Guest post by Belle Thomas, webmaster of oldfashionedgirl.blog
A few years ago, when visiting Louisa May Alcott’s home in Concord, Massachusetts, I discovered a book called The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick.
According to the summary on the back of the book, the story was about four girls and their moms embarking on a journey to read Little Women, which immediately piqued my interest and brought a myriad of questions into my head. Would this book do justice to Little Women? Would it be a good book overall?
I read the book (and the later books in the series) and have concluded that I am excited to share it with you.
For starters, this book caters to a young audience. The main characters are in sixth grade, so plot-wise, the story is light. The story unfolds through each girl’s viewpoint as the school year progresses.
The four girls in the book loosely resemble the characters in Little Women, but not so much that it is obvious. We have Emma, a quiet girl who adores books and writing, and Cassidy, who is loud and loves playing hockey more than anything. Then we have Megan, a girl passionate about clothing and fashion design, and finally, there is Jess, a shy, animal-loving singer.
The characters aren’t overly complex in this first book. Still, considering the audience, it makes sense that a reader could easily insert herself into any of the characters she likes.
What sets this book apart from other books that have tried to do similar things is that the setting of The Mother-Daughter Book Club is Concord, Massachusetts. The backdrop for the characters is Louisa’s renowned hometown, where real locations in the town play a prominent role.
On the night of Halloween, the girls play a prank on some mean girls in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. On Patriot’s Day (April 19), they wake up early to watch a battle reenactment, and toward the end of the book, they take a picnic to Orchard House, tour, and see Anna Alcott’s wedding dress.
The author grew up in Concord and has also done historical research because she highlights many essential things from Concord’s history. In the later books, the girls comment on how much they hate reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlett Letter and learn how L.M. Montgomery made a pilgrimage to Concord. In the later books, they also learn how so many authors who write for girls drew inspiration from Alcott and Little Women.
This book treats both Little Women and Louisa May Alcott with respect. The author demonstrates how a book like Little Women can bring many different people together, and she doesn’t try to change the story.
At every book club meeting in the book, the mothers hand out a sheet of fun facts about Louisa. They talk about how she loved to act, what parts of Little Women were true to life, what fictionalized, and so on. It offers subtle insight into Little Women that the average reader may not get or understand.
The wonderful thing about this book is that it can be a doorway into girls reading Little Women for the first time. Even though The Mother-Daughter Book Club isn’t the finest book in the world, it has a purpose and executes it well. It simultaneously educates and entertains. It melds history and the present together, showing that they aren’t as separate as we sometimes think.
Some things about this book are dramatic and unbelievable, such as the girl’s too-good-to-be-true trip to New York (and to see Little Women the Musical on Broadway.) But even though the book isn’t always overly believable, I think that adds to the charm. Not every book we read is supposed to mirror life, and Little Women doesn’t. But through a realistic or fantasized story, we can learn something or be entertained by it. And I think that that in and of itself is a valuable thing.
The book ends at the end of the girls’ sixth-grade year, but the series progresses and follows the girls through high school as they read more classic books such as Pride and Prejudice and Anne of Green Gables. This series introduced me to books I had never heard of (such as Betsy-Tacy and Daddy-Long-Legs), and I learned incredible facts about authors I knew and loved.
This series proves that reading classics doesn’t have to be boring, which is amazing!
Belle Thomas’s blog, An Old Fashioned Girl, is inspired by the classic novel with the same title by Louisa May Alcott. She was inspired to create a place to share her thoughts on the simple things in life – the old fashioned things. She added, “As I thought about it, I began to realize that this would also be an amazing outlet to share my faith, because to the eyes of the world, faith in Jesus can often seem ‘old fashioned.‘”
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