I feel like someone is going to revoke my membership in the L.M. Montgomery fan club any day now, after the ho hum review I wrote of Magic for Marigold and the downright snarky review I wrote of Kilmeny of the Orchard. The purpose of this post is to convince everyone, myself included, that I do indeed still love L.M. Montgomery.
First, a little anecdote from this week. Lulu has fallen in love with reading, a transformation that I am nearly speechless over. (Me! I have a child who loves to read! Oh, the joy!) Her latest bookish infatuation is the My America series, Hope’s Diary in particular. She read books one and two on Monday and Tuesday of this week (I think–I truly can’t keep up with what she’s reading now!), and on Tuesday afternoon she requested that we go to the library immediately, if not sooner, so she could check out book three. She proceeded to read aloud to me, her face positively glowing, her favorite bit in the book: a long lost older brother, who I presume ran off to join the army, returns home to a warm welcome by his family during a cold and snowy Philadelphia winter. Lulu plotted and planned all day to turn this story into a play when she and Louise went to visit Nana that night. (Play acting is something they do a lot at Nana’s. They are so blessed to have a Nana who enters joyfully into play with them.) She had even already assigned roles to everyone: she, of course, would be Hope; Nana always gets the male roles; and Louise was to be the baby sister, Faith. Faith, an infant, has no speaking parts. 
The joy that both girls were already deriving from this bookish play–even before actually carrying it out–was just wonderful.
Courtside Reading: My America is more entertaining than Upward basketball.
Watching Lulu fall in love with a story she read herself, to the point that she had to share it with me, reminds me so much of myself when I was a girl. I didn’t discover Anne of Green Gables until I was eleven or twelve years old, but I very clearly remember reading the entire series, and then being positively blindsided by Rilla of Ingleside. Awestruck. Heartbroken. Oh, the pathos! I promptly did two things after reading that part of the story. (If you’ve read it, you know which part I’m referring to. If you haven’t read it, you must.) First, I copied out in longhand several pages from my tiny little Bantam paperback, which translated to many pieces of noteobook paper, and sent them to at least one of my best friends back home in Alabama. (We had moved to Georgia for my dad’s job, and I enjoyed corresponding the old fashioned way with several of my friends back home.) Second, I held some of my school buddies captive one morning at the table in the cafeteria, where we had to await the bell signalling us to go to our first class, as I read aloud to them that part of the novel. I have no idea if they enjoyed it or merely tolerated it (although now, some twenty years later, I have a good idea), but I simply had to do it. It had to be shared. (Maybe this was an early precursor to my book blogging days! 
)
I have debated several times over whether or not to read Anne of Green Gables to my girls, and I can never bring myself to do it just yet. Part of it is because I discovered Anne when I was older myself, and it seemed to be just the perfect time. I want my girls to get maximum enjoyment from it. Also, I wonder if some books are best discovered solitarily? Knowing how much Lulu has enjoyed her own private forays into Hope’s world, I wonder if I should leave a few books unopened for her and Louise to discover for themselves. I wouldn’t knock the bloom off these particular roses for anything–even the joy of experiencing these stories with them.
I actually have other stories to tell about my LMM obsession, but I’ll save them for another time. Just in case what I’ve written above isn’t enough to get reinstate my LMM fan club membership, I want to share a little bit of the decor of the House of Hope. Way back before I had children, I collected teapots. What was at one time a sizeable collection has been de-cluttered down to a mere handful to make room for more books, toys, etc. One of the prizes of my collection, though, and one that I won’t be compelled to part with, is a teapot I purchased on our honeymoon trip to PEI. This piece just makes me happy. I hope when you look at it, you think of Anne.
And so ends the third annual L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge hosted by Carrie at Reading to Know. I am so glad Carrie does this every year; without it, I doubt I’d ever make time to visit these old favorites of mine. To close out this post, I am linking up all the books I’ve read and reviewed for the challenge in the past two years. These reviews, plus the ones from this year (linked above) and my photo-heavy honeymoon post (also linked above) make up the bulk of what I’ve written about LMM here at Hope Is the Word.
