Customer Reviews

Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women

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I think that Invincible Louisa is a wonderful, well written book. No offence meant to the other reviewers of this book, but I think that Invincible Louisa did not drag along slowly at all. It is a wonderful book for 11, 12, and 13 year olds, or 10 year olds who are advanced in reading. However, to like this book, you have to like Little Women, or any other of Louisa's books. If you like books about American History, around the time of the Civil War, you will also probably like this book. It is a vivid account of Louisa May Alcott and her faimly's life. It tells how they struggled through poverty and other hardships that would have destroyed any other faimly's life.

The mark of a superb biography, as is this 1934 Newbery Awardwinner, is that it details the momentous events of the times, along with the tale of the heroine, Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888). The author immerses us in gorgeous poetic language, and plenty of important vocabulary words for the young adult reader. Within these 246 pages we find the origins of the famous characters of Alcott's "Little Women" and "Little Men," a necessity in a biography, and retrace Alcott's steps through her birth in the Germantown area of Philadelphia, through her family's poverty-stricken years in Boston. Alcott realizes her ne'er do-well brilliant father, Bronson, is a dreamer and not a realist; yet his prophetic ideas on education later took hold.

The mid-1800s were a pivotal time in American history, the era of the Abolitionists, the Underground Railway, The Civil War and of Idealist Philosophies such as the Shaker religion and the Transcendental Movement with contemporaries such as Emily Dickinson, Thoreau and Emerson. The Alcott Family breaks bread with the latter great men, and indeed, her early mentor Emerson tells Louisa, "Your father might have talked with Plato."

She is much like her father. Impulsively, she travels at age 30 to Washington, DC, to become a nurse to the wounded Northerners in the Civil War. Hopelessness & disorganization is rife in the make-shift hospital, reminiscent of today's stalled attempts to rebuild New Orleans: "One soldier, with such a bad heart that he should never have been taken into the army... was given heavy trays to carry... When [such injustices] were practiced in her ward, Louisa had a simple remedy. She herself lifted and carried and got down on her knees to scrub the floor."

Alcott's tenacity, devotion to family, love of learning and of writing, make her an ideal heroine for today's Little Women. Recommended for curious readers from age 10 to 100.

I have to agree with the majority of the other reviewers. This book does read rather slowly. It is a good account of the life of Louisa May Alcott, from birth to death but it is somehow flat. Every now and again, there would be a description that could paint a vivid picture but for the most part, it just reads like a listing of colorless facts.

I think the problem lies primarily in the reader's expectations. The book description says this book is for anyone who loved "Little Women" and wants to find out what really happened to Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy but the author doesn't show an actual comparison until the very end, when she concludes the book. Technically, the book does tell you what happened to each member of the family but I think it would have been more enjoyable if she'd shown how the real life events of Louisa were reshaped into the parts of the story, comparing as she went along. As it is, I feel like I got a better sense of Louisa May Alcott from reading "Little Women" than I did from this book.

I've often heard little stories about the Louisa of this book, Louisa May Alcott, but I've never read much real information about her.

This is a biography of her life. Louisa grew up in a family determined to change the world by actively living their beliefs. She was best known as the author of Little Women.

As interesting to me as Louisa May Alcott was her father. Bronson Alcott was friends with every influential person of his time including Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorn. He barely made enough money to feed his children, yet he felt led to always give what little he had away to help others.

Louisa provided the only income the family had for much of her life. She worked doggedly as a writer between stints of work as a governess, a teacher, and a seamstress. What a family!

Please enjoy this fun interesting book that tells of the hard times that Louisa had and the facts of her life as an author.

This book by is a biography of Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), author of "Little Women." Upon reading this book, one can see how much of the author's life is given in her most famous work. This biography won the 1934 Newbery Medal for best contribution to American children's literature. The young reviewer below from Pickering, Canada, complained about how the book drags on. Well, it is a little slow. What is more intriguing is the report that this book was required reading for our young reviewer in her 11th grade English class!!! The teacher of that class should be horsewhipped. This book is for young students, at most ages 12 or 13 (thus, grades 6 or 7). In a local school in this area, students were required to read in their 8th grade English class, among other things, "The Odyssey", "1984", "Animal Farm", and "Lord of the Flies"! 6th graders had to read "The Good Earth", "The Hobbit", "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", and Steinbeck's "The Pearl".

I've started reading this book and the beguinning really does drag on, i agree. It gets better, but very slowly....

This book....i have to be honest. was a drag to read. I like to read. Not often though, i like books that DON'T drag on. I can't stand Stephen King books (no offense to anys fans out there) because they are dragged on too much. Just like this book, i thought it was dragged on, long and boring. I didn't enjoy reading it. When i finally finished the book i was relieved that i have finished it.. It's just me too, I don't like reading books like that. I love ONLY science fiction and horror. Those type of books always seem to get my attention. Sorry if I offended anyone if they did like this book but it was really not my type of book , and the only reason why i did read it was because i had to for my grade 11 english class