Little Men: By Louisa May Alcott

Little Men was written by Louisa May Alcott. It is a realistic fiction book based in the late 1800s.

Not to get confused with its prequel Little Women it tells the story of a group of boys who go to a sort of boarding school. At the beginning of the book a 12 year old orphan boy named Nat comes to the school and is accepted into the “family.” The owners of the house/school are Fritz and Jo Bhaer, they quickly accept the challenge of making this homeless orphan boy into a fine young man. Nat loves to play the violin and he is quickly made part of the band that the house has.

Each chapter tells a different story in the life of the boys and even girls that live at the house. After the first chapter introduces the newest member of the house (Nat). The second chapter introduces the rest of the group. It tells you all the needed information about every boy and girl there. Then it goes on telling you what happens in the house every day for six months till the book's end. The book really is a bunch of tales put together.

The favorite thing for Ms. Jo to do for her “children” is to create new games for them. She creates things from a working play kitchen for Daisy to a museum of nature for everyone to put all the things they find in the great outdoors. They also like huckleberry picking, so every summer they go out into the huckleberry field and pick as many as possible. After they harvest the berries they make pies and tarts out of all the huckleberries they pick. That makes for a lot of pies!

One day while picking berries Nan and little Rob decide to hide in a cave and wait for everyone to find them. Nan being an adventurous and brave girl talks little Rob into hiding with her. They end up being in the cave till the sun is almost down below the horizon. Nan realizes that nobody came looking for them so she decides to try and lead Rob back home before it gets dark. They end up getting lost after dark. They lay down in the grass to sleep and quickly fell asleep from exhaustion. As you can imagine Ms. Jo is very worried to find that her son Rob and Nan never made it back from picking berries. And to add onto her worries, it was almost dark! So, with lanterns in hand, they all go searching for Nan and little Rob. They search and search to no avail but finally after a couple of hours Ms. Jo found them sound asleep with little Rob lying in Nan's lap.

Little Men has its ups and downs but overall it's an okay book. Filled with joy, play, and a little sorrow as well, it has the components of a great book. The writing style of Louisa May Alcott is unique in the sense that she writes each chapter almost like different tales with the same characters in them. So if you like realistic fiction books maybe you should give it a try.