Lord willing, I will be back at it again in January 2012!
I do have certain books that I am purposefully not reading aloud to the kids. I think some things are better discovered on your own, it’s part of the magic. My oldest recently read the first three Harry Potter books and loved them. It was fun to see him discover them for himself. Part of me misses the joy of sharing the reading aloud experience, but I figure we can still share the love of the book, it’s just a different kind of sharing. And one day hopefully it will come full circle and they will discover books new to me and introduce them to me.
I also went on a literature inspired honeymoon. We went to Cornwall. I’d always wanted to go there after reading The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper (one of the ones I won’t read aloud to the boys). I too have a very patient husband.
We haven’t been to PEI yet, but now that I have a daughter it’s one thing I look forward to doing with her one day.
I agree, Alice, about the discovering for oneself.
I’ve never read Dark Is Rising. I should add it to my TBR list! A honeymoon in Cornwall sounds wonderful!
That teapot is so sweet! I don’t enjoy traveling, but PEI is one place I might be tempted to go. I’ll have to come back and look at your post about your trip there some time.
Like you, though I loved the Anne books, there are so many I doubt I’d ever get back to them, but this challenge has provided a nice way to get to a few at a time. I’m looking forward to getting to some of her other books in the future, too.
I love the teapot. Love, love, love it. : )
I have wondered the same thing about reading Anne aloud. And, especially after revisiting Emily (which I need to blog), I’ve decided that she for sure is for an older girl. I think I may (one of these days) read Jane of Lantern Hill aloud to the girls. It’s one (if not my favorite) of LMM’s books aside from Anne and because it’s a short stand-alone I think it would be great for read-aloud.
Great post.. I thought you were going to say that you live in the snowy Philadelphia. Oh well.
I also wonder about what should be introduced. I look forward to M exploring our bookshelves and hopefully asking for recommendations. For now, I get to recommend and guide. As appropriate. Anne…not so much…but I did read Lucy Maud and the Cavendish Cat to her!
haha! =D You can stay in the club. LOVE your teapot. (Am getting around to reading everyone’s posts just now.) I love reading about your memories relating to Anne – particularly reading your favorite part of Rilla aloud to your friends. I remember swooning over that book when I was a teen.
Thanks for playing along, reading, and for sharing your thoughts!
I wonder if any of your friends remember you reading the book to them.
I don’t specifically remember reading books aloud to my family and friends but I probably did to my mom.
My 7 year old boy fell in love with reading last year. My husband read the Chronicles of Narnia aloud to him and he adored them. Last fall he mentioned that he wanted to buy the whole set for himself because he was wearing out our other set. When we found all but 2 of them at a used book sale for only a $.25 each I willingly dropped them in our bag. Now we just need to find those missing two!
I love the teapot, and I’m jealous you’ve been to PEI! I felt kind of like a traitor when I gave a semi-negative review of Further Chronicles this time around, so I understand…I think you’re safely still in the LMM fan club though!
I have all those you’ve reviewed on my shelf but have yet to read any of them. I’m adding them to my list for next year’s challenge!
Pingback: A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd | Hope Is the Word
Ok so I’m really late to this, but I came here from your review of the Bess Crawford book. And I TOTALLY know which part and I LOVE Rilla! I grew up in Canada, reading LMM’s more obscure works which were readily available in that time and place. I’ve been dying to visit PEI since I was about 10 or 11, but have yet to make it.
I also totally agree that some books are best discovered in solitude. I tried reading “Anne” to Ilsa when she was about 8, and it was too soon, and she just thought Anne talked far too much! I got wiser after that, and left her alone to discover the Emily books when she was about 11, and that was perfect. From there, she’s gone on to Anne and Pat and Marigold and all the rest.
elizabeth from 5MFB