In many ways His Little Women is more reminiscent of the literary conventions of Louisa May Alcott's time than the present. The occasionally preachy moral tone and the doubling of narrator as self-conscious author are both typical of pre-modernist novels.

The publishers correctly label the book "as romantic as a Victorian novel," with its surprisingly happy-ever-after ending, followed by a proper epilogue to let the reader know how all the characters fared in the "future."

The plot and characterization of His Little Women reflects Rossner's nineteenth-century models in numerous ways. Her opening quotation of a letter by Papa March from Little Women suggests the most significant one — that Sam's girls, like Mr. March's, must conduct themselves like "little women" while he is away so that he may return "fonder and prouder than ever of my little women." The circumstances are very different — Papa March...