Jo's Boys, and How They Turned Out
Written by Louisa May Alcott
Narrated by Tavia Gilbert
4/5
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About this audiobook
Written in classic Alcott style, we see how the boys struggle to overcome their many flaws, in the end learning life's lessons the hard way. Just as the March girls did, each boy must learn to deal with death, love, heartbreak, and the consequences of their actions. Audiences will feel pain and joy alongside each young man as he completes his life journey and fulfills his dreams in this classic conclusion to one of America's most beloved series.
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. Born in Philadelphia to a family of transcendentalists—her parents were friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau—Alcott was raised in Massachusetts. She worked from a young age as a teacher, seamstress, and domestic worker in order to alleviate her family’s difficult financial situation. These experiences helped to guide her as a professional writer, just as her family’s background in education reform, social work, and abolition—their home was a safe house for escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad—aided her development as an early feminist and staunch abolitionist. Her career began as a writer for the Atlantic Monthly in 1860, took a brief pause while she served as a nurse in a Georgetown Hospital for wounded Union soldiers during the Civil War, and truly flourished with the 1868 and 1869 publications of parts one and two of Little Women. The first installment of her acclaimed and immensely popular “March Family Saga” has since become a classic of American literature and has been adapted countless times for the theater, film, and television. Alcott was a prolific writer throughout her lifetime, with dozens of novels, short stories, and novelettes published under her name, as the pseudonym A.M. Barnard, and anonymously.
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Reviews for Jo's Boys, and How They Turned Out
16 ratings12 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the final book of the Annals of the March family, all of the jolly lads Jo teaches grow up and go their separate ways and have adventures. I really love that Louisa gives true to life endings for her characters instead of romanticizing them.
I'm not gonna lie, Dan is my favourite, I would run away to Montana and marry him in a moment, temper and all.
It makes me long for the good ole days, though I know we can make those days ourselves with our own hard work, pure hearts, and cheerfulness. Louisa, you are an inspiration :) - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A childhood favorite re-visited.
Is the story as good as I remember? – Yes
What ages would I recommend it too? – Eight and up.
Length? – A couple of evening's reads.
Characters? – Memorable, several characters, Again, three with almost identical names.
Setting? – Late 1800's, mostly at the boy's school, now a college.
Written approximately? – Late 1870's.
Does the story leave questions in the readers mind? – Ready to read more.
Any issues the author (or a more recent publisher) should cover? Yes.
1. Cost and ease of travel
2. Lack of identification for Dan
3. A little more clarity of communications abilities at the time.
Short storyline: A continuation of "Little Men" about ten years later. Lot's of fun as the boys fall in love, and face many temptations they have never faced before. There's hope they are well prepared for the future of the time.
Notes for the reader:
1. Money and income systems are vastly different than modern days.
2. Communications systems are vastly slower, and less reliable.
3. There is no national system for personal identification.
4. Religion plays a major role in decesion making. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Alcott's multi-generational saga of the March family, begun in Little Women and continued in Little Men, is concluded in this third and final volume. Mrs. Jo's "little men" have grown up, and this book follows their various and intertwining adventures as adults...Leaving aside a few charming passages in which Mrs. Jo must hide from her adoring fans (a snippet of authorial autobiography?), this book has always been a major disappointment to me. While no one would deny that the earlier works have strong moral overtones, they are (thankfully) never overwhelmed by the sort of preaching to be found in Jo's Boys, nor do they suffer from the cloying sentimentality found therein...I have been haunted, moreover, since first reading this book as a child, by a nagging sense of injustice, as it concerns the story of rebellious Dan and his love. It always struck me as horrendously unfair that Alcott should so piously praise Dan's efforts at reforming himself, claiming that those who better themselves will be rewarded, only to deny him the woman he loves (and who loves him), because of his "sordid" past. "If I were a nineteenth-century ex-convict," reasoned my childhood self, "I wouldn't even bother trying to do better..." Oh well - I suppose that one brilliant, and one marvelous book in this series will have to suffice, and compensate for the less-than-stellar one.As a side note: I read the Illustrated Junior Library edition of Jo's Boys, long out-of-print, and illustrated by Louis Jambor.