New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired

An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving

An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving

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About the Author

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist best known for Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo’s Boys. Her father was a transcendentalist philosopher whose friends included Nathanial Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Henry David Thoreau, all very famous authors of their time. Alcott was an abolitionist and feminist, remaining unmarried all her life. Alcott and her family served as station masters for the Underground Railroad, housing a fugitive slave in 1847. Alcott’s father suffered periods of mental instability all his life and was ill-equipped to provide for his family. They moved twenty-two times in thirty years because of their unstable finances. Alcott worked as a teacher, governess, and domestic servant to help support her family, but her success as a writer provided true financial relief for her family. Alcott suffered a lifelong illness possibly instigated by treatment with mercury for typhoid when she served as a nurse in the American Civil War. Louisa May Alcott died from a stroke two days after the death of her father in 1888. (From Wikipedia)

An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving (1882)

A sweet and humorous Thanksgiving tale from the beloved author of Little Women. When the Bassett parents are called away in the midst of busy preparations for Thanksgiving dinner, the children are left in the care of their eldest siblings. The spirited young Tilly and Eph, along with their merry band of siblings, decide to forge ahead with a Thanksgiving feast, despite their limited culinary skills. After a haphazard day full of the unintentional use of catnip, a run-in with a questionable bear, and other hijinks, the family is finally able to reunite for a truly old-fashioned good time.

Questions for An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving

Food plays a large part in this story. Would you try to cook a Thanksgiving feast on your own? Why or why not?

Which of the food sounds the least edible? Which of the items sounds like it would be nice to eat?

What do you think the family learned from their experience?

Do you believe this would be a Thanksgiving the family would remember? Why or why not?

Easy Reader

A Short History of Thanksgiving