Kristina West completed her PhD on constructions of childhood in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and is an affiliated member of the Graduate Centre for International Research in Childhood: Literature, Culture, Media at the University of Reading. Her research focuses on American literature, children's literature, and critical theory. She will soon publish her next book, Reading the Salem Witch Child.

Chapter 1: Reading Alcott's Textual Childhood.- Chapter 2: 'We really lived most of it': The Trouble with Autobiography.- Chapter 3: Subverting the Sentimental Domestic.- Chapter 4: Queering the Child.- Chapter 5: Race, Disability, and Class: Alcott's Peripheral Children.- Chapter 6: A Transcendental Childhood.- Chapter 7: 'The model children': Alcott's Theories of Education.- Chapter 8: Retelling Alcott in the 21st Century.