From Publishers Weekly
Hines, who has sold nearly half a million copies of Alcott's rediscovered stories "The Quiet Little Woman" and "Kate's Choice," here gathers those tales along with 18 others to comprise a "Christmas treasury"-all of Alcott's known Christmas sketches in one volume. Some will be dearly familiar to readers; an excerpt from Little Women, for example, reminds us of the yuletide benevolence of Marmee and her four girls. Other touching stories are less well known, such as "What Love Can Do," about residents of a boarding house joining together to make a lovely Christmas for two poor girls. (Poverty and Christmas charity are the themes that tie most of these stories together.) Hines can be a heavy-handed compiler, whose editorial notes tell the reader how to respond to the stories. ("Perhaps we today need to learn a lesson from Miss Alcott and from Patty," he intones at the close of "The Quiet Little Woman.")
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Stephen W. Hines, the compiler and editor of this collection, is devoted to searching for lost literary treasures. He first came to prominence in this field when he published Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which sold an amazing 350,000 copies. Almost a decade later he presented The Quiet Little Woman, a charming Louisa May Alcott novella, which had seemingly disappeared from publication for nearly a century. In 2001 he introduced yet another Alcott forgotten masterpiece, Kate's Choice.
C. Michael Dudash has been an artist and illustrator for the past twenty-four years. His oil paintings have won him a national reputation and numerous awards from the Society of Illustrators (NYC & LA), the Society of Publication Designers, Communication Arts, and HOW Magazine. Much of his time in recent years has been focused on collaborative projects with several Christian publishers where he has been able to express his personal faith through fine-art, prints, books, and gift products.