Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Assignment 3 from Travelinoma. You can bet I liked this one!

One day my daughter Beth came home from high school and said, “Mr. Miller was talking about the book Little Women in class today and I told him you’ve read it a hundred times. He said that must be a gross exaggeration.” I laughed and told Beth she should go back and tell Mr. Miller that it was only a very slight exaggeration. Then I tried to figure out how many times I’ve actually read that book. I first read it when I was eleven years old. Then I read it over and over again – probably five or six times a year for several years. I still love to pick it up and read it now. I even have the first line memorized: “’Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents’, grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.”

The first time I read the book I missed a few things, like the fact that Beth died. My mom asked me how I felt when Beth died. I said, “Beth died??” My mother then remarked that maybe I wasn’t mature enough to understand the book. That stung, and I started it all over again right then, determined not to miss a thing.

I wanted to be brave and outspoken like Jo. I wanted to wear long dresses, and put my long hair up in a net, just like the illustrations in my book. At first I was sad that Jo and Laurie did not get married, but as I got older and reread the book so many times, I knew it was right that they were just friends. It was a world I loved getting lost in. Or rather, a world I love finding myself in.

I own seven physical copies of Little Women and one copy on my Kindle– all of them treasures. One sadness in my life is that none of my three daughters likes the book at all. Where did I go wrong?