Little Women Graphic Novel

When I found out that there's a graphic novel adaptation of Little Women, I had to add it to my collection. It's not an illustrated mirror of the text, rather, it's a modern adaptation of Little Women featuring a diverse cast of characters.

Meg is the father's daughter, Jo is Marmee's daughter, and after their parents married each other, along came Beth and Amy. The updates to the family unit are explained in letters, emails, and journal entries that are sandwiched between the graphic novel scenes that depict the classic novel's storyline. As an avid fan of Little Women, and the various slipstreams that derive from it, I enjoyed the novel, and for the most part, I think it presented the major tenets of Alcott's text in a way that is fresh and easy to understand, attracting new readers. However, there was one change that I was a little uncomfortable with  *****SPOILERS AHEAD*****

I didn't like that Meg didn't end up marrying John Brooke, and that she broke up with him. I didn't necessarily expect that they would get married in a modern adaptation, in which the girls do not age (as they do in Good Wives, the second book of Little Women), but they could have ended up together in another way. They could have moved in together, or gone off to the same college together, or just left it as they're in a relationship. That change kind of got under my skin because it not only changes the story, but it changes the Meg character.

Meg March puts aside her childish desire for riches in order to marry John Brooke, going against the wishes of Great Aunt March, because she loves him. She wants to have a life with him.

There were other changes to other characters, too. For example, Jo comes out of the closet and is portrayed as same-sex oriented. That change didn't really bother me, because Jo never had the same priorities as Meg. She doesn't care about marriage or a home with children. She is fiercely independent, rejecting Laurie proposals, pleading with him "Please just be my comfortable friend." Since this adaptation seems to exist in a universe devoid of Good Wives, and thus would not include Professor Bhaer, it kind of makes sense that Jo begins this journey. Rather than going on to New York City, and succumbing to matrimonial fate, she shows her bravery in a different way. And, it adds another level of diversity to the story. Well done!

Because Jo's new journey seems so well constructed, I didn't find it necessary for Aunt March to also confess that she is same-sex oriented, and imply that the reason she is so cold and unfriendly is because she was never able to pursue her own happiness. Why can't she just be a woman who never married? Louisa May Alcott never married either. There are many women, of different sexual orientations, that choose not to marry. I feel like it would have made her a stronger character if she just said "I never married because I didn't want to rather than "I didn't marry because I was ashamed and in the closet for almost my entire life."

I di plan to add this book to the library collection soon, and I'll be interested to hear what the students (mostly the 4th and 5th grade girls who devour graphic novels) think of it.