Louisa May's Battle

How the Civil War 
Led to Little Women

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Walker Books for Young Readers
(Bloomsbury)
(pub. 3.5.2013) 48 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Kathleen Krull

     and Illustrator:  Carlyn Beccia

C haracter: Louisa May Alcott

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Louisa May Alcott was a proper young lady from a poor but respected New England family. The Alcotts believed that slavery was wrong and even worked as part of the Underground Railroad. So when the Civil War started, Louisa longed to fight for the North. But since she wasn't a man, she did what she could - she volunteered as a war nurse.
       Everything about this experience opened Louisa's eyes to new possibilities: from the long and difficult journey to Washington DC to caring fro the young injured soldiers and witnessing the treatment of the African American staff. Louisa returned from the war a very different person, and these changes led her to develop a new writing style and outlook that ultimately led to her greatest writing triumph, Little Women."

T antalizing taste: 

    "Any spare minute she had, she wrote home, letters full of snap and bite, using an upside-down teakettle as a desk. She chatted about her soldiers - and also about the chaos at the hospital, or the doctor who had trouble treating his patients as human beings...
     Being a war veteran was the key to all that she accomplished: 'My greatest pride is... that I had a very small share in the war which put an end to a great wrong.'"

and something more: I liked the description in the Women in Medicine section of Louisa May's Battle: "Most of the women in medicine were also active in fighting for equal rights for women - including Alcott, who took to signing her letters, 'Yours for reform of all kinds.'"  What a lovely way to sign one's name!