So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix

Wow, I was excited to read this just because I like Little Women, but this really knocked my socks off. For starters, I had never learned about the Freedmen's Colony on Roanoke Island but that was such an interesting setting for this book and I'm so glad to have learned a bit about it. But then I loved how thoughtfully and sensitively these characters were adapted–the concept that as a slave, Jo was thought by white people to be mute because she knew that she'd get in trouble if she said the things that were on her mind, so she just...didn't talk...and then after being freed getting to be more like the outspoken Jo from the original books......sob Really moving, especially as her family encourages her to explore her burgeoning writing talent. Whew!! And the new layers of Beth's illness here, I don't want to spoil it but it's so smart and beautiful. And just seeing a family like the Marches who are so emotionally intelligent and compassionate, and seeing the way they talk about the experience of slavery and ongoing racism was honestly revelatory to me; I've read a lot of books about the Civil War/race/etc and had never read some of these ideas expressed quite this way before.

The idea of a “Little Women remix” could have been so pat but instead this is a truly new and moving book, worth reading whether or not you've read/enjoyed the original book. Really stunning.