When I was eight, I read Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" for the first time. And then I read it again - about twenty-five times in that first year, slurping it up like a delicious piece of my favorite dessert. It was the first time I ever realized that books could be tastier than cake. And every so often, even now, I feel a need for some Alcott-cake; "Eight Cousins" is still one of my favorites.

The story concerns orphaned Rose, the only girl in a family of eight first cousins. On the death of her father, Rose is sent to the family home to meet her new guardian, her father's brother Alec, whom she has never met. Rose is frail, pale, overpoweringly ladylike, and (as you might expect, given her recent history) more than a bit anxious about her new life with Uncle Alec - not to mention all those boy cousins. Alec is a free-thinking doctor who is determined to turn frail Rose into a happy, healthy Rose. As a little girl, I loved reading about Alec taking away Rose's tight leather belts and giving her soft rainbow sashes and scarves; stealing her black coffee and making her milk the cow for fresh milk, and surprising her with skates and warm muffs and sleds and boats. And the truth is, I still like it.

I like Rose too. She can be awfully priggish, but she tries so hard to be good - you don't see that very often in modern kid-lit. (I'm not talking about you, Harry Pottter!) If you ask me (and nobody has), I think kids lose when they don't find integrity modelled for them in books. ( )

Eight Cousins is the story of recently orphaned Rose and her seven male cousins. It is a sweet little story by the author of Little Women. In this, however, nobody is poor. Uncle Alec, a bachelor, is left in charge of 13 year old Rose when her father dies. She goes to live with her Aunt Plenty and becomes acquainted with her seven boisterous cousins. ( )

Rose Campbell is fragile and delicate, in mourning for her recently dead parents and about as far from "boisterous" as a girl can get. Enter her 7 boy cousins, all of them the epitome of "boisterous." Rose's Uncle Alec encourages her to play with her cousins, and soon she is running all over the place, with no time time for being delicate and fragile.

I loved this book because I always wanted older brothers, and since I didn't have them I always loved that Rose had 7 boy cousins who were like brothers to her. I loved all the boys' personalities and how they loved Rose and wanted to play with her. ( )

First of all, this was a first edition with wonderful illustrations. Secondly, I am a total sucker for Louisa May Alcott. Her stories are such parable, and so sweet. I don't want to hear that she is out of date or idealistic or gender biased. The story brought back warm memories of reading "Little Women", "Jo's Boys", and "Little Men" as a young teenager. ( )

I loved this book. It was another of those fairy tale stories with dead parents and being raised by an uncle and a bunch of male cousins. It has a very good moral about lack of vanity and doing good [Phoebe is the maid as well as best friend]. Highly reccomended for tweens. I liked it much better than LITTLE WOMEN ( )