While Louisa May Alcott notoriously complained about her role as a chief provider of “moral pap for the young,” after the widespread success of Little Women, her identity as “the children’s friend” was firmly sealed. Turning away from this unilateral understanding of Alcott and her work, this panel seeks to examine the ways Alcott’s identity and body of work engages with or problematizes grown-up-ness. We welcome papers that analyze Alcott’s writing for adults as well as those that complicate the study of Alcott’s work as children’s literature within the development of American Realism.