Commentary: The creator of 'Little House on the Prairie' isn't worried about being called 'woke'

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Set us as preferred Eighteen months ago and apropos of nothing, Megyn Kelly tweeted a direct if singularly bizarre threat to Netflix: “If you wokeify ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ I will make it my singular mission to absolutely ruin your project.”Rebecca Sonnenshine, showrunner, writer and producer of the latest adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House on the Prairie,” which debuted on Netflix Thursday, isn’t concerned.“Whatever anyone’s definition of ‘woke’ is,” she said in an interview in May, “and I think it has lost all definition, when she watches it, she will understand that it is very much in keeping with the spirit of the books.”Nor is she concerned about other criticisms “Little House” devotees might have: That Mary Ingalls (Skywalker Hughes) isn’t blond (“she was the best actress and I’m not going to dye a kid’s hair”); that Jack is not a brindle bulldog (“Brindle bulldogs are very stubborn and untrainable for TV.

We chose a border collie/cattle dog mix”); that the Ingalls spend a lot of time in Independence, Kan., which, in the book, was 40 miles away (“they lived much closer [than depicted in the novel], we moved them a bit closer still.”)Adaptations of beloved works are always tricky and in this case, Sonnenshine is dealing not only with Wilder’s novels but also the beloved 1974 series of the same name.Still, even for this longtime and well-versed fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Sonnenshine’s passion for the “Little House” books is wildly impressive — mention Aunt Docia’s “blackberry” buttons and she knows exactly what you’re talking about.

“Everything in my life has been jump-started by these books,” she said.”Reading about a female protagonist, written by a female author, I thought ‘I can do all that.’ It led me to writing...