Your Freddy Bear

 Small towns and quiet places speak to me. They are where magic breathes, adventures are hiding around every corner, and where anything is possible. 

There isn’t a gas station every 2 miles selling newspapers that scream about harsh realities. They can be almost a world apart. Small towns, often surrounded by nature of some form, are the humble beginnings from which great characters stumble out of. They are the places in times of trouble, where people dream of coming home to. In Wales, I was 3440 miles away from home, but it had the feeling like I had just walk through my mother’s purple front door.

Anne of Green Gables is one of my favourite literary characters. Has been since I was five years old. She is my chosen spirit animal. She has such heart and imagination and values. My family is from Prince Edward Island and my parents and I would go visit every summer. Visiting happened less often for me as I grew older because working to pay for university got in the way, but this past summer I was able to visit and it was wonderful. I saw Anne & Gilbert (the play) and I also found these....


These are the beautiful new copies of the Anne of Green Gables series. The cover art on these editions are absolutely breathtaking. I hadn't read them since childhood so I thought I'd reread through the series and do a mini review of each of them.

The first book, Anne of Green Gables stands the test of time. It is the classic tale that everyone knows and the anecdotes are as delightful as always. Gilbert, Diana, Marilla, Matthew, all the classic characters are still as real and fresh as the first time you read about them.

Anne of Avonlea is good, but is very much a transitional book for me. Anne is definitely growing out of her childish phase, though I don't think she ever truly escaped from her habit of getting into scrapes. Marilla is, as always, a voice of reason. In this story they take in an orphaned set of twins, which is interesting to think about as twins have a habit of following Miss Shirley where ever she goes, but also to consider how taking in the twins makes Anne walk in Marilla's footsteps and bring the two women even closer than they already were.

Anne of the Island, the third book is tied for my favourite book in the series. It is in this novel where Anne finally realizes her dream and goes off to college. It is also the book where she clues in to what an idiot she's been, hiding from her feelings for Gilbert and confesses her love for him. He of course, could never love anyone but his red-headed Anne-Girl. It is these two books, Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island which are used to create the story for the play Anne and Gilbert. I am hopeless romantic at heart and Gilbert Blythe is the perfect man, therefore an entire book of "Anne and the Perfect man" is my dream come true.


Anne of Windy Poplars is the only one of the novels written in epistolary format. The story is told through Anne's letters to Gilbert as she works as a principal and teacher in Summerside as he finishes his degree in medicine. The letters are full of charm and humour and through this book, Anne shows that she can truly solve any problem that comes her way. The letter format gives the reader more insight into Anne's mind and thoughts and truly makes the reader feel closer to our heroine.

Anne's House of Dreams is the fifth book in the series and the other book which is tied for my favourite. This story tells of Anne and Gilbert's wedding and their first few years of wedded bliss. This is also the book where Anne experiences a certain heartache that she would never truly let go of. It was this heartache and the way Lucy Maud expressed it that made this book one of my favourites. All it took was a single sentence to encompass all the pain.

Anne of Ingleside is where we finally meet all of Anne and Gilbert's spawn and hear about their many adventures in growing up. I think the best part of these stories are encountering Anne as a mother. She is exactly the same person she always was, lively, humorous, imaginative, and she uses these traits as well as all her lovely other ones to make herself the best mother. She still writes some, but most of her ambitions and career goals are forgotten in motherhood. When I first started to notice this, it made me angry, but the more I read the more I realized how fitting this was. She is still creative and ambitious, it is just that as a mother, Anne's first and most prominent dream, to belong and have a family full of love, has come true.

Rainbow Valley, a book for which a children's amusement park in P.E.I. was named, is a book focused solely on the children of the village of Glen St. Mary. My biggest qualm with this is that it is not Anne of Green Gable's children who are the focus. It is the neighboring children who take center stage. These children, sons and daughters of the town minister are the best friends of the Blythe children, meaning that Anne's brood are featured in almost all the stories. I would just have preferred if more of the stories had the young Blythes as the stars. This book is also where Lucy Maud begins to allude heavily as to what is to come for Anne and her family. It creates an interesting narrative where you as the reader know something that the characters themselves are still unaware of.  

Rilla of Ingleside is the last novel in the Anne of Green Gables Saga. It is told from the point of view of her youngest child, her daughter Rilla Blythe. This book brings the most tragedy for Anne and her family as it takes place during World War One and Rilla sees all her brothers and childhood friends go off to war, some of whom do not return. This book was fascinating and sometimes seems out of place in regards to the series. The war takes away some of the light-fluffiness that is standard for the Anne books. This change isn't a bad thing and I find it actually adds more depth to the over-arching story. It is also neat in the fact that through the characters you can learn about the great war. They are constantly waiting for news and through their letters and the newspapers, the reader can piece together what is happening in the war and what they have left to go through. Though the tone of this last book is much more serious, it still makes sure to delight the readers with the humour and optimism Anne fans have come to expect.