Anne of Green Gables review

     Introduce the subject, scope, and type of book

Anne of Green Gables was written by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery in 1908. It is a children’s book of the style of Little Women and What Katy Did.

     Put the book in context

Unlike in Little Women where a comfortable family life is broken up, the heroine here begins the story by finding an adoptive family who initially don’t want her before quickly stealing a place in their hearts.

Briefly summarize the content

Set in Prince Edward Island, Canada, in the time of Queen Victoria, it is the story of Anne (spelled with an ‘e’) Shirley, an orphaned girl of 11, with a liking for flights of the imagination and big words who is always getting into what she calls ‘scrapes’. It charts her adoption into the household of an unmarried brother and sister and her life and friendships in the neighbourhood and at school up until the age of 17.

     Provide your reactions to the book

It was a pleasure to see the positive effect Anne had on the other characters of the book, sometimes, but not always, without intending to. Her imagination and appreciation of her beautiful surroundings are clearly shared by the author, something which did mean that, at times, I found it difficult to separate their two voices. Nonetheless I did like getting to see Canada through the heroine/author’s eyes.

Although I think the author’s voice was a bit confused with Anne’s during descriptions of the surroundings towards the beginning of the book, I thought that it was distinct and separate elsewhere. There were frequent moments where the author would step back from describing the scene and turn to make quite cutting asides to the reader about one or more of the characters’ shortcomings, which I thought a little cruel, but then perhaps it was meant to show the reader that none of these, or indeed any, people are perfect.

To me the later years of Anne’s childhood were a bit rushed, although perhaps this was meant as a metaphor for the way children seem to grow up too quickly in the eyes of their parents. The brother and sister are the two most developed and developing characters in the book after Anne. Matthew’s soft-spoken, gentle, but gradually emboldened personality, and Marisa’s tough, puritanical exterior, with its more and more frequent bursts of quickly concealed mirth are what makes this book really shine.

     Summarize your ideas

The message this book seems to present the reader with is that wisdom of adults and the foolishness of children could equally be seen as the foolishness of adults and the wisdom of children. The author doesn’t stop short of criticizing both age groups, and instead pushes for a meeting in the middle. I think she succeeds in this by allowing the advice to come from the lips of Matthew, “Don’t give up all your romance, Anne.”

Pass judgement

While you shouldn’t expect to escape this book free from some tugging of the heartstrings, for the most part Anne’s adventures are comical and you will find it hard not to be charmed by her just as her new family and neighbours are. I would recommend this as light reading and as something to be read to your children. This is real gem of a book.