If anyone asked my nine-year-old self what was my favorite book, they would have gotten the unequivocal and quite enthusiastic answer, “Little Women by Louisa May Alcott…of course!”

I found in the March sisters a group of girls that I was destined to be friends with. The moment I first glimpsed them grumbling in their living room about the dreadfulness of being poor, I thought, Aha! Kindred spirits.

Little Women is a coming of age saga following the lives of the aforementioned March sisters (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy-four girls who range in age from sixteen to twelve at the novel’s beginning) and the boy next door, Theodore (Laurie) Lawrence, who becomes best friends with the second oldest sister, the tomboyish Jo.

The Marches live at Orchard House, and when the novel opens, we see that they are a family of reduced circumstances (hence, the grumbling in the opening…