Over a lifetime of reading, our perspectives change. (Is there a writer alive who doesn’t imagine herself as Jo?) But when I re-read the book in college, and again as a young mom with three kids under the age of five, I felt a lot like Meg. They were my friends and companions on my own journey to adulthood. My retelling, Beth and Amy, is a sequel to Meg and Jo, with the March sisters all grown up and pursuing their dreams in modern times. The story is about the scope of women’s dreams, the strength of sisterhood, and the different models we can embrace as women. You can only be true to yourself, to your own experience, your own emotions. I’m not sure you can ever live up to that kind of expectation. At the same time, I was aware that because so many readers know and love Little Women, they would to bring their own feelings and memories of reading the book (or watching the movie) to my book. I wanted to be true to the warmth and charm of the original, to honor the text, but also make the story fresh and compelling for readers discovering these characters for the first time.
Little women sisters movie#
If you grew up as a fan of Louisa May Alcott (or of Christian Bale in the 1994 movie version of Little Women or the recent Greta Gerwig release), you may believe the story is perfect exactly as it is. The conflicts in Little Women still feel very modern: family responsibilities and sibling rivalry, work and motherhood, and the tension between creative desire and the need to make money.
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The book is 152 years old and has never gone out of print.
![little women sisters little women sisters](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Houghton_AC85.Aℓ194L.1869_pt.2aa_-_Little_Women%2C_title.jpg)
I wanted to go live with them, to perform in plays and write a newspaper and make friends with the boy next door. The March sisters-reliable Meg, independent Jo, stylish Amy, and shy Beth-felt real to me. I was ten years old when my grandmother gave my sister and me a copy of Little Women. The stories we love put down deep roots inside us, nourished by our imagination and strengthened by repetition.