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    Little Women: Level 1
    Little Women: Level 1
    Little Women: Level 1
    Audiobook (abridged)30 minutes

    Little Women: Level 1

    Written by Louisa May Alcott

    Narrated by Iman

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    This novel chronicles part of the lives of the four March sisters during the Civil War. The story starts as the sisters reminisce about past days when times were more abundant and affluent, then follows them in the years ahead as they become more mature and face both good and bad times in their lives.

    This classic novel has been carefully abridged and adapted into 10 easy-to-understand chapters.

    ©2008 EDCON Publishing Group, Inc. (P)2008 EDCON Publishing Group, Inc.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEDCON Publishing
    Release dateJul 1, 2011
    ISBN9780848113025
    Little Women: Level 1
    Author

    Louisa May Alcott

    Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) is the author of the beloved Little Women, which was based on her own experiences growing up in New England with her parents and three sisters. More than a century after her death, Louisa May Alcott's stories continue to delight readers of all ages.

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    Reviews for Little Women

    4/5

    6,229 ratings163 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Heartwarming story from the family front: virtue, fun, affection, friendship. The worthiness of the girls’ endeavours and attitudes (they channel “Pilgrim’s Progress” to cheer themselves up) which can feel sanctimonious in much 19th century literature, doesn’t unsettle us here, as the telling is done with such gentle wit and simplicity. One sees and feels the charming qualities that have led this book and the four sisters to survive so long in the affections of generations of readers. A pleasure, at times a delight.
    • 3/5
      I read this as a child, but I can't finish it as an adult. I think I liked it when I was 9 or 10, but now I find it terminally boring and insipid. I'm going to have to let it go 30% in because life is too short to be reading a book you dread reading. Too many GOOD books, too little time. The idea for the book was great, but the execution left me wanting.
    • 2/5
      I know a lot of people who just rave over this book, but it was really a struggle for me to even get through it. The characters had no depth, the book was preachy, and the ideals it was preaching for the proper behavior of women were bile-inducing. I know, I know, it was written a long time ago, in a world with different ideals, etc. And yes, I know Alcott was a social reformer and a feminist. But my respect for her and what she did can't make me like this book any more...sorry.

      I have to kind of agree with Jo's publisher, even though this statement was made as something we were supposed to disagree with in the course of the book...

      "People want to be amused, not preached at, you know..."
    • 5/5
      I started re-reading Little Women because I decided that the bookstore needed more book clubs and I was inspired by Atomic Books in Baltimore to begin a Page to Screen Book Club. After much debate, I decided to start with Little Women and we would have a different staff member moderate the club each month. March 10th the first meeting. In the bookstore. In Montgomery County. In the epicenter of the Covid-19 virus outbreak in Pennsylvania. Needless to say, no one showed up. So we’ll try again in April, and as a former film major and screenwriter, I cannot wait to start this club.

      I grew up with a soft and tattered covered copy of Little Women that I read over and over again, so ardently did I wish I was Jo, because my little sister was certainly Amy, and I believed that if I read it constantly, my wish would come true. And she would turn into a kinder and gentler sister, like Beth. That was my wish until my sister had a dreadful fever as a child and my grandmother had us convinced it was Scarlet Fever. And I thought I would lose my sister, just as Jo (well established spoiler but obligatory warning) lost her Beth. And all of a sudden, the book, and the relationships between the sisters, took on a whole new meaning.

      My mother clarified to my sister and I recently that Laura most certainly did not have Scarlet Fever and that Moppy had made an offhand comment about fevers that we latched on to as children, as one does. And in that same conversation, as happens every time Little Women came up, my mother lamented having to share a name with the youngest and most obnoxious March sister, Amy (my mom is definitely a Marmee, not an Amy as I was convinced my sister was). But the lamentation led to an in depth conversation about whether she was redeemed in Greta Gerwig’s film.

      As a writer, someone who has written thousands of unpublished pages of manuscripts across most mediums, I would have an extremely difficult time forgiving a sister who destroyed a single copy of my work. And as I hand write everything, it was, and is, something that could be done. I know I should type it up, but I don’t always. I have milk crates of all the notebooks I filled, binders with printed out copies once I typed them, and right now, a lonely teal softcover Moleskine that hasn’t been touched in way too long.

      To say I identified with Jo for most of my life is an understatement. I’ve always been outspoken and a touch dramatic, the one person who begged her parents for an older sibling (which they always said didn’t work that way until they got divorced and remarried and I got my older brother, and 6 other older siblings over the years to boot), so I could be a middle child like Jo. I refuse to be ignored and I want nothing more than to be remembered, even if just by my family and future generations as I hope to ensure my Moppy will be.

