Review: Who Really Wrote Little House on the Prairie?

Did Laura Ingalls Wilder's libertarian daughter have an outsize role in crafting the beloved children's series?

Did Laura Ingalls Wilder really write the Little House on the Prairie books, beloved by generations of young Americans? Or did her daughter, the libertarian journalist and novelist Rose Wilder Lane, do more than just edit and promote them?

Wilder, an iHeartMedia podcast that debuted in June, explores a wide range of themes related to the Little House books, including how closely they hew to Wilder's real life, their role in America's post–World War II propaganda efforts, and whether they still belong in schools and libraries.

Libertarian audiences will be especially interested in episodes three and four, which focus on Lane, a founding mother of the U.S. libertarian movement. But libertarians may also find the Lane episodes a tad frustrating. Wilder isn't exactly unkind to the writer: It acknowledges her smarts, her prolific career, and her substantial role in making the Little House books what they were. But host Glynnis MacNicol also calls Lane's politics "questionable" and "extreme," claims there's "no magic" in Lane's own books, and interviews Rebecca Traister, who suggests Lane "manipulat[ed] her mother's memories to serve her own political purpose."

While striving for a balanced take on Lane, MacNicol—herself, naturally, a fanatical fan of the Little House books as a child—may be too biased to get there. Nonetheless, the podcast offers an interesting overview of Wilder and Lane's personal and professional relationship.