Eight Cousins (Puffin Classics)
by Louisa May Alcott
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Book Summary Information
Author: Louisa May AlcottBrand: Penguin Group USA
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1995-09-01
ISBN: 0140374566
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Book Reviews of Eight Cousins (Puffin Classics)
Book Review: A girl's transformation
Summary: 5 Stars
Rose Campbell, at 13 1/2, can't remember her mother and has lived most of her life with a reclusive father, who died just under a year ago and left her to the care of a crowd of relatives she's never met, including her Uncle Alec, a ship's doctor who is to be her guardian, and a batch of cousins, all "dreadful boys." Though schooled by her father, she's had less than a full term of formal education, and her aunts think she's "delicate" and doomed to an early death. But her family has been sea captains for generations, and there's some of that hardy stock even in Rose, as she discovers when she finally meets her uncle and the seven boys--"Prince" Charlie, the only son of Uncle Steve and Aunt Clara; Mac and Steve, sons of Uncle Mac and Aunt Jane; and Archie, Geordie, Will, and Jamie, aged sixteen to six, sons of Uncle Jem and Aunt Jessie. Uncle Alec prescribes fresh air, exercise, wholesome food and sensible dress, and the boys introduce her to all sorts of good fun, until even morbid Aunt Myra, a widow whose hobby is to believe that "everyone is tottering on the brink of the grave," is inspired to hints of reform.
Rose's life is very different than that familiar to most of her readers, but the exhortations to be "a lady" are not all that different from today's social pressures that urge girls to be "grown up" and jaded at 15. And while the second half of the book contains a fair amount of moralizing--some of it regarding things most people would think harmless, like popular fiction or the mild vanity of a girl wanting her ears pierced so she can wear her mother's earrings, some (smoking, gambling, drinking) more serious and comprehensible--Alcott also includes plenty of delightful pictures of the lives of a flock of healthy, economically secure youngsters in a day when "innocent" and "childhood" went together much better than they seem to now. Like Jack and Jill, it's at once one of the author's lesser known and more enjoyable books. Readers of the March Family trilogy that begins with Little Women (Unabridged Classics) could do far worse than to be directed to it.
Summary of Eight Cousins (Puffin Classics)
After the death of her father, orphan Rose Campbell has no choice but to go and live at the 'Aunt Hill' with her six aunts and seven boy cousins. For someone who was used to a girl's boarding school, it all seems pretty overwhelming, especially since her guardian Uncle Alec makes her eat healthy things like oatmeal, and even tries to get her to give up her pretty dresses for more drab, sensible clothes. Will Rose ever get used to her Uncle's strange ideas and all her noisy relatives? Will there come a day when she can't imagine living anywhere else?Classics by Age Books
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