      But one of the defining characteristics of Jo, and Amy, was their competition and distrust of each other. Oh Amy, you troubled, difficult sister. The baby of the family, spoiled by all, including lovely Beth, it was hard to think of her as a character that would ever grow up. She has always gotten dragged for her behavior and actions by readers and I’m often one to jump in on the Amy-bashing, especially given my contentious relationship with my sister when we were younger. While I don’t find many redeeming qualities in Amy in the book, I do think that Greta did a spectacular job of making her a less-hateable character in her film adaptation.

      And as Greta’s Amy changed, so did my own family. Laura grew up, and she reminded me less and less of precocious Amy. I realized we were always more like Ramona and Beezus then we were Amy and Jo. She’s never mellowed into Beth, but has lately begun to encroach on Jo territory, especially that we now have a younger stepbrother and she’s no longer the baby of the family. For myself, the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve found myself drawn to motherly oldest sister Meg, slowly but surely reclaiming my biological birth order persona that I abandoned for many years, content to be the outspoken middle child throughout my adolescence and twenties.

      As a teen, I never really “got” Meg. I didn’t understand why she was a bit vain, and I never thought I was pretty. I just didn’t understand, either, why she’d want to get married – she’d have to give up so many freedoms when she did. And while Meg ultimately made the most socially acceptable decisions in post-Civil War Massachusetts, I’ve realized that she’s now my favorite because those are her decisions, her choices. She makes them not because society demands it of her, but because she wants them. She’s in love, she’s not forced into a match by anyone. Her dreams are different than Jo’s, but they’re still important.

      I had a conversation with a customer recently about if her daughter views her as a feminist because she chose to be a stay-at-home mom. When she was in school, the stay-at-home moms looked down on the working moms, and now it’s the other way around. She was worried that her daughter would think that she caved to some outdated societal expectation, not understanding that she made the decision because it was her choice, not because she had to. I told her that I didn’t think her daughter would think any less of her for staying home and always being there and shared with her a topic that I’d been struggling with for awhile as well.

      I’ve had the conversation with people many times, including with good friends, about the fact that I changed my name when I got married. I have friends who refuse to acknowledge that I’ve changed it, insisting on addressing me by my maiden name because they think that’s what a feminist should have done, kept her name. Few of them understand my choice in changing it was in an effort to carve out my own identity, separate to that of my mother’s as we were in the same field and my work and merit was being questioned as nepotism.

      Meg, the customer, and my choices may fit what modern feminists consider to be outdated social norms, but the point of feminism that I believe Louisa May Alcott is making, is that of freedom. That women should have the right and the opportunity to make whatever decisions they like for their own reasoning, if any reasoning. We should not have to defend ourselves for pursuing our own interests and relationships.

      Little Women has reminded me what it means to be a feminist in a way that I couldn’t conceptualize the first 9 times I read it from the ages of 10 to 14 (I read it twice a year over Christmas and summer break). In rereading and rewatching, I’m reminded of why I love the March sisters, why Marmee is such a good mother, and how I hope to continue to support my own beautiful and loving sister as well as all the women around me.
    • 4/5
      I found the characters too cutesy-old-fashioned when I tried it as a kid (I was a realistic fiction and sci-fi reader exclusively), so I'd somehow never read the whole thing! Greta Gerwig's movie inspired me to finish it, finally.As brilliant as that adaptation is, there are still some enjoyable bits that are never filmed, especially in the second half when they're adults -- like the hilarious sequence where Amy makes Jo go visiting with her and Jo keeps fucking it up. I still find Marmee insufferable: turns out the reason every film Marmee is a holy spouter of platitudes is because she's actually written that way, in every single scene. I also really needed some acknowledgement that these are allegedly poor people *with a servant*, so what does Hannah's life look like when she isn't making everyone a meal at odd hours? But overall, ok, I get it now! This book is great, and deservedly groundbreaking!
    • 3/5
      A Book That Made You CryI should have assigned Little Women to the category A Book You Struggled to Finish. I read at least two – and possibly as many as four – other books in the months between starting and finishing Louisa May Alcott's famous tale of the four March sisters. While I'm glad to have read the book, I'm also glad to have finished.Little Women is a remnant from just after the Civil War, a book that exudes an old-fashioned Christian outlook that life is a struggle to be endured with one eye always on the ultimate reward. There are no surprises in this book – the omniscient, unnamed narrator too often telegraphs her plot – and a reader cannot help but hear a feminine voice in the narration – first by suggestive chapter titles (e.g. "The Valley of the Shadow" portending death), then by alluding to future events, such as foretelling that a character will behave differently the next time he/she is in this situation. Beyond providing clues as to how we should view a character (e.g. "Poor Jo"), the narrator constantly preaches acceptance of disappointments and tragedies as lessons in how to live a worthy life. But you also have to slog through drawn-out scenes for the outcome you know is coming.I didn't find this narrative style particularly off-putting. Alcott has a way of portraying the growing pains of young people from that era realistically. In the chapter "Learning to Forget," she imbues one character's reaction to an unrequited love with such irony that you find yourself laughing with him at his surprising lack of melancholy.I also didn't find this narrative style particularly engaging. I can see where certain readers would enjoy this story, I'm just probably too old and cynical to be counted among them.
    • 3/5
      Could be a bit moralizing but overall interesting and engaging story, both funny and sad. One where I can see why its a classic rather than being annoyed by its being a classic.
    • 4/5
      I had just finished The Goldfinch, which was dark and deep and cynical. This was an exactly opposite read. It was sweet, and preachy and good. I though I had read this book before, but if I have, it's buried down deep. Like a good romantic comedy, I waited for everything to turn out right in the end for Meg, the wife, Jo, the writer, Amy, the beauty, Beth, the saint. And it turned out as it was supposed to be. Like a chord resolving. I read it so I can read March. I found I missed the characters a bit after I finished it. I always take that for a good sign.
    • 5/5
      This is a new favorite classic for me. I absolutely loved it. This book is like a hug.
    • 5/5
      I've read Little Women countless times, but this is the first time I've read it since I got married. This time around, there are aspects of the human heart that just make more sense than they ever did before.
    • 4/5
      Overall I really liked this book. There were points where it was a bit to preachy for my personal taste (though it is fitting with the times in which it was written) and I'm not keen on all the women having to give up their artistic pursuits (again fits with the time and expectations for women but I'm still not keen on it). I will say though I have no idea why everyone hates on Amy. I found her to be an all together interesting character. Jo also had a temper and did horrible things to her so I don't see why the hate is all lumped on to Amy. Perhaps if I had read this as a kid I would have felt differently, but I like Amy.
    • 5/5
      Great classic

