I bought this book at "The Orchard House" in Concord, Massachusetts where Louisa May Alcott lived while she wrote "Little Women". I didn't enjoy this book as a girl, but I appreciate it more now. It was a pleasure to read about young women who are more interested in developing their character than their appearance. The writing style is lively enough to carry the reader through plotlines that are credible to the point of banal. It is also a wonderful depiction of daily life of its time. It is also a feminist novel -- the home is the core of a woman's responsibility, but the home is also seen as absolutely crucial for society. Oddly, I think the denigration of the role of women in the world belongs to a later era. ( )

Alcott's classic work about the Civil War-era March family.