Pulitzer Book Club Inclusion Guide
"March" by Geraldine Brooks
INCLUSION MILESTONES
2006
• Nine-year old Jordan Romero climbs Mt Kilimanjaro
• New Jersey rules for rights and benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian couples
AUTHOR INSPIRATIONS
Brooks was born in Sydney, Australia. “March” was inspired by Pulitzer-journalism-winner husband Tony Horwitz who wrote a book about Civil War reenactors and finding the belt-buckle of Union soldier on in the Civil War-era courtyard in her Massachusetts home.
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Featured Reader Wanted!
Featured Reader
– Share your key take-away about inclusion in this book in a sentence or two.
– Write a paragraph or two (up to 250 words) to describe your thoughts on exclusion/inclusion in the book, why you related or did not connect with the book, and why you think reading, inclusion and dialog about inclusion matter.
– Identify the name and website address of a cause you support with an inclusive mission.
"Little Women's" Mr. March is not the guy you imagined
Marmee rushes to DC and meets March's nurse
This novel is an innovative mash-up of American history, famous historical figures, elements of a classic 1868 novel, and fiction. Book’s Afterward points out where the novel takes liberties with history.
Way shorter than "LittleWomen"at 320 pages; 9 CDs (10 hours, 19 minutes)
Serve mindfully. Use your skills, interests and uniqueness to do something actually makes a difference.
March, the man with no first name, narrates most of the book and calls out his own questionable behavior: enjoying the library and company of a plantation master despite his abolitionist leanings, kissing Grace, a beautiful enslaved woman who convinces him to do what gets him thrown out and his love whipped: teaching a bright young Black girl to read.
Primitive vegetarian.
“If a man is to lose his fortune, it is a good thing if he were poor before he acquired it, for poverty requires aptitude.”
Near a pond.
Why can someone become a change agent?
How do character flaws and personal limitations inform possibilities?
Can humility and powerful action coexist?
Why did plantation owners prevent the education of enslaved people?
Compare the motivations and ethics of Union soldiers in this novel.
How do Marmee, Grace, and Beth defy the female stereotype of the 1800s?
Concord, Massachusetts has a two-day literary tour visiting the neighborhood and Walden Pond where Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Alcott lived and wrote.
Film versions of Little Women: 1917, 1918, 1933, 1949, 1994, 2019
Little Women TV Adaptations: 1939, 1946, 1949, 1950, 1958, 1970, 2018
Little Women Japanese Animated Series: 1981 and 1987
Little Women on Stage: 1969 Ballet, 1998 Opera, 1912 and 2005 Broadway
“Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott; “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau; Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson; Mosses from an Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne