Anne of Green Gables

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L. M. Montgomery

Children’s

Jul 29, 2018

The story is simple: Aging siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who together live in Avonlea on Prince Edward Island, seek to adopt an orphan to help them with the endless chores on their farm, Green Gables. But the child who arrives from the orphanage in Nova Scotia is not a boy, as they expected, but a spirited and imaginative eleven-year-old girl. Once the shock wears off, Matthew and Marilla adapt to the surprise—which proves good practice, since Anne will continue to deliver surprises to their doorstep on an almost daily basis (as in the famous episode in which Anne dyes her hair green). From its first long, intricately constructed sentence, which combines a storytelling intimacy with sophisticated attention to character and setting (and leaves you eager to hear what happens next), Anne of Green Gables balances its innocent cheerfulness with an appraising intelligence that has a lot to tell readers young and old about human nature—and about the sympathy and generosity good books can breed.

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