Anne of Green Gables - Book 25

This is a reread.  Last night, I just finished reading Anne of Green Gables out loud to my ten year old daughter and my 49.5 year old husband.  They both enjoyed it immensely.  That's the sign of a true classic in my mind, that any and all ages can enjoy it so thoroughly.

Anne is an 11 year old orphan who is sent to live with Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, a brother and sister who are getting on in years and who want to adopt an orphan boy to help them with their little farm at Green Gables.  By mistake, a girl is sent and thus the unsinkable Anne Shirley comes into their lives.  Anne takes over their hearts and the reader's heart as well.  She is so smart, so in love with beauty, so full of life and so funny that you can't but fall in love with her.

Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author, is a wonderful writer.  She writes so picturesquely of the countryside and all the trees and flowers, that you really feel transported.  I would love to visit Prince Edward Island, where this book is set.

Two questions were raised in my mind while reading this book again.  Why do they never go play at the beach?  They live on an island and in fact can see the ocean from a distance, yet there never seem to be any excursions to the beach, except perhaps one, but that is a business trip.  If I lived on an island, I'd be going to the seashore all the time!

My other question has to do with Anne's being an orphan.  Anne's parents die when she is only three months old, she then is raised by a neighbor of her parents, a Mrs. Thomas (I think, if I am recalling correctly; too lazy to look it up!) until she is eight.  Then she is hired as a mother's helper for another lady, but that only lasts less than two years.  Then Anne is shipped off to the orphanage.  Yet there is little reference at all to how this must have affected Anne's life psychologically.  Nowadays, we are all about attachment disorder for orphans, but Anne registers hardly any psychic pain from her tumultuous and far from ideal upbringing.  She doesn't seem to feel much affection for her former caretakers.  Mostly, she remembers how hard it was to help out a family with two sets of twins!  David Copperfield and other books about orphaned children deal much more with the tragedies visited upon them as orphans, but not in this book!  I do happen to know two people who were raised in orphanages.  My own father in law and the father of a friend of mine.  My father in law doesn't seem to have suffered any detachment disorder due to his experience, though, he can hardly recall any of his childhood at all.  It is just a blank.  However, he is a jolly, hard-working, busy, funny, kind man.  He's made a success of his life and there isn't an iota of despair or self-pity about him.  My friend's father was impressive for his learnedness, gentleness, and deep devotion to God and family.  So I don't think Anne Shirley is unrealistic in that she doesn't seem harmed by her experiences, but I just wonder what makes the difference there, between those who suffer or whose very personalities are deformed by their life as orphans and those who seem to come through whole.

Anyway, this book is a delight and everyone should read it!  It will stay with you forever and give you joy!  Now we move on to the next book in the series, Anne of Avonlea.

For more book reviews go to the 52 Books in 52 Weeks site.