Little Women

"Like many women of my generation who read this novel growing up, I really felt like I lived in Jo's family. It was one of the first literary explorations of how women balance the demands of their daily lives, from raising families to pursuing outside goals."

"Mrs March has four daughters and they all call her Marmee. Her husband is away serving in the Civil War. So, for most of the book, she’s the rock of the family. In so many of the books I read as a girl, it was the dad that was the strong figure. I’m thinking of Caddie Woodlawn, Johnny Tremain and even a lot of the Jane Austen novels. The mother in Little Women was the strongest mother I came across. Marmee is a character that really resonates for me. She’s obviously not Chinese, but she believes that integrity and hard work are the most important things in life. She holds her daughters to very high standards. She doesn’t sugarcoat much. She also reveals to her rebellious daughter Jo, the star of the book and a character loosely modeled on Louisa May Alcott herself, that she had a bad temper too when she was younger. That’s exactly what I did with my own daughter Louisa. She encourages her daughters to play, but it’s often within the home. A lot of the play takes place within the family, which is very much the way I was raised. My husband and I spend a lot of time with our kids — playing charades, jumping in bed, watching movies and most of all, reading together. So the picture of family life in Little Women looks a lot like my household. The kinds of mistakes that Marmee allows her daughters to make are very similar to the kinds of mistakes that I allow my daughters to make. Marmee provides a lot of guidance, she allows them to experiment within a moral framework. So it’s actually not as different as you might think. I didn’t even know that. I didn’t take notes with a book in mind, but I kept a long computer file of things that the kids said which I found adorable. Even when Sophia, my older daughter, was three years old I recorded all the funny things she said; and with my second daughter, I set down all the smart alecky things that she said. So when I started writing this, I did have a file of contemporaneously recorded stuff. Most of what I wrote down was them putting me in my place. If you read the book, you’ll see that my daughters are the heroines and they have all the best lines."

"Little Women was my first experience of a book about sisters and one of my favourite books. I read it over and over and over again as a child, because I loved it so much. The book is about a family of four American sisters, living in genteel poverty during the American Civil War. These four sisters are living with their mother, their father is off working as a pastor in the war. Meg and Jo, the older siblings have to work to earn money for the family, while the younger sisters are in school. So they’re living this slightly difficult life, but the focus is less on the difficulties they face and more on their bond as sisters. I just love how playful it is, and, although there is a clear morality to the story, it is managed without being too heavy-handed and didactic, which I really enjoy and I definitely appreciated that as a child – that the book has a lightness to it, that it’s about pranks and games and arguments between sisters in a very real way. The March sisters have grown up together and I think it’s interesting when you see the tension between the fact that they have a shared upbringing and shared values, and yet they are such obviously different personalities that they can have disagreements. They don’t just agree about everything, and they’re forceful and vocal in their disagreement, but the book is still built upon the strength of the bond between them. I find that interesting, that you can have conflict and love and support all wrapped up in that relationship, and I think it’s really a tender look at the dynamic between the four of them."

"Nancy Drew is another series which follows in those footsteps. The book is all led by her. I think if one looks in the magazine literature it would be hard to find a similar character at that time. These were stories initially published in a magazine and then bound together as a book. Alcott was one of the first professional women authors and she had a very interesting life herself having served as a nurse in an army hospital during the Civil War . Her father was a leading social innovator who joined one of the first social communities which didn’t last very long because, while the men were off thinking their thoughts and communing with nature, the women’s lives didn’t change at all! What it meant to me is something I wasn’t aware of at the time, but later I came to recognise this ‘can do’ spirit which is terrifically American. As a girl growing up in New York in the 50s and 60s I absorbed this notion of enterprising activism, of being the leader rather than a follower. And I think that is what this whole genre of girls’ stories is all about: women and girls taking charge of their own lives."

"When I was 8, I fell madly in love with Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.” An only child at the time, I romanticized life among the March sisters and wished I could be one of them."

"The book I loved most, the one I must have devoured at least a dozen times, was Little Women."

"I spent time in Ralph Waldo Emerson's library and at Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women. There was some thought that I would illustrate a new edition of Little Women."

"I was a voracious reader. I was the daughter of musicians and realized pretty early that I wasn't a musical talent. But what I did love was reading, and devoured books like Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women.""

"Louisa May Alcott's 'Little Women' were particular favorites."

"What embryo writer (barring Norman Mailer types) has not been enthralled by the early professional achievement of Jo March? Coming recently upon John Matteson's engaging annotated edition, I was captured once again."

"The illustrated hardcover copy of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women." It was a gift from my grandmother, and I still give it pride of place on my bookshelves."

"“Little Women.”"

"From "Little Women," that the true expressions of love are modest, simple things. Often poverty teaches us to express love in the most profound ways."

"“Little Women,” by Louisa May Alcott"

""Little Women," by Louisa May Alcott."