I think Walt Disney said that in a black and white preamble to Bambi or some other movie I watched as a child (and again as a parent). It is often true. So when the latest rendition of Little Women in movie form was released this holiday season, I was anxious to see it, but not before reading the book again. It has been about 40 or so years since I first read it, after all.
I found it after the Christmas tree came down - it was on the bookshelf behind the tree - and put it on my to-read pile. I just finished it this weekend.
I fondly remembered the illustrations. It was a familiar story and yet different read through my adult lenses. I probably didn’t notice the impacts of the poverty of wartime or the preposterousness of the patriarchal structures of the time on my first read. I cried a couple of times: once when Beth died (Spoiler Alert!) and then again at the end when Jo found love and contentment after a restless period. Of the four women, Jo, the book loving 'tomboy' sister, was my favourite.
I own a 1955 printing of the Louissa May Alcott classic that once belonged - and maybe still belongs - to my mother; I see that she wrote her name and address on the inside cover.
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She wrote her name again on the back cover, adding the date XMAS 1956. (She would have been 10 years of age).
Daughters read their mother’s books. Last year, my adult daughter told me she got hooked on Harry Potter because one day, having read all the books on her own bookshelves, she came searching through mine. She found The Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling, the second book in the Harry Potter series. She read it and loved it, and realized there was a first book, The Philosopher’s Stone, that she also found my bookshelf. Since then, I have purchased and read each new Harry Potter book, only to watch it end up on her shelf. In fact, it was only this past fall I finally got a full set that stays on my shelf.
Last evening, I asked my mother if she gave me the Little Women book, or if I absconded it. She couldn’t remember and said either was likely. Maybe in the end it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we parents have bookshelves full of great books that are available and accessible to our children. That is how children ‘borrowing’ these books becomes a wonderful family literacy tradition.
Happy Family Literacy Day!
Cheryl Brown (@CherylAnneBrown) is co-creator of the Storytent and Bookwagon programs, QLNB's Community Literacy Coordinator, and long-time advocate for and facilitator of a variety of family literacy initiatives.
