It was Christmas of 1954 and my Uncle Jack, who is nine years older than I, gave me my first real book, “Little Women.” The cover is pretty worn, and the pages a little brown around the edges, but I still have it, and the inscription reads:

“Jean –
Happy hours reading this.
Uncle Jack
Christmas 1954”

There is more writing on the first, inside blank page written in the slightly wriggly cursive of an 11-year-old: “1954 – Property of Gloria Jean Acosta – 829 East “E” St. Ontario, Calif.”

I wrote again when I was fourteen. Why? Perhaps something so minor as wanting to show I could write a better and prettier cursive.

Below all this is this: “Age 10 Karen Acosta ’57. Property of my sisters (But I’m Reading it!)”

That last inscription was written by my younger sister, Karen, and I had completely forgotten about it. In those days, she wanted to be exactly like me and followed me around like a little puppy. It wasn’t long before she realized my life was not that exciting, and she got her own.

It was fun to dig out my old book and read the inscriptions that I had completely forgotten about. The drawings are done by a Dutch artist and are mostly black silhouettes. There are only two color prints in the book. The copyright is 1946. It felt strange to thumb through it, memories washing over me.

I will always credit my Uncle Jack with giving me whatever appreciation for the arts that I might have. He was the youngest of my father’s three brothers, and I was always certain my grandparents had picked up the wrong baby at the hospital because he was so very different from his older, cruder, ruder brothers. I recall discussing uncles with a boy friend who sat behind me in the 4th grade. My friend said, “Yeah, my Uncle George is always talking about boxing or baseball or football. Is that how your uncle is?”

“Well, not exactly,” said I, a little bit embarrassed, but I didn’t go into detail. I couldn’t tell him we played Broadway music and danced and sang with Uncle Jack throughout Grandma’s house. He might have thought Jack was what was then known as a sissy.

When Jack was still living with my grandparents, my sister and I would go over to visit and disappear in the other world of his bedroom. There were mobiles hanging from the ceiling that Jack had made and color chalk drawings all over the walls. The drawings were literally on the walls — not on paper pinned to the walls.

He had a small record player that played 45’s, and we listened to everything from current pop tunes to opera. “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” was high on our list. Jack and my Aunt Marie (my mother’s sister) did a facsimile of the routine that Gene Kelly and Vera Ellen had done in a movie called “Words and Music.” The drama was thick and hilarious. Another favorite was Stan Freberg’s comedic take from a soap opera, “John and Marsha.” I can’t even explain this recording, but we loved it. Go to YouTube.

If it hadn’t been for Jack, I would not have known there were Broadway musicals, plays, great art, and great books.

I suppose I would have eventually learned about these things, but he sparked an early interest. It was only fitting that he gave me my first “serious” book.

It wasn’t that I had no books before “Little Women.” My mother read the usual children’s stories and nursery rhymes to us, and my father read us the funny papers on Sunday mornings in a sing-song, monotone voice, but Little Women was my first grownup book, and it was one I would not have to share with my sister or brother, although, as we learned from her inscription, she not only read it, she also wrote in it in 1957. Hmmm…I may take that up with her.

I loved the story about the Alcott family. I identified with the character, Jo. I loved to read, and I loved to be alone. Perhaps those were my first glimmerings of wanting to write way back then. Jo’s mother, Marmee was more like my maternal grandmother than my mother. She was a stoic, hardworking, and uncomplaining immigrant from Spain. Like Marmee she worked at a time when most mothers, let alone grandmothers, did not to support five daughters, just as Marmee worked to help support four daughters.

My heart was broken when Jo’s sister, Beth, died. I wanted that part of the book to be different. Every time I read “Little Women,” I hoped somehow circumstances would change and Beth would somehow live.

I was disappointed that Louise May Alcott did not really marry a professor and that her sister, May, who is Amy in the book, never married her dashing, handsome neighbor, Laurie.

It was my first realization that life is not really a romance novel, that the heroine doesn’t always marry the hero, and that loved ones die before their time. It was not only a “grownup” book, but also a growing up book.

The End