Madeleine L'Engle
Louisa May Alcott
What a wonderful coincidence – Louisa May Alcott was born on this day in 1832, the same day as Madeleine L’Engle, in 1918.
Alcott was a favorite author of mine before I even knew how to read; my mom read Little Women to me out loud. When I did learn to read on my own, L’Engle was the author who best held my attention. From A Wrinkle in Time, to A Ring of Endless Light, to her memoirs, I think I read (and re-read) about 20 of L’Engle’s books.
Trisha reviewed the biography Louisa May Alcott, by Harriet Reisen, earlier in the month. On comparisons between Alcott and her heroine Jo March, she wrote:
the real Louisa was just as intelligent, hot-tempered, rebellious and ambitious as her fictional counterpart. But the true story of Alcott’s life is both more tragic and more triumphant than anything she cooked up for her favorite little woman.
The book has been adapted by PBS for their American Masters series. (The film debuts Dec. 28.) After the jump, watch outtakes from PBS’s “Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women.”
Revisiting childhood and teen favorites seems to be a trend right now. In Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, Lizzie Skurnick writes about beloved YA novels. (Read an interview with Skurnick.) In Everything I need to Know I learned From a Children’s Book, Anita Silvey asks over 100 people to choose a book from childhood that changed their worldview.
Alcott and L’Engle certainly inspired my love of reading. What books or authors are your childhood favorites?
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L.M. Montgomery. Anne Shirley is such a wonderful character and the world of Avonlea so captivating. I have all the books in the series and I loved sharing them with my daughter.
Hello. Enjoyed your comments. You can see mine about the Reisen book at http://silverseason.wordpress.com/. I’m looking forward to the TV version.
Two other favorite books that influenced me in childhood were The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland. Interesting that Little Women is rooted in reality while the other two are fantasies. But all involve strong heroines.
I grew up in Oklahoma, and loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I especially remember reading about making their first little 9-patch quilts, and I’m a quilter, I believe, because of it!