Last Farewell for last as the true finale even though it did not air last.

A suggested way in, not an official one. The full list is below — tick anything off in either place.

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