Review by New York Times Review
ONE REASON I learned to read was so that I could understand "hard books" like "Little Women," which was read aloud to me as a preliterate child. I remember Louisa May AIcott's heroines - the March sisters - more vividly than some real people I dimly recall from those years. Now Anne Boyd Rioux's lively and informative "Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy" makes it clear why having these fictive young women implanted in my consciousness has been a good thing, helpful for every girl facing the challenges of growing up to be a woman. Rioux's book features a useful, highly compressed biography of Alcott and an account of how her most famous novel was written. Like Charlotte Bronte, Alcott was obliged to support a household. Her father, Bronson Alcott, a friend of Emerson and Thoreau and the founder of Fruitlands, a short-lived utopian community, was so focused on leading "a spotless spiritual life" that he'd forget he had a family. His periods of instability, his delusions and his refusal (or inability) to earn a living meant that the Alcotts moved often and were frequently separated. Yet Bronson recognized and nurtured his daughter's gifts. Louisa was publishing stories at 20, and, after serving as a Union nurse in the Civil War, she began to write novels. Reluctant when her publisher asked for a book about girls, she told a friend, "I could not write a girls' story, knowing little about any but my own sisters & always preferring boys." But she persevered, and when "Little Women" was published 150 years ago, in September 1868, 2,000 copies were sold in two weeks. The book has never gone out of print, and has appeared in hundreds of editions and dozens of foreign translations. A chapter on the adaptations of the novel - for radio, stage and screen - is a compendium of fun facts, much of it about casting. It's pleasant to imagine how liberating it was for Katharine Hepburn to play Jo March as a full-on tomboy in George Cukor's 1933 film. Other roles were less successfully cast, a problem that would persist in films that valued star power over fidelity to the novel. In the 1933 film, "Amy, who is supposed to be 12 years old, was played by 23-year-old and secretly pregnant Joan Bennett. When she could no longer hide her condition, her costumes had to be altered. ... Douglass Montgomery makes a much-too-polished Laurie, who is supposed to be 15; Montgomery was 26 and looked 30." Rioux, a professor at the University of New Orleans, tracks the literary works that owe a debt to Alcott: "Just as Hemingway claimed that all of American literature (by men) came from 'Huck Finn,' we can also say that much of American women's literature has come from 'Little Women.'" She considers the debate about "whether 'Little Women' tips toward realism or sentimentalism" and the ways in which feminists have praised - and critiqued - the novel for its (cramped or expansive) view of female experience. Ultimately, she argues for the positive influence exerted by the book and in particular by the character of Jo, who chooses the life of the mind over the lure of privilege, pretty clothes and boys. More recently the book's readership has declined, and it's only rarely taught in schools, where, Rioux suggests, many educators believe that requiring a boy to read a book with "women" in the title will forever turn him against reading. "Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy" does what - ideally - books about books can do: I've taken "Little Women" down from the shelf and put it on top of the books I plan to read. I'm curious to check in on the March sisters, and - inspired by Anne Boyd Rioux - find out how they seem to me now. FRANCINE prose's most recent book is an essay collection, "What to Read and Why."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 23, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Louisa May Alcott intended to write in the mode of her Transcendentalist neighbors Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau, but, instead, she wrote what she called ""blood and thunder tales"" to support her overly idealistic father, brilliant mother, and three sisters. Unconventional and independent, Alcott was less than enthusiastic about her editor's suggestion that she write a girls' story, yet from that seed flowered one of the most beloved books on the planet, Little Women. Award-winning Rioux (Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist, 2016) marks the 150th anniversary of this irresistible, profoundly influential novel by telling its story whole. Noting the power of its authenticity, Rioux illuminates the parallels between the Alcotts and the fictional March family and marks just how intent war nurse and suffragette Louisa was on challenging gender roles. Rioux tracks the novel's fascinating publishing history; incisively critiques its many stage and screen adaptations; takes measure of the darker undercurrents in its inquiry into how girls learn to become women or perform gender ; and lists a dazzling array of writers inspired by Jo March, the character associated with Alcott herself, from bell hooks to Cynthia Ozick, Barbara Kingsolver, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Zadie Smith. Rioux's deeply informed, multifaceted, ardently argued, and mind-expanding celebration of Little Women affirms its pleasures and significance as a tale ripe for reconsideration and recommendation to YA and adult readers across the gender spectrum.--Donna Seaman Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