      Great classic tale of life love and surviving! Glad I finally read it! I relate to Jo and her boyish ways!
    • 4/5
      3.5 starsMeg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are sisters. Their father is away fighting in the Civil War. They don’t have a lot of money, but they are very loved. The make friends with the neighbour-boy next door, Laurie. They are all quite different personality-wise. This follows them as they grow from teenagers into adulthood.This was good. I read it when I was much younger and did a reread via an audio book for my book club. My mind did travel a bit while listening but mostly it held my attention. I did remember most of it, I think, though more due to the movie from the ‘90s.
    • 4/5
      After a family history with this book I had to read it. It was great, and long,.but I loved the sense of the passage of time, and the pain and happiness of life.
    • 5/5
      I loved rereading (or rather listening to) Little Women after having seen Greta Gerwig's movie. Set during the Civil War, Little Women tells the story of four sisters (Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth) growing up in Massachusetts.
    • 5/5
      This has always been a favorite and that hasn't changed. Each time I read it, I discover a new truth. It's also always such a comfort to me. The Beth parts get me every time. The utter poignancy with which Alcott wrote of Beth's struggles never ceases to wrench my soul.

      I wanted to do another reread after seeing the 2019 film. If you haven't seen it, you simply must. It was a wonderful tribute to Alcott's work, and will be one I'll watch again and again. That being said, the 1994 version with Winona Ryder as Jo still remains my favorite.
    • 3/5
      A great classic.
    • 4/5
      I want to see Greta Gerwig's new adaptation of Little Women, but despite living most of my life in New England, and the past 22 years in Massachusetts, I've failed to read this book. So I'm filling in that gap in my cultural experience. As is often the case with classic novels, I find it hard to write a review that says anything that hasn't been said before.  But I did enjoy this book, which could be old-fashioned at times, but startlingly progressive for its era and still relevant in many ways. The novel is the coming of age story for the March sisters - Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy - living in a fictionalized version of Concord, Massachusetts in the 1860s.  When the story begins, their father is away from home, serving as a pastor in the Civil War, and even when he returns he is a benevolent background characters.  As the title clearly states, this is a women's story, which only seems fair since many novels set in time of war exclude women entirely.  The only prominent male character throughout the novel is the boy next door, Laurie, who becomes a close friend of the March sisters.Meg is the oldest, who takes a lot of responsibility for raising her younger sisters and maintaining the household. She's married in the second part of the book and has some very relatable problems dealing with toddlers who don't want to go to bed. Jo is the second daughter, who struggles with the limitations placed on girls and women of the time, and expectations to marry.  She loves literature and drama, and becomes a writer over the course of the novel.  Not surprisingly, she is the character who is most similar to Alcott herself.  Beth is sweet and shy, and something of the family's conscience.  She has a very close relationship with Jo.  Beth contracts scarlet fever early in the novel and remains very sickly.  The youngest, Amy, is vain and materialistic as the story begins, but matures considerable over the course of the novel.  She becomes a talented artist.I shan't summarize further, but should you be like me and not have read it yet, I suggest you give it a try.  
    • 2/5
      OMG this book is SOOOOOOO boring. I can not believe that this is still a classic and how many times the movie has been remade. UGHHHHHH. I liked the Wynona Rider version of the movie. I thought Christian Bale Lurie was perfect. But the book, I thought it was never going to end. I didn’t like Amy. I thought she was a brat in the movie and I still think the same thing according to this book. In the book I actually liked her ending up with Lurie. It felt fitting and a good match. And could see why her aunt wanted her to accompany her around the world.Beth lasted longer in the book than in the movie. In the movie she dies of scarlet fever, but lasts years longer in the book. I did think the way she