Little Women

Home school is like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces are constantly changing shape.  I am constantly tweaking, obsessing, worrying, finagling, or coaxing one problem or another in our daily routine.  But there is one golden hour that I always feel is perfect learning, and that is our reading time. 

After Isaiah and Paul have been read to and put down for nap, the house is quieter, and I settle down with the older three to read.  We were spellbound by Laura Ingalls Wilder's simple but poetic accounts of early American frontier life.  We giggled over Alice in Wonderland.  We have been alternately amused and horrified by Grimm's Fairy Tales.  And we loved Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol.  But the twin hits of the year have been Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and Little Men. 

Having read them in my teens, I approached these two novels thinking it would be fun to read them again with the kids.  It turned out that I learned as much or more from my second reading.  Heart-warming family scenes I was prepared for; but a seminar on the well-lived life?  One moment we are entertained by life-like family mishaps, laughing until we cry.  Another chapter squeezes the heart so hard that it is difficult to keep reading aloud.  But woven through this remarkable narrative are great examples of masterful parenting and teaching.  There are life lessons so skillfully illustrated that they sink in without sermonizing.  And there are stunning insights into the gospel of Jesus Christ that astound you with their clarity and depth of understanding. 

And you know what?  The kids loved the books just as well as I did.  There are some memories in the family culture that are formed far away in the settings of the books we've read together.  I am certain that Alcott's characters will always be honorary members of our family.