Category Archives: 1920s and before

Rereading Little Women, with Jamie Stiehm

(You can listen to this episode here.)

For this episode, we reread Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel Little Women, which was published in two parts in 1868 and 1869. (In the UK, it’s still published as two separate novels, the second one titled Good Wives.) We’re joined by Jamie Stiehm, a syndicated columnist at Creators Syndicate. We talk about our love for the book as girls, how it held up as a reread (still wonderful if a little preachy at times), and Alcott’s (and Jo’s) gender identity.

Mentioned on this episode:

Other books by Alcott:

Little Men (1871)

Eight Cousins (1874)

Rose in Bloom (1876)

Jo’s Boys (1886)

Also mentioned:

Peyton Thomas’s tweet saying Alcott was trans, which Mary Grace (and Martina Navratilova) replied to

Peyton Thomas’s New York Times guest column saying that Alcott was trans

Jo’s Boys, Peyton Thomas’s podcast on Little Women (on Apple and Spotify). (Update: It’s great!)

Film adaptations:

Little Women (1933), with Katharine Hepburn as Jo (trailer here)

Little Women (1949), with June Allyson as Jo and Elizabeth Taylor as Amy (trailer here)

Little Women (1994), with Wynona Ryder as Jo (trailer here)

Little Women (2019), directed by Greta Gerwig (trailer here)

Recommended for fans of Little Women:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Jamie); My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, Men in Trouble by Sarah Payne Stuart, and Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason (Mary Grace); Lit t le House on the Prairie (Deborah)

Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why it Still Matters, by Anne Boyd Rioux

March, Geraldine Brooks’s 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about Alcott’s father

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes mentioned:

Rereading Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

Rereading Little Town on the Prairie, with Judith Kalb

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago. You can find Jamie at jamiestiehm.com.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

On this episode, we reread Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved 1911 classic The Secret Garden, about Mary, a neglected girl who discovers a garden on her uncle’s Yorkshire estate that has been locked up for ten years. We discuss the magic of secret places and Hodgson’s surprising ties to the United States, including periods living in a Tennessee log cabin and in Washington, D.C.

Mentioned on this episode:

Other books by Burnett:

A Little Princess (originally published as Sara Crewe) (1905)

Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886)

Through One Administration (1881), an adult novel about politics and society in Washington, D.C.

Also mentioned:

The serialization of The Secret Garden in American Magazine beginning in November 1910

The 2020 film adaptation, with Colin Firth as Mary’s uncle (trailer here)

The 1987 Hallmark Hall of Fame adaptation, also featuring Colin Firth, this time as grown-up Colin (trailer here)

The 1949 film adaptation, starring Margaret O’Brien (trailer here)

Deborah’s recommendations for fans of The Secret Garden: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë; Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier; The Secret Garden retellings on Goodreads, including The Painted Garden by Noel Streatfeild

Mary Grace’s recommendations for fans of The Secret Garden: Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. (There is a brief review of the book on the 1919 book list on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.)

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

On this episode, Deborah rereads, and Mary Grace reads, a book that needs no introduction: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, also known as The Wizard of Oz. They discuss weird sequels, the history of sunglasses, the monoculture, and, of course, the movie.

Mentioned on the episode:

Also by L. Frank Baum:

The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918)

Father Goose, His Book (1899)

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes:

Rereading Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken

Rereading Half Magic by Edward Eager

Also mentioned:

The Wizard of Oz, the movie. You can see the original trailer, which is fascinating (though blurry), with lots of talk about the book, here.

The Wiz, the adaptation starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. You can see the trailer here.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire.

Recommended for fans of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:

Mary Grace: Half Magic and other books by Edward Eager.

Deborah: Other books in the Oz series, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander.

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Bo oks Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

Deborah and Mary Grace discuss Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery’s beloved tale of a strong-willed and imaginative orphan who goes to live with a pair of middle-aged siblings on Prince Edward Island.

Other books in the series:

Anne of Avonlea

Anne of the Island

Anne of Windy Poplars

Anne’s House of Dreams

Anne of Ingleside

The recently published book of stories Deborah mentions is The Blythes are Quoted.

Also mentioned on the episode:

Mary Grace read Anne of Green Gables during her year of reading as if she were living in 1918 and reviewed it here. It’s #37 on the list.

Anne is a prodigious reader. Here are some of the books and poems that she reads:

“Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight” by Rose Hartwick Thorpe

“The Lady of Shallot” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Mary Grace misquotes the poem, saying “The mirror crack’d from side to side/the DOOM has come upon me, cried/The Lady of Shallot,” instead of “the CURSE has come upon me,” repeating a misquotation by a character in Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d.

Ben Hur by Lew Wallace

“Marmion” by Sir Walter Scott

Mary Grace mentions the attractive Word Cloud Classics edition of Anne of Green Gables, which she read in 2018. Alas, the print was too small this time around, so she read it on her Kindle.

You can see the original illustrations by William and Mary Claus, which neither Deborah nor Mary Grace are a fan of, in this scanned copy on HathiTrust.

“Suicide Secret of Anne of Green Gables Author,” The Guardian, September 23, 2008.

Trailer for Netflix series Anne With an E

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Recommended by Mary Grace for fans of Anne of Green Gables: Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

Recommended by Deborah for fans of Anne of Green Gables: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin, Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

“Bosom Friends: Lesbian Desire in L. M. Montgomery’s Anne Books,” Laura Robinson, Canadian Literature, Spring 2004

“A Visual History of Romantic Friendship,” The Marginalian

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms.

You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Bo oks Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.