Author(s): Louisa May Alcott; Maïté Schmitt (Illustrator); Jeremy Hauck (Editor)

Childrens Reference

Little Women tells the story of the four March sisters and their mother struggling to live on limited means against the backdrop of the Civil War.

One-hundred-and-fifty years since it was published, Little Women still shows girls how to push gender boundaries and be true to themselves! Taking place during the Civil War, Louisa May Alcott's renowned American novel finds the four March sisters--conventional Meg, unconventional Jo, shy Beth, and artistic Amy--and their mother, Marmee, home at Christmas, 1862, struggling with how to make ends meet while exercising their New England values of charity, honesty, and thrift. The sisters' father, having lost his money in a bad loan, is away volunteering as a chaplain for the Union Army. Understood to be a semi-autobiographical novel, Alcott's stand-in, Jo, finds her way as a writer and as a young woman in a society that expects women and girls to play specific roles. And through the short span of years that the novel encompasses, the sisters and their mother--wise, unselfish Marmee--stick together and help each other through setbacks and celebrate each other's successes.