A Jo March Book Club: 20 questions about Little Women and The Courtship of Jo March

By Trix Wilkins

Some ideas for all who love books, love friends, and love to talk books with friends… These questions about Little Women and The Courtship of Jo March are probably best with the best of your friends and the best of tea and cookies…

Little Women Book Club discussion questions

1 What is the best and most unexpected Christmas gift you’ve ever received? Have you ever had a Christmas when you longed for something desperately but didn’t receive it?

2 Who has helped you through a difficult and lonely season, the way the Marches came alongside and befriended the Hummels and the Laurences?

3 Did you ever have a crush on ‘the boy next door’ like Amy, only to find that he seemed more enamored with your sister/friend/just didn’t notice at all?

4 If money and time weren’t an object, and you could take lessons or classes in anything the way Beth longed to learn music, what would you want to learn and why?

5 Have you ever been in a “secret society” like the March sisters’ Pickwick Club? (Tell the truth…) Who were you with, what was it for, what did you do, and how did you get into trouble?

6 What is your family history more like – money and privilege with loss and tragedy like the Laurences, or creativity and close community with poverty and societal limitations like the Marches?

7 Which Little Women character would you most want to be like and why?

8 Which Little Women character do you feel had the most untapped potential? How would you have liked to have seen their life play out in the novel?

9 How did you go about applying for your first job/ starting your first business/making your first proposal? (Basically, when you first risked being rejected, like when Jo first submitted to the papers.)

10 Whose relationship in Little Women do you relate to the most? (Jo and Laurie’s friendship, the sisters’ relationships with each other, Jo-Marmee’s mother-daughter connection, Meg and John’s courtship, etc)

Courtship of Jo March Book Club discussion questions

1 Have you ever had a surprise run-in with someone you never expected to see again, the way Beth encountered Frank? Did you reconnect on a friendlier, deeper level – or run away?

2 The last time you played matchmaker like Jo did for Laurie – how did it go?

3 What is one thing you – and/or others – thought was something you would never do because you thought you couldn’t do it? If you’ve already done it, who helped? If you haven’t, how can we help?

4 Do you have a ‘status quo’ pet peeve like Jo does with women’s career prospects – ‘the way things are done’ that apparently cannot be changed? What is it and how do you think it should change?

5 Who has always believed in you no matter what – has been your biggest fan, given you tips and nudges and brought you joy to help you persevere? How did you meet? How are they involved in your life now?

6 Where in the world have you travelled for business? (Or you wish you had, the way Laurie travelled.) Who (or what) did you encounter along the way that decidedly changed the course of your life?

7 Have you ever had to reject someone because you loved someone else, and how did you do it? (Or: what is the most emotionally difficult conversation you’ve ever had to initiate?)

8 What is a mental health challenge you have personally had to work through, or seen someone close to you encounter? What did you find helpful, and who helped you pull through?

9 Which of the March sisters’ marriage proposals do you connect with the most and why? (Or if none really meshed with you, what is your idea of an ideal proposal?)

10 What is the most extravagant, unthinkable, memorable gift anyone has ever given you? What is the story – who gave it to you, to what lengths did they go to procure it, what do you love about it?

RELATED POSTS:

• The Courtship of Jo March
• 10 ideas for reading Little Women this Christmas
• 16 books the March sisters read