28 Books -- Day 6

[bluecastle]

On a day when I want to smack my best friend in the head... let's do this one about a friendship between a boy and a girl that's more successful than my own just at the moment:

 

Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott (1880)

 

"Down they went, one after another, on the various coasts, -- solemn Frank, long Gus, gallant Ed, fly-away Molly Loo, pretty Laura and Lotty, grumpy Joe, sweet-faced Merry with Sue shrieking wildly behind her, gay Jack and gypsy Jill, always together, -- one and all bubbling over with the innocent jollity born of healthful exercise. People passing in the road below looked up and smiled involuntarily at the red-cheeked lads and lasses, filling the frosty air with peals of laughter and cries of triumph as they flew by in every conceivable attitude; for the fun was at its height now, and the oldest and gravest observers felt a glow of pleasure as they looked, remembering their own young days."

 

full text here: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/8/2786/2786.txt

 

Sure, it would be easy to go on and on about how much I love "Little Women" (lousy film treatments aside), but my love for all things Alcott is much broader than that one book. My mother had this five volume set of Alcott that I grew up with ... "Little Women," "Little Men," "Rose in Bloom," "Under the Lilacs," and "Jack and Jill." Eventually I discovered LMA wrote other books, but having read these five so many times, they're the ones I keep coming back to.

 

[a small segue: I thought about writing about "Under the Lilacs" ... but I found I couldn't mix my current obsession with Torchwood with a book that features poodles so prominently...]

 

So ... Jack and Jill. The friendship of Jack Minot and little Janey Pecq takes a turn one fine snowy day when they have a sledding accident and become invalids for a time. There are lessons to be learned while they are healing, but mostly it's about the fun they and their friends have during a pivotal time in all their lives.

I always wanted a large group of friends like these who would gather together and have frolics -- whether it was Christmas festivities, a candy scrape, making May Day baskets, participating in the local agricultural fair, amateur theatrics, picking apples, or sledding together -- jolly times were had!

I could use some jolly friends today... I might just have to curl up in front of the fire and re-read this book!