Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux

Reviewed by: Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux Anne K. Phillips (bio) Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters. By Anne Boyd Rioux. New York: Norton, 2018. The celebration of the 150th anniversary of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women began in 2018 and continues this year. Scholars have engaged in blogs, panels, public lectures, and other activities to commemorate the occasion, asking, among other questions, why has Little Women remained significant? What is its legacy? Will it continue to resonate with readers, adapters, and scholars? The answer to that last question is that it does, as Anne Boyd Rioux establishes in her study. Rioux discusses Alcott's life, work, and milieu, tracks the novel's adaptation history and its illustrated editions, and catalogs the homage paid by countless fans. Supplementing the reception work of Beverly Lyon Clark, Barbara Sicherman, and others, Rioux attests that Little Women is "the paradigmatic book about growing up" (xii). However, as Rioux acknowledges, there is some question as to whether Little Women will continue to resonate. Her research into school curricula concurs with Clark's conclusions in The Afterlife of Little Women (2014) that Alcott's novel isn't often taught and may even be regarded as inappropriate for young readers. The objections compiled by Rioux range from distaste for what is perceived as the novel's sentimentality to dismay because girl readers should have the opportunity to discover the novel privately. Rebutting such concerns, she offers a well-researched and articulate defense of Little Women's continuing relevance. Where Rioux particularly rises to her material is in her consideration of what Alcott's novel offers to both young women and young men. Chapter 7, "'A Private Book for Girls': Can Boys Read Little Women?," makes a compelling case for including more works about girls in school curricula. Identifying bias in curricular literature selections, Rioux satirizes the belief that "[a] book that is about girls, whose very title seems to announce its gender exclusivity, is to be kept at home, not brought into the glaring light of the classroom" (165). Although for decades Little Women was considered appropriate for readers regardless of gender and attracted enthusiastic male readers (including Theodore Roosevelt, George Orwell, Gabriel Byrne, James Carville, and John Green), it "has migrated from the classroom to optional summer reading lists and homeschooling text lists (another way it stays at home)." Attributing this movement to attitudes toward feminism, preferences [End Page 334] for contemporary texts, and concerns about boys' reading trends, Rioux asserts that "the erasure of Little Women is part of a larger silencing of women's voices in literature classrooms, which has only become more profound as issues relating to women's lives have become more socially volatile" (164–65). Not only are teachers and librarians not selecting or promoting Little Women (even the first part, with its emphasis on theatricals, family newspapers, and building castles in the air), but there is also "plenty of anecdotal evidence show[ing] that … they, along with parents and peers, are actively discouraging boys from picking up or checking out so-called girls' books at all" (167). Rioux asserts that "it is important for boys at least occasionally to read books about girls, particularly those in which girls appear as individuals rather than as extensions of boys' lives." Further, she insists, "Little Women is one of the most valuable texts we have for helping readers young and old, male and female, to think about the complex issues of identity formation and maturation, and what role gender plays in them. Why then would we tell boys that it's not a book for them?" (178–79). Her conclusions here are supported by compelling personal observations of the novel's reception by students of different genders, ages, and backgrounds. Another strength of Rioux's monograph is its commentary on how Alcott revised her novel. For decades, manuscripts of Little Women were unavailable. However, the Concord Free Public Library has acquired and made accessible two chapter drafts that had long been retained by private collectors. Rioux addresses the drafts' content...