Eight Cousins

by Louisa May Alcott

Overview

Rose Campbell, tired and ill, has come to live at "The Aunt Hill" after the death of her beloved father. Six aunts fussing and fretting over her are bad enough, but what is a quiet 13-year-old girl to do with seven boisterous boy cousins?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140374568
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	10/07/2004
Series:	Puffin Classics Series
Edition description:	Abridged Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	4.80(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)
Lexile:	1260L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Her father was a transcendentalist and teacher, who was acquainted with Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller among others.
Louisa had three sisters, and her experiences with them, formed the basis for the plot of Little Women. Her father was a perfectionist and an extremely strict parent, which often led to conflict. In 1840, the family moved to Concord, Massachusetts, but continued to live in poverty, forcing Louisa to work to support the family as a seamstress, maid and finally writer.


As she grew older, Louisa became an anti-slavery advocate and a member of the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, she served as a nurse in Washington, D. C. Writing under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard, her novels began to make money. Finally, she wrote Little Women and its two sequels which cemented her fame, all of them, based upon her own life.
Alcott remained single her entire life, openly stating her love for women, and being an advocate for women's issues. During her life, she suffered from vertigo, typhoid fever, mercury poisoning and possibly lupus. She died from a stroke on March 6, 1888, at the age of 55, in Boston, two days after her father. She is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, on "Author's Ridge," with Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne.

Editorial Reviews

Thirteen-year-old Rose Campbell, a delicate, sensitive orphan, has been cared for by her well-meaning but rather fussy aunts during the year since her father's death. When her lively, forward-thinking Uncle Alex (who is her legal guardian), returns from his world travels, Rose's pallor and listless, "ladylike" ways shock him. He proposes that he take charge of her education, health and life style for a year to try and make her life more wholesome and happy. The novel shows us the adventures, mishaps, and fun that result from Rose and her aunts' adjustments to Uncle Alex's newfangled ideas about how to raise a girl. Many amusing and touching incidents revolving around Rose's relationships with her seven boisterous but affectionate male cousins, also give the author a chance to express what were then radical beliefs about the roles and rights of women.

Children's Literature - Gisela Jernigan