
The third book in the Little Women quartet sees headstrong Jo, now grown-up and married, setting up a school with all the rewards and troubles that follow
After her marriage to Professor Friedrich Bhaer, Jo uses the money from her inheritance from Aunt March to set up a school at Plumfield. Their latest arrival is Nat Blake, a timid orphan boy whose life so far has been spent playing the violin to make money on the streets. Nat joins the 10 other children at the school—a gang made up of neglected children, orphans, and also Meg's twin boy and girl. The touching friendship and camaraderie between the group is expertly described. The peaceful equilibrium of the school is troubled though when Nat introduces Dan to the mix—the latter then leads the boys into experimenting with drinking, smoking, fighting, and playing cards. Moving and poignant, Little Men is far from saccharine and emotions run high throughout, particularly with the death of a prominent character towards the end of the tale.
Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832. She and her three sisters, Anna, Elizabeth, and May, were educated by their father, philosopher and teacher Bronson Alcott, and raised on the practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May. Louisa spent her childhood in Boston and in Concord, Massachusetts, where her days were enlightened by visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library, excursions into nature with Henry David Thoreau, and theatricals in the barn at "Hillside". Like her character, "Jo March" in Little Women, young Louisa was a tomboy. "No boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in a race," she claimed, "and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences ..." For Louisa, writing was an early passion. She had a rich imagination and often her stories became melodramas that she and her sisters would act out for friends. Louisa preferred to play the "lurid" parts in these plays --"the villains, ghosts, bandits, and disdainful queens." At age 15, troubled by the poverty that plagued her family, she vowed: "I will do something by and by. Don’t care what, teach, sew, act, write -- anything to help the family; and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t!"

The third book in the Little Women quartet sees headstrong Jo, now grown-up and married, setting up a school with all the rewards and troubles that follow
After her marriage to Professor Friedrich Bhaer, Jo uses the money from her inheritance from Aunt March to set up a school at Plumfield. Their latest arrival is Nat Blake, a timid orphan boy whose life so far has been spent playing the violin to make money on the streets. Nat joins the 10 other children at the school—a gang made up of neglected children, orphans, and also Meg's twin boy and girl. The touching friendship and camaraderie between the group is expertly described. The peaceful equilibrium of the school is troubled though when Nat introduces Dan to the mix—the latter then leads the boys into experimenting with drinking, smoking, fighting, and playing cards. Moving and poignant, Little Men is far from saccharine and emotions run high throughout, particularly with the death of a prominent character towards the end of the tale.
Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832. She and her three sisters, Anna, Elizabeth, and May, were educated by their father, philosopher and teacher Bronson Alcott, and raised on the practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May. Louisa spent her childhood in Boston and in Concord, Massachusetts, where her days were enlightened by visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library, excursions into nature with Henry David Thoreau, and theatricals in the barn at "Hillside". Like her character, "Jo March" in Little Women, young Louisa was a tomboy. "No boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in a race," she claimed, "and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences ..." For Louisa, writing was an early passion. She had a rich imagination and often her stories became melodramas that she and her sisters would act out for friends. Louisa preferred to play the "lurid" parts in these plays --"the villains, ghosts, bandits, and disdainful queens." At age 15, troubled by the poverty that plagued her family, she vowed: "I will do something by and by. Don’t care what, teach, sew, act, write -- anything to help the family; and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t!"