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5For some reason I put this book off for a good fifteen years after first reading and loving Little Women. I think that is just as well - it seems to me that there may be less here to interest a child than in the first two. But it really was sweet, and featured more of the March family than Little Men did, which I loved - and I think it was less preachy than Little Men, although that lecture to George and Dolly did seem to go on forever. All in all I liked it and I think anyone who loves Little Women will enjoy this on some level. I am happy to have finally experienced it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Loved being privy to the lives of the boys as they grew. Since I was the age of the boys in Little Men when I first read the book it left a lasting impression on me at the freedom young men appeared to have with the reminder that all may not be as it appears. The challenges, tribulations and victories of the young men and of Jo too may appear simpler than our challenges today but the lessons are still timely.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A sequel to Little Men that followed the boys after leaving Jo's house. It wasn't my favorite of the three, but I did like knowing what happened to the boys. Most of the stories were happy but some were almost sad.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Really good book
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is the last book in Louisa May Alcott's series about the sisters we first met in Little Women. In this last volume the boys we met in Little Men are nearing adulthood and are starting to strike out into their own lives and stating their own families. It is not nearly as preachy as Little Men, but still does not come near to having the appeal of the initial book about the March sisters.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The story of the boys as they grow up. They fall in love, have adventures. Some of the stories were a little too much a "lesson."
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jo’s Boys by Louisa May Alcott is the final volume in her saga about the March sisters. In this book we find all the sisters living close together, with Meg having a small home built on the grounds of Plumfield while Amy and Laurie have built themselves a mansion close by. Plumfield is no longer a small school, but the Professor now is the head of a nearby college and runs it according to his liberal views on education.We are updated on the lives of all the former pupils, who have become like a family to the Baer’s, returning for visits and staying in touch no matter how their lives grow and change. I was particularly pleased to see that Nan had grown into a strong willed independent woman who is very devoted to her career.This is a sentimental ending to the story. We see as past characters grown-up, learn life lessons, fall in love, get into trouble and have exciting adventures. At the same time the author gives us a glimpse into her own philosophical leanings, and although Jo’s Boys is very idealistic and a touch too preachy, these flaws are easy for me to overlook as I enjoyed getting closure on these beloved characters.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A very well done conclusion to a very enjoyable series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book is the final one dealing with the March family. Jo and her professor started a school for boys and this is the sequel to Little Men, which chronicles the beginning of that school and the boys who attended. It takes place years after Little Women and the March women’s children are now grown and pursing their own lives. The young residents of the March houses, Parnassus and Plumfield, are all picking careers and falling in love. Nan wants to be a doctor and spurs any romantic advances in lieu of the education she longs for. She and Dan were my two favorite characters. One bucks the social norms and decides to follow her dreams into the field of medicine. The other heads west to the Garden of the Gods and Rockies, longing for a life of adventure and being humbled along the way. It was fun to think about how new and radical both paths were at that time. I made the mistake of reading this one before Little Men. It was published 15 years after that book, but I didn’t realize that when I started it. I really wish I would have read the other one first and will certainly go back and do so, but I went into this one without knowing who many of the characters were. Jo’s Boys reminded me of the later books in the Anne of Green Gables series, like Rainbow Valley, that focus on the next generation. The writing is the same, but you miss spending time with the characters you have grown to love. I really loved one section which talks about Jo becoming a famous author and being hounded by her fans. It seems to be pretty autobiographical and gives the reader a little glimpse into Alcott’s own life after finding success.BOTTOM LINE: A good book, but you definitely need to read Little Women and Little Men first. If you love both of those than you’ll love one last chance to spend time with the March family. It doesn’t give everyone a rosy ending, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s a bit darker and more realistic. “The women of England can vote, and we can't. I'm ashamed of America that she isn't ahead in all good things.” “It adds so much to one's happiness to love the task one does.”“It was curious to see the prejudices melt away as ignorance was enlightened, indifference change to interest, and intelligent minds set thinking, while quick wits and lively tongues added spice to the discussions which inevitably followed.”“Mothers can forgive anything! Tell me all, and be sure that I will never let you go, though the whole world should turn from you.”“Ah, me! It does seem as if life was made of partings, and they get harder as we go on.”