Since I wrote the post some weeks ago about starting a book club I've been skimming through Louisa May Alcott's books (all available online), because I hadn't thought about her novels in a while. I came to the conclusion that they would be great novels for a book club, not of girls my age, but of those around 15 or 16 years old. The books are not hard to read, and most of the characters start out right around that age (and then they grow up in the sequels). I have a friend who told me she had never read the last few Anne of Green Gables books because she hadn't yet reached the point where her life paralleled Anne's experiences and so she didn't feel as if she'd truly enjoy them. So perhaps they should only read the books that are about girls at their age. Regardless, the books are full of wholesome old fashioned values, but are not without their spark of feminism (because Louisa May was never married, remember! She had her own thoughts on women's rights).
One of my favorite phrases from the Alcott books is "building castles in the air". I'm not sure if it's a term she originated, so in case you haven't heard of it, it essentially means making plans and dreams for the future, however improbable, for anyone you want. Something I personally love to do - I love building little dreams, dreams that don't span very far, sometimes dreams that are just snippets (for example, imagining a friend's wedding, but not the rest of her life, or imagining getting a really awesome job, but not how it would actually be to work there, or imagining myself being a teacher/professor maybe, but not thinking about the steps in between then and now). What kind of castles do you build?
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