April 2009 Church of the Cross Book Club selection.

The first of my favorite series of books; I come back to them again and again. This is my comfort food book. Previously read October 2006 and many times before that. ( )

There are several different ways in which I could approach a review of Anne of Green Gable, but in fairness to the book, I think I need to review with a strong consideration that I am not representative of the target audience. Montgomery's classic is a book that managed to slip past me in my book-greedy youth. For me the time period when such a book would have been effective was rather small, between the years of 9-11. I managed to hit all the others of this genre-Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Caddie Woodlawn, Greengage Summer...but not Anne. I am sorry I did not read it then. Casting myself back to those days, I ask, would 10 year old me liked Anne? I think at 10 I would have been enraptured. As a 50 year old reader, all I can say is that the story is a great deal of charm, but the character of Anne for the first 3/4 of the book drove me a bit mad. Lord, how the child gushes. Perhaps it is my slightly pessimistic turn, but her always looking at the sunny side of life was wearying. Then there is her tendency to frequently repeat certain of her pet tenants. Since the days of my mother reading Chicken Little to me, I have hated repetitiveness. One of my chief complaints with Dickens is his love of giving certain characters oft repeated mantras. This is not character development. Okay it is, but only of the worst and least subtle sort. The moralistic tone of the story was a bit much for me as well. All of this said, I probably would have loved this book at 10. ( )

Anne of Green Gables is assigned reading for the Young Adult Literature class I'm taking spring semester towards my MLS. I am a man in my forties. I did not expect to like this book. And yet I did. What fun! ( )