22. Little Men by Louisa May Alcott

Up to this point, Eight Cousins has always been my favorite Alcott novel. Little Men definitely did not change my opinion. I was looking forward to another light-hearted romp with well-behaved youngsters written in the mode of days gone by. This book has all that except for a few less-well-behaved boys who really are the most interesting characters. The problem is that every antic or adventure ended with moralizing and preaching. You see, Little Men is the story of Jo and Franz Baer's school for boys as a sequel to Little Women. And Jo and Professor Baer never miss an opportunity to teach those boys plus two little girls a lesson. Which gives Alcott an opportunity to preach to the reader. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood, but I found the children too precocious and the outcomes too easy. The whole story was just too precious. I did like the idea of a school with twelve male students and two female students and two teachers. They were able to gear lessons to what each student was interested in. In addition to reading, writing and arithmetic, Daisy was able to pursue her interest in cooking, Nan in medicine, Dan in botany; and so forth. It would be wonderful if education could be so individualized today. But more important than education was building the children's character, and Alcott brings that in with an iron fist. I still have Jo's Boys to read. Maybe they will already have developed sterling charcters in this book so the preaching will be minimized. Rating: 2.5