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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSLittle Women follows four sisters growing up in a small New England town during the Civil War, while their father serves as an army chaplain far from home. Meg, the eldest at sixteen, is pretty and practical; Jo, a year younger, is a restless tomboy who dreams of writing great stories and bristles at the constraints placed on girls. The gentle Beth fills the house with music but rarely ventures beyond it, and youngest Amy nurses artistic ambitions and a longing for refinement. With their wise, warmhearted mother guiding them and a charming young neighbor named Laurie drawing them into new friendship, the March girls work and laugh and quarrel through the small adventures and real hardships of life without their father, each struggling in her own way to become the person she wants to be.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Little Women
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Little Women. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book do a girl and her new friend polka in an empty hall to hide a burned dress?
✓ Answer
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Jo cannot dance in the main room because her dress has a scorch mark she must keep hidden. Laurie offers to take her to a long empty hall where no one will see them, and they dance grandly together as their friendship begins.
- First half
In what book is a youngest sister sent to live with a crotchety, parrot-owning great-aunt to escape catching the fever?
✓ Answer
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
While Beth is sick, Amy is exiled to Aunt March's house with the disagreeable parrot Polly and the cross dog Mop. The French maid Esther befriends her, and Amy makes a tiny chapel for praying about her sister's recovery.
- First half
In what book does a feeble girl in a crimson wrapper run into her father's arms on Christmas Day?
✓ Answer
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
When Mr. March arrives home unexpectedly on Christmas Day, Beth leaves the study where she was resting and flies out in her red wrapper into his arms. The family is whole again after months of war, illness, and worry.
- Second half
In what book does a new husband cancel his winter greatcoat after his wife confesses to a fifty-dollar silk dress?
✓ Answer
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Tempted by her wealthy friend Sallie Moffat, Meg overspends on a violet silk. After she confesses, John quietly cancels his new greatcoat, and when she asks why he says only 'I can't afford it, my dear.' Meg sells the silk back to Sallie and learns to love her husband more for his sacrifice.
- Second half
In what book does a writer burn three months of stories after a friend calls sensation fiction poison in sugarplums?
✓ Answer
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Professor Bhaer, who hates the lurid penny papers, tells Jo that selling such trash is like putting poison in sugarplums. Ashamed, Jo rereads her own sensation stories with new eyes and stuffs the whole bundle into her stove, almost setting the chimney on fire.
- Near the end
In what book does an artistic sister sketch her old friend twice, as a lazy dreamer and as a horse-tamer?
✓ Answer
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
At Valrosa, Amy lectures Laurie about wasting his life. She sketches him as he is, lounging with a cigar, and as he was, taming a horse named Puck. The two sketches together shame him into reforming and earn her note signed 'Telemachus' the next morning.
