Welcome to the Little Women Read Along!

A slow read through Little Women

Hello friends!

If you’re a subscriber to Just Beautiful, you’re automatically on this email list. You can unsubscribe from this list if you don’t want Little Women Read Along updates, and you’ll remain on my main newsletter list!

Everyone else: Welcome!

Who is this for?

• Anyone who wants to read Little Women with a little bit of community and support!

• Long-time Little Women fans looking for juicy details on the author’s life and literary/ thematic references AND first-time readers who just want to understand what the book is about.

• Anyone who wants to read with openness - I’m all for being critical when the time is right! But in this case, we’re reading with the goal of seeing how Little Women can help us today, in our own lives, with our daily struggles and challenges. This was one of the original goals of the book - Part One is based on Pilgrim’s Progress, and one of the author’s aims was to write a book that encouraged young people in their daily struggles to choose the path of virtue.

Here’s how it will work:

• Get a copy of Little Women. You can get it for free on Project Gutenberg on your kindle, but hey, I also wrote an annotated edition of Little Women that’s great for teen and middle-grade readers ….but also for anyone! The annotated edition has background information about the author’s life, and notes on literary and thematic references throughout. But seriously, just get yourself Little Women. 😀

• We’ll do a Slow Read: Just 5 chapters a week. This will take us right up to Lent, actually! This book is really engaging, and even though it’s long, you could read it in a weekend. But I think the benefit of a slow read is that we will have time to talk about it/ share what we think and really pay attention to details. And if you get behind, you’ll have time to catch up.

• Weekly reading reminders: I’ll send out weekly reminder emails on what we are reading. (If you’re a subscriber to Just Beautiful, you’ll automatically be subscribed to the read along emails. You can UNSUBSCRIBE from these, and it won’t affect your Just Beautiful subscription, but it WILL affect you if you want the other Read Along updates).

• Every three weeks or so, I’ll share a summary of what we’ve read and some main themes, and we can share our thoughts/ comments/ favorite quotes and questions in the comments. I’ll be in the comments to answer questions! It would be lovely to get a little discussion going, even if it’s just a matter of posting your favorite quote!

• Paid subscribers to Just Beautiful will also have access to a little 15 minute audio guide for those chapters with background content on Alcott’s life and literary references.

Here’s the schedule for the first month:

• January 1st - January 10: Chapter 1-5 (Playing Pilgrims to Being Neighborly)

• January 11 - January 17: Chapter 6- 10 (Beth Finds Palace Beautiful to The PC and The PO)

• January 18- January 24: Chapter 11- 15 (Experiments to A Telegram)

• January 25 to January 31: Chapter 16- 20 (Letters to Confidential)

• Feb 1 to Feb 7: Chapter 21 - 23 (Laurie Makes Mischief to Aunt March settles the Question)