Little Women

I first read this book as a teenager but didn’t appreciate Louisa May Alcott’s gift for storytelling until years later, when I reread it. 

This time, I didn’t want the story to end because I’d fallen in love with the four March sisters Jo, Beth, Meg, and Amy. I laughed. I cried. Though fictional characters and separated by hundreds of years, the March sisters felt real to me, and I was a little bereft at the end of their story. 

Along with universal themes of love, betrayal, anger, lust, revenge, and death, Little Women deftly portrays each sister’s struggles and… show more.

The much-loved American tale Little Women tells the story of four sisters in Civil War era Concord, Massachusetts, and their quests for love and happiness.

Based on author Louisa May Alcott herself, the character of Jo March, the second daughter, is headstrong, independent, and loves to read and write. Many young female readers have taken Jo as a role model because she speaks her mind and pursues her goals—writing first among them.

Much like my own character Victoria Swann, writing helps Jo forge her independence and it becomes clear as the story progresses that it’s her voice telling the family’s… show more.

Marmee is a beacon of inspiration whose beauty and grace powers Jo and her sisters through poverty and hard times in 19th-century Massachusetts.

In Alcott’s world moms are central idealized figures: caregivers, role models, teachers–as such they are the glue that holds a family together. No one ever gets pissed at Marmee or tells her her questions are intrusive or complains that she’s “being annoying.”

Was Jo’s idealization a product of the times (people didn’t question authority figures)? Were the novel’s female relationships sugarcoated for publication? Did Alcott have a blindspot in this area? I’ll never know. And that doesn’t… show more.

Many of us remember when we first read Little Women, the classic wartime story of four sisters raised by their wise Marmee while their absent father ministers to Civil War soldiers. 

Everyone knows of Little Women, but how recently have you read it? Adults read differently than children or teens, and this annotated version gives us the specifics of the time and the factual background of Louisa May Alcott’s struggle to write and to find a publisher. Her mother’s fortitude had much to do with “Jo’s” strength and persistence.

Context comes alive, thanks to the additions to the text, with… show more.

Perhaps Jo March was the first girl many of us encountered in literature who grew up intent on the work of becoming a writer.

I loved her sisters, her mother, and their adventures in New England during their father’s absence in the Civil War, but my eyes were mostly on Jo. Not only was she smart, lively, bold, and adventurous, she just didn’t stop writing.

She wrote her way through loneliness and rejection. She persevered, and showed me what it would take.

As one of four sisters, I fell in love with the March sisters instantly. However, even though I was the eldest of my own sisters, I identified most with Jo—the rebel writer. A sister herself, Louisa May Alcott understands that sisters are complex. We may fight, disagree, get endlessly frustrated by our differences…but we are sisters and we stand together when it counts.

As a budding writer, I definitely felt misunderstood by my own family. I knew they always had my back, even if I would rather read a book than swim, play tennis, or throw a softball. The March… show more.

Little Women is possibly the first sister book most of us read. Beautifully characterized, each sister is distinct, and while the March family is very much in the world, it is also very much them against the world. The sisters always pull together in the end, even when they disagree. Even when Amy burns Jo's book. Though as a writer, I will never forgive her for that, and also as a writer, that was a huge red flag to Amy’s character which I think should have been explored more deeply.

Little Women published in 1868 two years before Charles Dickens died was the first novel I read where one of the characters was a writer. Alcott makes Jo March brash and opinionated which is not the usual way writers are portrayed. But Alcott also makes her freedom-loving and this endears the reader to her though sometimes her behavior and the reasons for what she does can baffle. The cool thing about Little Women is that it shows how a writer stands out and how they can change the world around them. Jo March becomes famous and successful and just again… show more.

What I loved most about Little Women was that it focuses on living the values of honor, family, being a good person, and finding the path that is right for you—these are some of the most important lessons of a life well spent. A semi-autobiographical novel Little Women follows the lives of March sisters Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy during the time of the Civil War as they grow up and each of them dreams of their own destiny. Something that was particularly inspiring to me was Jo’s burning desire to become a writer and the difficulties she encounters until… show more.

This is the story of four sisters coming of age, but readers know that it’s really a book about Jo—the tomboy at its center. Jo March launched the tomboy as a quintessentially American girl icon, and Little Women launched the juvenile publishing market for girls. It remains one of the most beloved books in the world. I read it every year and always come away with something different.