Anne of Green Gables Book Review

    Anne of Green Gables is an excellent novel written by L.M. Montgomery. It's about Matthew and Marilla, who are older brother and sister who live together at Green Gables, and they send someone to an orphanage to get a boy to help Matthew with working. Instead, the person that they sent brought back a red-headed girl named Anne Shirley. After a couple of days, Matthew and Marilla decide to keep Anne. Anne goes through many obstacles during her years at Green Gables, most of them relating to her red hair and her dramatic ways.

    Anne is eleven years old in the beginning of the book and gets older throughout the story. She is a truly curious girl. She isn't afraid to ask questions about things she doesn't know. Anne is also VERY dramatic. She likes to pretend that she has beautiful dresses on when she is wearing dull ones. She even imagined up some kindred spirits (very good friends) before she lived with Matthew and Marilla.

    I would personally recommend Anne of Green Gables to anybody. I enjoyed reading this story. I loved how L.M. Montgomery made Anne dramatic because some of the things that Anne does are really funny. This book made me feel a lot of emotions. Some of them are humor, cheerfulness, sadness, and I even had a couple of scares. I also liked that Anne makes a lot of friends in the story.  (Written by a 6th grade student)

                            

                       

                                                                                         

                         

 Anne of Green Gables Website


                 

                                                                


About Lucy Maud Montomery

 Lucy Maud Montgomery was a very talented writer. In her lifetime she wrote 24 books, 530 short stories and more than 500 poems! One of her most succesful books, titled "Anne of Green Gables", has been published in over 20 languages and has sold tens of millions of copies around the world.

  Montgomery was born on November 30, 1874, in Prince Edward Island. Sadly, before Maud turned 2, her mother died of tuberculosis (a lung disease). Maud's went to live with her loving, but strict, grandparents in Cavendish after her father moved to Saskatchewan for work. Maud started school in 1881. Although she was a good student, Maud sometimes wrote poems when she should have been studying math. There weren't any children living near by, so she spent a lot of her time reading, dreaming, and writing.

  In August 1890, when Maud was 15, she traveled for almost two weeks on a train to get to Prince Albert to see her father. When she finally got there, it became clear that she and her stepmother would not get along. Her stepmother wanted Maud to stay home from school to do housework and take care of her stepbrother and stepsister. When Maud actually did get to go to school, she discovered that her classroom was in the same building as the jail! At school she met Laura and Will Pritchard, and soon became best friends.

  Maud always found the time to write. Before her 16th birthday, she wrote the poem "On Cape Leforce". She mailed the poem to a Charlottetown newspaper, called "The Daily Patriot" and waited for any notice about her poem. "One afternoon," Maud later recalled, "Father came in with a copy of the 'Patriot'. My verses were in it! It was the first sweet bubble on the cup of success and of course it intoxicated me." Maud wrote more poems for newspapers, but she was still homesick for PEI and by August 1891, she had enough of her stepmather and returned to the island.

  In August 1892, Maud began preparing for the college entrance exams and passed with flying colors. The next year she went to Prince of Wales College and after she finished she got a job teaching in Bideford, west of Cavendish.

  Maud's grandfather died in 1898 and she returned home to take care of her grandmother. The next few years she spent writing poems and short stories and looking after her grandmother. Maud was hired for a couple different newspaper jobs away from home, but she eventually returned to Cavendish. She ran the post office but still wrote for magazines. Even though many men asked to marry her she refused.

  In the spring of 1905, Maud found an old story idea that was "Elderly couple apply to orphan asylum for a boy. By mistake a girl is sent to them." This story eventually this story idea turned into a famous world wide book. One day when she was writing this story, she was interrupted by Ewen Macdonald, a local minister. They talked all evening, so Maud didn’t get any more writing done that night. Maud and Ewen got engaged that day in 1906, but kept it a secret for almost five years and got married in 1911 after Maud’s grandmother had died. 1n 1905, Maud sent her book to a publisher but they sent the book back. She sent the book to another publisher and it was accepted. On June 20, 1908, she received her book in the mail. Maud wrote in her diary, “My first book. Not a great book, but mine, mine, mine…” When her book was translated into Swedish and Dutch, she got payments totaling $7000!

   A year after Maud got married, she gave birth to a son, Chester. Two years later, she gave birth to a stillborn son, which devastated Maud. The birth of Stuart in 1915 was a great relief to her. By 1914 her income reached $12,000. Later it soared to $46,000.

  In 1919, a few months after the loss of Maud's cousin and dearest friend, Ewen started to suffer from headaches, sleeplessness and depression. Maud kept his illness a secret and even their maids did not know that Ewen was very sick.

  Maud and Ewen moved to Norval, Ontario in 1926 so Ewen could become a minister at the Presbyterian churches. Maud grew to love Norval, and their house was Maud's first house with electricity. But by the early 1930's, Ewen's health was failing. He spent days in in bed, moaning or singing. Maud struggled to keep his illness a secret and she feared that people would soon find out. Maud had actually written six books while living in Narval, including Emily's Quest annd her only books for adults, The Blue Castle and A Tangled Web.

  In March 1935, Ewen retired and Maud bought them a house in Toronto, on the Humber River. By now, L.M. Montgomery was famous in Europe, as well as Canada. In the last few years of Maud's life, Ewen became more and more ill. World War II started in 1939 and Maud worried that her sons would be killed in it. After coping with so many worries for so many years, Maud's health began to seriously break down in 1941.

  Maud died on April 24, 1942 and is buried in Cavendish, where she grew up. She never knew how incredibly popular her characters would become around the world. And thanks to the wonderful characters Maud created, she will never be forgotten.

 Lucy Maud Montgomery Website #1

 Lucy Maud Montgomery Website #2

 Lucy Maud Montgomery Website #3

                                                                                                  

 Reference- Elizabeth MacLeod (2001) Lucy Maud Montgomery: A Writer's Life                                          

 

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