While I'm sure this is a delight for children, especially the religious children of civil-war era America, I found this children's book saccharine and strangely uninspiring. Even the darker moments (if you can really call them that) of these fables come off as anti-climactic and shallow, and I feel that the moral lessons of each tale have had their impact lessened because of a sort of forced censorship. It seemed like any consequences the protagonists of each tale suffered for not heeding the moral lesson being taught them was rather harmless, as it was assured that nothing (not even death) could be final. Just as long as they worked hard, they could even resurrect the dead, which again felt rather trite to me. Not to sound harsh, but I feel that giving children the idea that you can bring back someone who's died just by wishing for it hard enough a little false. Even though it'd be a lot harder to include a tale like this in a set of fables, I would've rathered that in some instances they taught the audience of the story that in some cases, you will not be able to get what you want, even when you work long and hard. Or perhaps discuss how change will come to everyone and that it is better to accept change and learn to adapt than to endlessly toil and wish for things to go back to the way they were. I feel I might be asking too much of a set of fables that are meant to teach good values to children. Oh well. At least it was a quick enough read once I realized each of the fables was nearly the same in its essentials. Work hard and be kind and patient.

I wonder if this was an early work of Alcott's because even Little Women had more of a balance between its sentimentality and realism. I prefer Alcott's gothic stories, and shall stick to those and the sequel (sequels? Can't remember) to Little Women.