My Mom bought a copy of An Old-Fashioned Girl for my sisters and me during a visit to Louisa May Alcott’s home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was the summer before my eighth grade year, and I devoured it. The messages in it were perfectly timed for me, as I began the awkward transition from girl to woman. Twenty years later, this timeless classic is still in the running for my favorite book of all time.
The story centers around Polly Milton, a fourteen-year-old country girl who visits her wealthy cousins, the Shaws, in the city. Although the splendors of fashion and leisure are dazzling, Polly misses the warmth and wholesome values she was brought up on in her own home.
“...you have lived in the country, and haven’t learned yet that modesty has gone out of fashion.”
With Mr. Shaw busy making money, and Mrs. Shaw too concerned with her own comfort and keeping up with the Jones’s to nurture real relationships in the family, their children are left to the whims and latest trends of society. Polly shrinks from her Cousin Fanny’s well-meaning, but misguided attempts to modernize her. In the end, it is Polly’s gentle spirit that encourages the Shaw family to discover that the best things in life can’t be bought.
Alcott has a knack for creating stories so enjoyable that you don’t notice her wholesome messages seeping into your soul. Although An Old-Fashioned Girl was first published over 150 years ago, its messages are just as pertinent today. Polly’s trials are the universal struggles of all girls: peer pressure, not fitting in, envy, unreturned love, and loneliness. Alcott generously shares the cures as well: humility, a grateful heart, service to others, and faith in the Creator.
“Polly had fully intended to be very miserable and cry herself to sleep, but when she lay down at last her pillow seemed very soft, her little room very lovely, with the firelight flickering on all the homelike objects and her new-blown roses breathing her a sweet good night. She no longer felt an injured, hardworking, unhappy Polly, but as if quite burdened with blessings for which she wasn’t half grateful enough.”
- Katy
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