20 supremely cozy books and movies for hibernation season

6. Little Women

Though Little Women author Louisa May Alcott was no huge fan of this money-making novel, her readers have since enshrined the work as one of the coziest of all time.

Little Women follows four sisters — Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March — and their mother, Margaret “Marmee” March. Mr. March is away, entangled in the American Civil War. It falls to Marmee to lead the household and help her daughter through their lives, all by herself.

Though the March family is apparently comfortable, money is actually quite tight. Thus, Meg and Jo must work in order to earn money for the family. Meg is a teacher to four young children, while Jo is a companion to their great-aunt March. That would be a decent enough position, except Jo is oftentimes irritable and hot-headed. She’s also something of a tomboy (at least, as much as a 19th-century girlhood would allow) and arguably the central character of the book.

Meg, meanwhile, is commonly known as the beautiful sister. Beth is a gentle musician, while Amy is focused on her art. Beth eventually contracts scarlet fever, which we now know to be a Streptococcus bacterial infection. She recovers, but not fully, and is plagued by the aftereffects of the disease for the rest of the book.

All of the other sisters go about building their lives, from getting married and becoming a young mother (Meg), to Jo, who starts to build a successful writing career. If that sounds a little familiar, then you may have already guessed that Jo is the closest fictional analogue to Alcott herself.

Given the novel’s focus on family and home, it’s easy to see it as a cozy sit-down treat. Other critics have taken a more critical view of it, stating that its homemaking focus was too central to make it truly groundbreaking or radical. Whether or not you see Jo or her sisters as keepers of a patriarchal narrative or rebels in their own right, it’s worth it to read Little Women.