To coincide with the 150th anniversary of the publication of Little Women, Rioux (Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist) offers a solid and well-illustrated history of the novel's publication, reception, and adaptations. Rioux lays out biographical background on author Louisa May Alcott and traces her unlikely move from gothic potboiler author to girls' literature phenom as a result of the book's wild popularity. Rioux also examines the novel's many stage and screen adaptations, argues it is as appropriate for boys as girls (a section that could be condensed), and discusses contemporary YA fiction directly influenced by this seminal work. In one section, Rioux explores the many women writers, from Susan Sontag to J.K. Rowling, inspired by the example of Jo March, one of the only early literary models of female authorship. She also successfully highlights important points in Little Women's history, such as the publisher's altered 1880 edition (still commonly read) that cleans up Alcott's lively slang. Throughout, Rioux offers enough detail to entertain and inform without overwhelming the reader. While she notes the novel's readership has fallen off in recent years, one hopes her well-crafted work will help revive interest in a work she rightfully argues should be placed beside Tom Sawyer as an enduring American classic. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Rioux (Wielding the Pen) begins with a compressed biography of Louisa May Alcott and her family. The Alcotts' poverty influenced how and what Louisa wrote. When a publisher approached her about writing a book about girls, Louisa hesitated, then composed Little Women based on her family. An instant best seller, it became a classic coming-of-age story. The realism of the story, in contrast to the stilted and moralizing tone of most children's books of the time, made it immediately popular with children and adults. It showed four sisters as realistic but flawed characters. Jo, the central character modeled after Alcott herself, is not a romantic heroine, and readers strongly identified with Jo then and now. Descendants of Jo's independent spirit can be found in characters such as Harry Potter's Hermione Granger and Hunger Games' Katniss Everdeen. The latter half of Rioux's book deals with Little Women as a publishing phenomenon and a cultural touchstone. Kimberly Farr offers a thoughtful, perfectly paced narration. Verdict An excellent addition to most library collections. ["Highly recommended for all readers interested in Alcott and her masterpiece's legacy": LJ 8/18 starred review of the Norton hc.]-Cynthia Jensen, Plano P.L., TX © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Rioux (English, University of New Orleans; Constance Fenimore Woolson) commemorates the 150th anniversary of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women with this volume examining the novel's enduring influence. Providing a brief biography of Alcott (1832-88), who faced many hardships yet also saw fame and fortune owing to the work's immediate popularity, Rioux reports ten million copies of the book sold globally since 1868. Moreover, the story has inspired three motion pictures, a play, radio broadcasts, numerous television miniseries, a musical, and an opera, with a new miniseries and film release coming this year. Yet despite its success, critics (especially in the 20th century) have often dismissed the work and schools have ceased teaching what Rioux considers "a core text in the development of feminist literary criticism." Nevertheless, Little Women continues to influence writers and popular media such as television's Gilmore Girls, supporting Rioux's argument for the book to be taught more regularly as it continues to challenge readers. -VERDICT Highly recommended for all readers interested in Alcott and her masterpiece's legacy.-Erica Swenson -Danowitz, Delaware County -Community College Library, Media, PA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A history of Little Women coinciding with the 150th anniversary of its original publication.When it was published in 1868, Louisa May Alcott's novel became an immediate bestseller. Encouraged by her publishers to write a "novel for girls," Alcott set her coming-of-age-story of four sisters during the Civil War and loosely based their struggles and aspirations on her own experiences with her three sisters. For countless generations of young readers, it has remained a beloved favorite as well as an influential touchstone to scores of aspiring writers. Yet this quietly groundbreaking novel has had more than its share of lukewarm responses from literary scholars, and it appears less frequently on high school reading lists compared to classics by noted male authors. Rioux (English/Univ. of New Orleans; Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist, 2006, etc.) writes, "in spite of Little Women's elevation to canonical status, scholars still do not sufficiently acknowledge how key Little Women has been to the development of women's literary traditions in the United States and abroad. It has been a foundational text not only in the history of women's literature but also in individual writers' very conception of themselves as writers and artists." The author devotes the first few chapters to Alcott's family history and early writing career, touching on the similaritiesas well as the striking differencesbetween Alcott's family and the characters in Little Women. Alcott endured considerably more challenging hardships than those depicted in the novel, which continued to fascinate in its many forms. Rioux provides an overview of the various film, stage, and TV incarnations, from the 1933 classic with Katharine Hepburn as Jo to the 1994 version by Australian director Gillian Armstrong (Rioux's favorite). From the 1970s onward, the novel continued to draw closer ties to the evolving women's movement, and its themes of ambition and empowerment have influenced such contemporary TV series as The Gilmore Girls and HBO's Girls.An enlightening, well-documented argument for why this novel is essentialwill inspire readers to become acquainted or reacquainted with this influential classic. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
