Little Women and Me - By Lauren Baratz-Logsted Page 0,4
You’d think that with daughters named Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, my parents’ last name might be Brontë. But no. Our last name is March, which is something I loved about Little Women. It may sound superficial, but the characters having the same last name as me always made me identify with them, kind of like Mr. O.’s ability to identify with a football player now that they share the same last name.
Two. Jo March is a writer. I’ve always loved writing, even more than I love reading, and a lot of that can be traced back to Jo March. What girl doesn’t want to be Jo March after reading about her writing stories in her garret while chomping on crisp apples? Chomping apples may not seem like the definition of cool, but the way Jo did it, it just set her apart from everyone else, and in a good way, like it was somehow a sign of her independent spirit. Jo is the March girl every reader wants to be.
Three. The amazing relationship between the four sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. They were all so different, yet even when they argued—unlike with Charlotte or Anne and me—they always managed to love and eventually support one another. They actually made having siblings seem like a good idea. Girls without any sisters want to have sisters like them. And girls like me, ones with sisters who always make you feel like the least important people in your own families—those girls really wanted to have sisters like them!
This is good. My outline is practically writing itself.
Now for the second part. What’s the one thing I would change to make Little Women a perfect book?
Hmm …
I open the book, figuring maybe reading a little bit will help me decide, flip past the first woodcut illustration to the first chapter and the first line:
“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
Having read the first line, I read another, and then another. Before I know it, I’m caught up in the story. This surprises me, given how often I’ve read it before. And what further surprises me is that even though I have read it many times already, there’s so much of the story that feels new, things I don’t remember reading before. Is that because it’s been four years since I last read it? Or is it because I’m different now, older?
I stare at the pages, still stuck with trying out what should be changed about the book.
Maybe the thing that happens to Beth? I always hated that. But wait a second. What about how things end up for Jo and Amy with the boy next door, Laurie? That has to be the most frustrating romantic outcome in any book ever.
But which to change?
The thing with Beth? The thing with Jo and Amy and Laurie? The—
V~ROOM!
What’s that sound? Is that Charlotte vacuuming in the hopes of getting our mother to think her even more wonderful than she already thinks her to be?
I cross the room, bang my copy of Little Women against the closed door. Rude, I know. But still.
The sound doesn’t stop, however. Instead, it grows in volume and suddenly I feel myself spinning in circles rapidly, spinning and spinning until …
WHOOSH!
Talk about being sucked into a book.
One
“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled the girl, lying on the rug.
I looked at the girl sprawled out in front of the crackling fire. She was my age or maybe just a bit older—tall, thin, large nose, gray eyes, chestnut hair piled into a messy bun, long gray dress. I knew her. Oh, not from school or town. No, I knew her from the woodcut illustrations—yeah, the ones in my book. And I knew the words she’d spoken, which were the opening lines, of course.
Jo March!
I blinked my eyes hard at the impossible vision—what was going on?—only to snap them open again at the sound of other girl voices.
It was so strange, coming in on the middle of the conversation. What were they talking about? Something about missing Papa? Something about the war?
I followed the voices to the speakers. They all wore long dresses, seriously ugly boots peeking out from beneath the hems. The oldest looking of the girls had soft brown hair tied up in some kind of funky ’do. She looked like a size 16 and she kept studying her hands as though she thought they were the coolest thing ever. Whoa! That’s Meg March, I thought.