Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
Marirosa Mia: Once again the lovely Sylvie Larsen joins us for another edition of Classically Challenged, in which Sylvie dives into classic children’s books that she’s never read before!
Sylvie: This month, I read Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery. I got to know the story of Anne from a mini-series that aired on the Disney Channel in the early 90s, but I had never read the book until now. I was not surprised by how much I enjoyed it, as I was an overly dramatic youth. So Anne remains a character close to my heart.
The story takes place in about 1910 or so, when the book was written. Anne Shirley is a red-headed orphan who is adopted accidentally (they ordered a boy from the orphanage) by an elderly brother and sister, the Cuthberts. She goes to live with them on their farm in rural Prince Edward Island, on the east coast of Canada. The Cuthberts are pretty run-of-the-mill folks, but Anne is a dreamer. She doesn’t really understand the social norms of her new life because she had always lived inside her own head. One of the sadder things about reading this book as an adult was realizing that Anne is such a dreamer because of her pretty terrible childhood. She moved around to several different foster homes before ending up in the orphanage, and she describes a few of her situations rather bleakly in the book. But once she gets to Green Gables (which is the name of the house she lives in with the Cuthberts), Anne proves to be a light in the lives of her elderly caretakers. Mischief ensues and old hearts are opened to the young.
The narrative moves quickly, sometimes skipping months at a time without much mention of what occurred. Also, the chapters seem a bit like episodes, each covering one or two of Anne’s misadventures. She’s always finding trouble when she just wants to do good! Like any true heroine in a children’s book, however, Anne learns from her mistakes; and the reader watches her grow as a person by the end of the book. One of my favorite quotes appears early in the book: “You’d find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair. ... People who haven’t red hair don’t know what trouble is.” Although my hair is only auburn, I concur.
If you know any little girls who wander around the woods talking to fairies or reciting poetry, or if you were one yourself, this is the book for you! Plus, it’s only the first in a series of Anne books that follow her life through adulthood, so if you love Anne as much as I do you don’t have to leave her after only one book.
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