The nineteenth-century writer Louisa May Alcott is best known for her novel Little Women, which describes the lives of four New England sisters around the time of the American Civil War. But before she wrote that novel, Alcott wrote fairy tales and fantasies for children. Shealy's book collects them all, including the complete contents from Alcott's books Flower Fables, The Rose Family, and Morning Glories and Other Stories.
Daniel Shealy provides a lengthy and informative introduction to this collection in which he discusses the history of fairy tales and children's literature in Europe and America, and then focuses specifically on Alcott's work. He points out that, although Alcott's tales are explicit morality tales, this was not unusual for children's literature of her time, and indeed was prevalent in adult literature, as well. Alcott would naturally have followed in that tradition.
Many of the stories draw heavily on natural settings: meadows, woods, and gardens, and sometimes her characters are nonhuman living things such as seagulls and flowers. The stories always teach lessons, such as the evils of selfishness, laziness, greed and vanity, and the importance of love and hard work.
In one story, shadows come to life and teach three children to obey their mother. In another, a seagull is captured by a little girl, but finally achieves his freedom. His ordeal is compared to that of a little slave girl, another character in the same story. In yet another tale, three flower sisters have separate adventures teaching them to recognize and overcome their flaws. Many of the stories have happy endings, though some do not.
These stories are beautifully written and imaginative, but I have a hard time believing that they would be entertaining for twentieth-century children. Although children have a strict sense of right and wrong, and like to see justice done, I just don't think the characters in these stories would ring true for them. They would seem too "goody-goody." The experiences would not be familiar enough to hold their interest, either. Therefore, I hesitate to recommend this book as bedtime reading for a young child. However, Alcott scholars and collectors, and those who study the evolution of children's literature, fantasy, or fairy tales might very well find this collection significant.
