Estimated Reading Time 1 Minutes
Publisher: SeaWolf Press; 150th Anniversary edition (March 2, 2019)
Paperback : 546 pages
ISBN: 978-1950435098
Thoughts: This book is a classic for a reason. Generations have fallen in love with this coming-of-age story of four young girls. Each girl is charming in her own way but still has enough defects to be well-rounded. It has the old-world charm of everyday life in America during the 1860s. It celebrates women and the impact they have as well as their diversity.
Favorite Quote: There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.
First sentence: “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
Summary from Amazon.com:
Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.
It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with “woman’s work,” including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the “girl’s book” her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.
