Little Men & Jo's Boys (Wordsworth Children's Classics)

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In the Introduction of Louisa May Alcott: A Biography, author Madeleine B. Stern states that “Louisa May Alcott was throughout her life a professional author skilled in creation and the re-creation implicit in revision.” [15] Alcott's works borrowed “as source material episodes from her life, her observations, her travels, her experiences, [and] her reading.” [16] Alcott’s legacy remains in her depiction of life and her devotion to family. [17] Her overall work is considered, “neither of Hell nor of Heaven, but of a multitude of stories in a variety of literary genres, ranging from fairy tales to realistic war sketches, from sensation thrillers to domestic sagas.” [18] Analysis [ edit ] Did you ever wonder what happened to Jo March from Little Women? She grew up, of course, and followed her dream to become a writer. In addition, she opened a school, home to her two children and twelve other boys. There’s accident-prone Tommy, bookish Demi, and greedy Stuffy. Into this large, unusual family arrives Nat – a skinny, nervous orphan boy with no schooling, just a fearless talent for the violin. Amid all the scrapes and japes of twelve rambunctious boys, can little Nat find his place at Plumfield? She expected that he would hesitate; but he seized the old fiddle at once, and handled it with such loving care, it was plain to see that music was his passion.

Little Men, or Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys, is a children's novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), which was first published in 1871 by Roberts Brothers. The book reprises characters from her 1868–69 two-volume novel Little Women, and acts as a sequel, or as the second book in an unofficial Little Women trilogy. The trilogy ends with Alcott's 1886 novel Jo's Boys, and How They Turned Out: A Sequel to Little Men. Alcott's story recounts the life of Jo Bhaer, her husband, and the various children at Plumfield Estate School. Alcott's classic novel has been adapted to a 1934 film, a 1940 film, a 1998 film, a television series, and a Japanese animated television series. Richard Beard’s six novels include Lazarus is Dead, Dry Bones and Damascus, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. In the UK he has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award and longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. His latest novel Acts of the Assassins was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2015. He is also the author of four books of narrative non-fiction, including his 2017 memoir The Day That Went Missing. Formerly Director of The National Academy of Writing in London, he is a Visiting Professor (2016/17) at the University of Tokyo, and has a Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia. In 2017 he is a juror for Canada’s Scotiabank Giller Prize. Beard is also an occasional contributor to the Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Financial Times, Prospect and The Nightwatchman.

This isn’t a balanced book: it is passionate, angry, withering, and all the more readable for it. That said, it is written with enough subtlety to allow us to feel sympathy for characters who we understand to have grown into men whose sense of confidence and entitlement is utterly out of step with their competence, with devastating (and sometimes deadly) consequences for the rest of us.

Personal relationships are central to the school, and diversity is celebrated. Daisy is deeply attached to her twin brother, to shy Nat, and to tomboy Nan. Nan and Tommy are also close and the latter intends to marry Nan when they grow up. Dan, already friends with Nat, is unexpectedly drawn to the pious Demi and the toddler Teddy. While Franz Hoffmann, Emil Hoffmann, Daisy and Demi are all related to the Bhaers, they are not treated with favouritism and are encouraged to overcome their faults just the same as the other pupils. Could I? Oh, I would like it ever so much. You see I used to go round fiddling with my father, and another man, till he died.” In those days a private boys' boarding school education was largely the same experience as it had been for generations: a training for the challenges of Empire. He didn't enjoy it. But the first and most important lesson was to not let that show.It feels like this was a cathartic book for Beard to write, and I'm pleased for him if that's the case. Probably it might make cathartic reading for traumatised/repressed English public school old boys. It presents little of substance most people (surely, deep down) didn't know already, so I can appreciate it more as a work of extended autobiography than as history or polemic or whatever else. Its arguments are strained and subjective enough that it probably won't convince someone who is pro-boarding school, or even sympathetic or nostalgic about the concept.

Little Men was first adapted into film in 1934 starring Erin O'Brien-Moore and Ralph Morgan. Another film followed in 1940 with Kay Francis. In 1998, a Canadian feature starring Mariel Hemingway and Chris Sarandon was released. [ citation needed] Television [ edit ] Nat held her hand fast in his, but had not a word to say, and let his grateful eyes speak for him, as Mrs. Bhaer led him up to a big room, where they found a stout German woman with a face so round and cheery, that it looked like a sort of sun, with the wide frill of her cap for rays. Little Men: Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys Chicago, New York: M. A. Donohue & Co., c1871 at A Celebration of Women WritersIf in hindsight our education seems unbelievable, the consequences are increasingly apparent. Fragile, entitled, in good times and bad we revert to what we learned as boys. But what was that, exactly?"