Anne of Green Gables

Where does one start to describe a favorite book?  Anne of Green Gables is one of those stories that I come back to time and again.  I love the incorrigible character of Anne (spelled with an "E"!) and how she is so very real!  I came to the Anne books as a young mother, introduced by "Victoria" magazine back in the early 1990's.  How I missed them as a girl growing up, I'll never know, as I read incessantly in those days (as now!)  How glad I am to have found them though as they have become dear favorites!


I love the way Anne chatters on, non-stop about what ever delights her.  There are also the lovely descriptions that make Anne's world live and breathe for the reader.  Each time I read the descriptions of Green Gables on Anne's first morning there, I thrill to the words as they describe almost perfectly, my own "house of dreams".

" A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped against the house, and it was so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a leaf was to be seen.  On both sides of the house was a big orchard, one of  apple trees and one of cherry trees, also showered over with blossoms; and their grass was all sprinkled with dandelions.  In the garden below were lilac trees purple with flowers and the their dizzily sweet fragrance drifted up to the window on the morning wind.
   Below the garden a green field lush with clover sloped down to the hollow where the brook ran and where scores of white birches grew, upspringing airily  out of an undergrowth suggestive of delightful possibilites in ferns and mosses and woodsy things generally."

I also love the bits of wisdom sprinkled throughout. 

“Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?"

"Kindred spirits are not scarce as I used to think.  It's splendid to find out there are so many of them  in the world."

"isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no new mistakes in it yet?"

"Isn't it fortunate I've got such an imagination?" said Anne.  "It will help me through splendidly, I expect."

"Look at that sea, girls -- all silver and shadow and visions of things not seen.  We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds."

"Well, I don't want to be any one but myself, even if I go uncomforted by diamonds all my life," declared Anne.  "I'm quite content to be Anne of Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads."  

There is such a boundless sense of optimism in Anne of Green Gables!  I'll always love the graceful way of living that is presented; having tea, Sunday School picnics, concerts and visiting between friends and neighbors.  Such a wonderful portrayal of community. All of the Anne books provide us with a vision of a wonderfully idealic life, one which inspires me to make more effort in living my own "ideal world of dreams"!

"but if the path set before her feet was to be narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it.  The joys of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams.  And there was always the bend in the road!"