Deborah Noyes

Cassandra Campbell narrates this biography of Alcott’s formative years evoking the high society speech of Massachusetts’ educated society of the mid 1800s. Bound only by her family’s often extreme, but genteel poverty and their adherence to transcendentalism, Louisa was a wild child—encouraged to enjoy nature and express herself in writing and theatrics. The Alcott family had many influential friends who influenced Louisa's thinking. Among these were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Louisa’s mother was from a society family, while her father was a ground-breaking, if unorthodox teacher. From a prolifically literary family, most of the included quotations are from family diary entries. Times of tragedy including Alcott's Civil War nurse experience are read with gravity, but in general, Campbell reads Alcott’s own words with Alcott’s characteristic fortitude. Despite her circumstances, Louisa May Alcott always had confidence that she would succeed. In a plucky voice, Campbell reads Alcott’s diary entry acknowledging that her assets amount to “eight cents and a fortune in prospects.”… (mer)