Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott
A necessary hole-filler, and also an intriguing book: a school story without the school. The book’s overtly sentimental moralizing might be off-putting, but Jo is such a delightful character that it’s easy to excuse. Beside’s, Bronson Alcott’s daughter deserves some slack in the department of moralizing and sentiment. Bronson was probably the first teacher to lose his place for offering sex education, and also founded a Utopian community that abjured milk and wool because it discommoded the animals. Still, it must have been a warm house.