In my third grade year, the Tracy’s, family friends next door, gave me a lovely copy of Little Women. That book changed my life for good (although at times I’ve questioned just how good). Little Women made me want to be a writer. Jo March became my doppelganger, my heroine, my inspiration. If I couldn’t be her, I wanted her for the sister I didn’t have.
I loved the other three as well: womanly Meg, tragic Beth, artistic and vain Amy. But, Jo’s passion and imagination became rooted within me. Jo knew how to live even as she stumbled through trouble (the Civil War no less) and loss. I read all the rest, too: Eight Cousins, Little Men, Rose in Bloom, and the short stories. Louisa May Alcott and her creations made me want to write.
The first result turned out to be a Halloween story about a black cat that jumped into a jack o’ lantern. The cat’s bright eyes kept the jack o’ lantern aglow for the poor little girl who had carved it. I believe a little candle I’d received, a jack o’ lantern with a black kitten curled on top, inspired the story. I wrote it out and showed it to Mom and Dad. Ideal (or I thought at the time) critics who only praised. That decided me. I was, and would always be, like Jo March, a writer.
Did any book read in childhood influence you to choose your way of life?