This book gives us a not so very exciting synopsis of Maud Montgomery's life from her birth in 1874 to her death in 1942. We hear about her lonely childhood, growing up with her grandparents on Prince Edwards Island. The island makes the largest reappearance through the book, she leaving and returning to it frequently to either visit the natural beauty or help grand parents. In the end she is buried there. We also hear the process of her becoming a writer. Submitting poetry and articles to newspapers in her young adult life and eventually becoming an author of many children's books. I would have given this book a lower rating because the writing itself is done in a boring, nonchalant way. It is as if the author thinks in monotone? But what I loved was the illustrations and I think that cannot be forgotten. They seem to be a mix of watercolor and colored pencil and are just very sweet and characteristic. There is a large variance of scenery through the book and the illustrator, who is also the author, keeps up her style really well. ( )

Maud loved to make up stories and poem. At the sge of 16 a newspaper printed her poem "on cape laforge" she also wrote anne of green gables.

That was a nice biography. I've never read Anne of Green Gables, but I am aware of it. The author's life was interesting. The illustrations are nicely done, and the text is easily readable. I liked the book overall. ( )

This picture book biography, both written and illustrated by Alexandra Wallner, is for the most part well-researched and informative (textually dense and recommended for older children, it is a solid, readable introduction to L. M. Montgomery's life and work, showing both Maud's triumphs and some of her many struggles, like the legal wrangling between her and her American publisher, L. C. Page Company). Although I generally quite enjoyed Lucy Maud Montgomery, the narrative flow does feel a bit plodding in places, reading more like a textbook than an actual story. The emotional connection to the characters, to Maud herself, often feels rather tenuous, making the reader feel more like a dispassionate observer than an active, involved participant; Maud's story is interestingly depicted, but is told in a rather distancing, unemotional manner.

I do have a bit of a problem with the fact that I believe the author has either deliberately or inadvertently omitted or changed some of the more problematic details of Maud's life story, possibly to make her at times tense and emotionally difficult family situation more acceptable, more appropriate for a younger audience. Now I realise that L. M. Montgomery's problems with mental illness, her often intense unhappiness with her husband, the fact that she had major issues with her oldest boy Chester and so on, might not necessarily be appropriate in a picture book biography for children, but I think that Alexandra Wallner has gone a bit too far at times. For example, Wallner states that when young Maud was staying with her father and stepmother in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, her father took her back to Prince Edward Island when it became clear that Maud missed the island and could not get along with her stepmother. However, that is only partially correct. Maud's father did not actually take her back to the island, he sent his daughter back; Maud (a teenage girl at the time) had to board a train and cross Canada by herself and unchaperoned (I don't really expect Alexandra Wallner to have described all of this in detail, but she certainly should have written that Maud's father sent his daughter back to P.E.I. because he most definitely did not personally escort her back to the island). Similarly, I strongly believe that Wallner should also have mentioned that Maud's husband Ewan often suffered from severe depression, instead of just stating that "Ewan's spirits were low and he needed care." That in no way comes even remotely close to the truth, and I don't think that it would have been either inappropriate or problematic for the author to have made mention of the fact that Ewan MacDonald (and Maud herself for that matter) suffered from depression, even in a picture book biography for children and young adults. For the most part, I do believe that Alexandra Wallner has tried to show in an informative, yet gentle manner both L. M. Montgomery's triumphs and struggles, but there were/are a few aspects that I personally feel should have been mentioned or at least not explained away with somewhat of a euphemism.

As for the illustrations, although they work well enough with the text, they are simply too pink and girly for my own personal tastes. I have never imagined L. M. Montgomery as wearing primarily pink and/or baby blue dresses, so the depiction of Maud clad primarily (or at least often) in outfits of these types of colours was and is a bit jarring and esthetically unpleasing. In fact, for me, the illustrations on the whole are simply much too pink and pastel-like (even many of the buildings are illustrated using pinkish or light pastel hues, just not my cup of tea at all). And the illustration of the invalid Evan MacDonald in a chair (the Evan MacDonald requiring care) with Maud reading to him, I have to admit that I find that particular picture rather uncanny, with Evan appearing more like an elderly woman than a man (when I first saw the illustration, I actually assumed that Maud was tending to an invalid woman, only by reading the text itself did I realise that this was supposed to be Evan). The illustrations are generally bright and cheery enough, but they really do not work all that well for me (in fact, I think that I would have preferred this book without the illustrations). ( )

The character of Lucy Maud Montgomery was very round but static in this book. We learned a whole lot about her life from who raised her, what her interests were, where she lived and went to school, when she married, how she got into writing, etc. Yet she does not seem to change much throughout the book other than growing up and growing old. This picture book is an excellent example of a bibliography. It tells about the life of Lucy Maud Montgomery and gives us a lot of information about her life and career.
Art Media: gouache
Appropriate Age: Primary, Intermediate ( )