Flower Fables

Louisa May Alcott

Flower Fables is Louisa May Alcotts first book, penned at 16. She created the fanciful stories for the amusement of the daughter of a family friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Miss Alcott loved and was well acquainted with flowers, insects, birds and animals of the meadows and forest. From these beauties she spun adventures of enchanting natures woodland fairies, telling them to children of friends and others. Each fable has a moral of sorts, a captivating way to inspire children to selfless, gentle, loving behavior. Readers meet a cast of elves, fairies, brownies and sprites with such Shakespearean names as Willy Wisp, Moonbeam and Thistledown, and the children who occasionally dally with them. Thinly disguised morality lessons told in an over-upholstered style, they instruct the audience in the importance of various virtues. This is a nice collection of fairy tales that is sure to please young readers and the adults reading to them alike.

Jack and Jill. A Village Story

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott, more famously known for her Little Women series, takes a familiar nursery rhyme and creates a whole novel out of it in one of her last books Jack and Jill: A Village Story. The story follows the lives of two 13-year-old neighbors, Jack and Jill, in the fictional Harmony Village. They go sledding on the first day of the season whereupon their adventurous natures and competitiveness get the better of them. After sledding down a particularly treacherous slope, both are seriously injured. Patience and sweetness of temperament arent Jack and Jills strong suits, and both struggle at times to control their tempers. Luckily they have the influence of their sweet mothers and a group of steadfast friends to show them the virtues of patience and fill their days with the joys of Christmas preparations, a theatrical production and many other imaginative events. As an early forerunner of the tough love philosophy of child rearing, Jack and Jill is indeed an interesting and entertaining read.

Jos Boys and How They Turned Out

Louisa May Alcott

Better known for her novels Little Women and Little Men, Louisa May Alcott continued the story of her feisty protagonist Jo in this final novel chronicling the adventures and misadventures of the March family. It is the only Alcott novel that has not had a film adaption. Originally published in 1886, two years before Ms. Alcotts death, Jos boys follows the lives of the young men readers came to love and cherish in its prequel. In it, we learn the fates of Jos sons Rob and Teddy, along with the other boys at Plumfield Estate School. Each boy must learn to deal with death, love, heartbreak, disappointment and the consequences of their actions. Entertaining, surprising, and overall a joy to read, Jos boys is nevertheless shaded by a bittersweet tone, for with it Alcott brought her wonderful series to an end.

Kittys Class Day and Other Stories

Louisa May Alcott

Originally published under the title Proverb Stories in 1882 by Louisa May Alcott, this collection of sweet stories with a high moral tone includes: Kittys Class Day, Aunt Kipp, Psyches Art, A Country Christmas, On Picket Duty, The Barons Gloves, My Red Cap, and What the Bells Saw and Said. Using different characters in each story, she has portrayed various aspects of life brilliantly. It is a collection with lots of moralistic and didactical ideas. Using proverbs as heading for her stories she has presented profoundly didactic tales. Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist who, in the mid-1860s, wrote passionate, fiery novels and sensational stories. She also produced wholesome stories for children, and after their positive reception, she did not generally return to creating works for adults. Alcott continued to write until her death.

Les Quatre Filles du docteur Marsch

Louisa May Alcott

Guerre civile américaine en Amérique. Le Dr March a rejoint larmée du Nord, ne laissant que sa femme et ses quatre filles, quatre surs aux tempéraments et aux passions opposés. Meg est sentimentale, Beth aime la musique, Joe est la fois un garçon manqué et un écrivain novice.

Little Men. Or, Life at Plumfield With Jos Boys

Louisa May Alcott

Now married, the warm-hearted and fiesty Jo Bhaer (nee March) couldnt be happier. Jo, along with her husband Professor Friedrich Bhaer, operates the Plumfield Estate School, an unconventional school based on individuality and diversity. Plumfield is a haven for poor orphans which is attended by 12 adopted boy and Jos own two sons. Although Plumfield is a place of trust and warmth, the boys occasionally struggle to maintain good manners. Personal relationships are key to the school, as well as to the novel, and the lovable characters get up to plenty of scrapes and adventures, but in the end, even the troublesome among them find redemption in the love and support of the extended March family. Little Men, or Life at Plumfield with Jos Boys is the delightful unofficial sequel to Louisa May Alcotts Little Women, which is completed with Alcotts 1886 novel Jos Boys, and How They Turned Out: A Sequel to Little Men.

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcotts most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Four sisters are raised in genteel poverty by their loving mother in a quiet Massachusetts town while their father serves as an army chaplain during the American Civil War. Here are independent, tomboyish Jo; delicate, loving Beth; pretty, kind Meg; or precocious and artistic Amy, the baby of the family. The charming story of these four little women and their wise and patient mother Marmee enduring hardships and enjoying adventures in Civil War New England was an instant success when first published in 1868 and has been adored for generations. Following the lives of the March sisters, the novel details their passage from childhood to womanhood and is loosely based on the author and her three sisters. The novel has two sequels: Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jos Boys (1871) and Jos Boys and How They Turned Out (1886).

Mali mężczyźni

Louisa May Alcott

Małe kobietki oraz ich kontynuacja Dobre żony skradły serca czytelniczkom w Polsce i na świecie. Mali mężczyźni to trzecia część tego cyklu - opowieści o niezwykłej Jo, teraz już dorosłej pani Bhaer, prowadzącej równie niezwykłą jak ona sama szkołę dla chłopców (choć jak się okaże nie tylko). Książka opowiada o życiu Jo Bhaer, jej męża i dzieciaków ze szkoły w Plumfield. Karty książki zaludniają młodzi bohaterowie, a ich przygody bawią i wzruszają. Wszystkie książki cyklu, choć tak uroczo bajkowe, były jednak w dużej mierze oparte na prawdziwych wydarzeniach z życia autorki, co dodaje im większego znaczenia i kolorytu. Ponieważ jedynym zadaniem tej powieści jest opis niektórych scen wziętych z życia w Plumfield, dla rozrywki pewnych osóbek - opowiemy, w jaki sposób bawili się chłopcy pani Jo. Wierzcie mi, Szanowni Czytelnicy, że te zdarzenia są po większej części wzięte z rzeczywistości i że najdziwaczniejsze są najprawdziwszymi - bo dorosła osoba, chociażby obdarzona była najżywszą wyobraźnią, nigdy nie zdoła wymyśleć tak zabawnych psot jak te, co się zrodzą w twórczych mózgownicach dzieci. Louisa May Alcott