Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery, originally published in 1908.

I can’t remember exactly when I first read Anne of Green Gables, but I can remember how I felt while reading it and after I finished it.

My sister had received the Anne series as a paperback set for a gift, probably her birthday or for Christmas. She never read them and so they sat on the bookcase for awhile until I, an avid reader from a young age, picked up the first book in the series in search of something new.

I was probably around 8 or 9 years old. I was an awkward kid, never really fitting in with classmates, often sitting by myself at recess reading a book (I would challenge myself to read books upside down, if that helps you to understand the type of kid I was), and I knew I didn’t fit in easily. Part of me wanted to fit in but I didn’t know how. Another part just wanted to be left along to simply just be.

And so it was at that tender, vulnerable age, when imaginations freely soar and feelings can be easily bruised, that I found myself first on a train to Avonlea, then a carriage ride through the White Way of Delight, making my way to Green Gables. I became kindred spirits with Anne, Diana, Marilla, Matthew, and Gilbert. I daydreamed about what a dress with puffed sleeves would look like, I wondered if boys would want to write their name on my dance card, and I felt like I was no longer the only person in the world who loved to read, go to school to learn new things, and liked to make up stories in my head. I was no longer alone because I had Anne, this young orphan girl who so desperately wanted to have a family to love and be loved by; who wanted so much more than what people had been telling her she deserved; who was finally given a safe and soft place to grow into an intelligent, kind, funny, caring woman who could not only have dreams, but chase them.

Over the decades, I don’t know how many times I have reread Anne of Green Gables, but each time is like returning home. It became a comfort read when I was sad, or sick, or homesick, or it was a rainy day and I needed a cozy read. Every time I read the book is a new experience. As I get older, I understand the story and the characters in ways I simply couldn’t have at 9 or 15 or 22. I have more sympathy for some characters, less patience with others. I marvel at how timeless the story is, but also how it is such a product of its time.

Over the decades, I have read the rest of the books in the Anne series, but the two I keep coming back to are Anne of Green Gables and Rilla of Ingleside. I have also read other books by L.M. Montgomery, and while Anne is a favourite, I freely admit that The Blue Castle is now my all-time favourite book, not just of Montgomery’s, but all time. I’ll save my reasons for another post.

But, at the end of the day, when people ask me about a book that transformed my life, it’s Anne of Green Gables. This is the first book in which I truly saw myself, into which I wished I could jump into the pages and go for a walk to the Lake of Shining Waters with Anne. I still have the paperbacks I took from my sister; she never did end up reading them and has never missed them. Her loss was my gain: Anne of Green Gables is the reason I Drop Everything and Read and my life has been so much better off for it.