Anne of Avonlea by L M Montgomery

Anne of Avonlea follows on from Anne of Green Gables. After the shock decision of Anne not to attend university but to return to Avonlea to be with Marila, Anne manages to secure a job teaching at the local school. As if a new job wasn't enough a relative of Marila's dies and Marila is left to bring up six year old twins Davy and Dora whilst their uncle finishes his job and secures a new home for them. Although Dora is extremely well behaved, Davy is a handful and is soon getting into all sorts of scrapes. Anne somehow also finds the time to work on improving Avonlea with the Improvement Society and it is not long before she too gets into some scrapes. With new neighbours and friends and old rivals Avonlea continues to provide adventures for Anne during her late teens.

Anne of Avonlea picks up right from where Anne of Green Gables finishes. Although some of the characters from the first book are no longer present or take much lesser roles in the book, there are enough of the core characters to keep a sense of familiarity. The book is another gentle trundle through Anne's adventures with the usual mix of mini disasters and small triumphs. It is certainly a mellow book, entirely suitable for young children and adults alike and best enjoyed over a mug of hot chocolate.

It is hard to be critical of Montgomery for her style of writing. After reading Anne of Green Gables I find that my expectations have changed and I was able to slip into reading Anne of Avonlea quite easily and not find it tedious or irritating. Certainly Anne has managed to rid herself of some of her more annoying habits and as one might expect is beginning to grow up. The book was written at a very different time from the modern day which means we have to accept its differences.

I would recommend that anyone who wants to read this book read Anne of Green Gables first (click on any mention of Anne of Green Gables in this review for a link to my review for the book). It is certainly worth reading if you want a light and gentle read to whisk you away to another more innocent age after a long hard, miserable day at work.

*3 stars*

Anne of Greengables by L. M. Montgomery

Siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert decide that they can no longer manage their farm alone. The help they hired every year was always unreliable and they wanted something a bit more permanent. Hearing that one of their friends has adopted, they feel that adopting a boy and teaching him how to manage the farm will solve all their problems. Yet somehow there is a mistake and the Cuthbert's are sent 11 year old Anne. A day-dreamer who talks too much she soon manages to upset plenty of people. Yet as time passes Anne grows and learns to tame her wild imagination and her tongue and it is not long before people learn to love Anne of Green Gables.

When I was little my father recommended I should read this. For reasons I don't remember I ignored his advice. Perhaps I felt it was too 'girly' for me and too twee. For years I have avoided things like 'Little House on the Prairie' and any adult chick lit that I've seen in bookshops and libraries. So when the Book Club Forum made Anne of Green Gables their book to read for August I thought I would give it a try.

To begin with I did find the format and the story annoying and not my sort of thing. It was slow, the character of motor-mouth Anne annoyed me endlessly and I started skipping through chunks of her monologues. I also felt the story wasn't going anywhere and held very little in the way of excitement. It wasn't badly written per-se, just of it's time and directed towards children rather than adults. I decided to continue reading it though as it wasn't dire. I'm glad I did because the story does improve about half way through. You begin to realise that Anne's character is annoying on purpose and very well written by Montgomery. You find as the characters develop that Matthew is extremely shy around women (which perhaps explains why he never married) and that despite her façade, Marilla does care about others. I did find it a little disconcerting that so much of the book is dedicated to Anne when she is 11/12 and then you start leaping very suddenly through time until by the end of the book she is 16/17.

I think perhaps in some ways I was too old to read this book and enjoy it fully. I suspect I may have enjoyed it more when I was younger. Having said that perhaps it is a book that requires a certain amount of patience, something I was lacking in my youth! If you're looking for thrills and adventure this isn't the book for you. However if you're looking for a gentle, undemanding book with happy stories mingled with the sad woes of ordinary life in late 19th/early 20th century Canada then this is the right book for you. I was left wanting to know what happens next, as I know Montgomery wrote a sequel. I will be putting that on my reading list but I want to read it some wet and windy weekend in Autumn/Winter when I can curl up with a mug of hot chocolate and read a book to warm the heart. Despite it's slow start I would recommend this to others.

*4 stars*