was described was interesting. In modern society, she would have a ton of initialed diagnoses after her name. High anxiety, etc.There was so much more depth to the oldest march sister Meg. I don’t remember if it was in the movie that she had twins, or the deals she had with her husband upon marrying. I actually liked her much more in the book than I ever did in the movie. She has more depth.As for Joe. Joe is the reason we have a book. But I wonder if this story was modernized if she wouldn’t be a “they” or “questioning” her gender and roles in society. But that comes from a modern mind reading a classic book. And I don’t make this point because of all the times they say “queer” used as it’s original definiation as odd or unusual. But it's when she is described as not being womanly, or not caring for the roles of women. Overall I may not have enjoyed this book, but I did find it interesting. I know why I tried to read this book many times but never made it that far. And parts of me see why others like it, and why people use it for character studies. But for me, this will never be a book I recommend, but it will be a book I argue and debate.+21 #TBRread#BBRC #OriginalFreezerBook#booked2019 #publicdomain
    • 2/5
      I guess "classics" are just not for me
    • 4/5
      I loved this classic as a teenager and read it many times. Forty years later, I found "Little Women" just as gentle and as charming as the first time I read it as the reader follows the lives of the March girls in a by-gone era.
    • 4/5
      Although this was a novel primarily intended for a female audience, I still found this incredibly likable and appealing. There is much here: sorrow, friendship, family, yearnings, disillusionment, and closure. The characters are vivid and the setting serves as a ready placard to explore their innermost feelings, desires, and emotions. The plot does not waver, it stays concentrated and focused on the intrigues of its principal characters and I feel that it managed to accomplish all that was intended. Overall, a great book. 4 stars.
    • 3/5
      While it is a charming coming of age tale, I found it a tad slow and a bit dry, I really like the movie though.
    • 3/5
      Somewhat entertaining read. I did get a little weary of the repeated moral preaching by adults.
    • 5/5
      The classic tale of the March sisters--Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. It's a coming-of-age tale in many ways as the girls grow up and most find love. Marmee imparts wisdom when her daughters seek it. The neighboring Laurance family, particularly Laurie, plays an important role in the book. Jo begins her career as a writer. This classic never fails to make me cry. Even though I know it is coming, I never want Beth to die.
    • 1/5
      I was given this book when I was a child by my aunt. I absolutely hated it. If I had been a boy, I would have received something like Jules Verne, Gulliver's Travels or The treasure Island. Instead I had to settle for this crap and similar books about nice proper idle stupid girls. No wonder I hated being a girl. I still do. To be precise, now I hate being a woman.
    • 4/5
      It's been a lot of years avoiding the movie, but boy am I grateful that I read this book before seeing the movie. I quite enjoyed the flawed characters, and how realistic their girlish squabbles were. It's refreshing to read a classic where all of the main characters are made from the same perfect mold.Now, I think that I would feel differently if I would have watched the movie first. I watched it after reading the books and found the character beyond annoying. They cam across as pouty little imps. The version of the movie that I watched was the one where Katherine Hepburn plays Jo. I have been a long time fan of Katherine Hepburn, but I hated the way that she overplayed Jo's boyish ways. Blah!
    • 5/5
      Oh, my childhood. I remember reading this when I was much younger (and fresh out of the Little House on the Prairie books). I absolutely love this book and have memories of watching the movie (with Winona Ryder) and just falling in love with it all over again. Highly recommend this classic. Such a lovely tale of family, friendship, and strong women.
    • 5/5
      Yes, it is that good. I read it as a child, and have read it twice again as an adult. Alcott draws you in, and you inhabit her world.
    • 5/5
      A classic from my childhood.
      Well written and compelling. The importance of the bonds of family, friendships and relationships are themes that are still as relevant today as when Alcott first wrote her story.