I started to preface this post by saying that it wouldn’t make sense to anybody who hasn’t read The Long Winter, The Witch of Blackbird Pond or Little Women. But then I realized that what I’m writing about applies to anyone who has ever read a good book or fallen in love or been eleven; which is a scope that pretty much covers everyone.

Elisabeth and I made an annotated list yesterday of the top three most attractive male characters in children’s books. I mean, I don’t want to generalize and maybe I’m missing some men, but this is a GOOD list. Possibly the best list ever written, and I’ll tell you why. For your benefit:

1. Nat Eaton

2. Cap Garland

3. Laurie

Nat Eaton is a clear contendor for the top of the list. The Witch of Blackbird Pond (which bears a title that I always felt I had to apologize for. “But she’s not REALLY a witch, just a Quaker.”) wasn’t the first book that I fell in love with, but Nat Eaton was the first fictional boy that I first fell in love with. He raised the standards high: he was a badass sailor, he teased Kit, he was good with children and helped out helpless old Quaker women by fixing their roofs (side note: is that really the plural of roof? it looks unnatural).

Cap Garland is, of course, really only a variation of Nat’s flawless personality. He was a tease—I don’t really remember how, but he probably did things like snatch Laura’s ribbon or something—but still desperately rogue because he rescued a whole midwestern town by retrieving food in the middle of a blizzard. I was always frustrated by the fact that Laura didn’t marry Cap, since Almanzo wasn’t exactly a chatterbox. But what he lacked in personality, he made up with a fabulous mustache and pair of wild horses, so you had to give Laura a little grace.

Laurie is bottom of the list because he’s not technically badass, though this may not be his fault (it wasn’t his fault, after all, that he wasn’t best friends with an old Quaker woman or lived in an isolated Prarie town. Presented with those scenarios, I feel confident that he would have been a hero). The best thing about Laurie was that he was accidentally rich. He hung out with middle-class people but was secretly fabulously wealthy and he was always really embaressed about it, like, “I’m so sorry Jo, Grandfather is making me go to Harvard and Europe but all I want to do is go on walks in the woods with you.” Take note: half-hearted possession of great wealth is a first-rate character trait. The fact that Laurie and Jo did not marry is a subject of continual frustration for me. nobody actually cares about Professor Bhaer, anyways. Jo and Laurie were meant for eachother.

so now you know.