I recently finished reading Aunt Jo’s Scrapbag volume 6 by Louisa May Alcott. It’s a collection of short stories so it’s obviously a mixed bunch of tales and as always with these things some are better than others, but they were all worth reading. I read it on my Kindle and downloaded it, free from Project Gutenberg here.
L.M. Alcott was a woman ahead of her time. From her writing in these short stories she was obviously anti-slavery but also anti-caged birds and anti-whaling. While reading The Whale’s Story I experienced one of those strange moments when I saw that the tale was being told by a Right whale (deceased) from Greenland. Just a couple of hours earlier I had been reading an article about how a very rare Right whale had been spotted very far from where it should have been. Until then I had never even heard of Right whales!
You can read a wee bit about Alcott’s life here.
Growing up half an hour from Concord, I was fascinated by LMA and read and reread her books as a child, including several volumes of short stories. I agree that some are better than others but I recall that some were charming, better than L.M. Montgomery’s short stories (I am part of a group that is reading Chronicles of Avonlea currently and as I am not much of a short story fan, I have been comparing them to Alcott in my mind). My favorite Alcott is Eight Cousins and the sequel, Rose in Bloom.
Constance,
I’m not a big fan of short stories either. I love L.M. Montgomery’s books too, as I had/have red hair and freckles I really identified with Anne. I enjoyed Eight Cousins a wee while ago but didn’t realise there was a sequel, I’ll have to get that one, thanks for the info.