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Anne of Avonlea (1987 Miniseries)

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 This post contains detailed plot description and spoilers for the books Anne of Green Gables , Anne of Avonlea , and Anne of the Island . It contains spoilers for both the 1985 Anne of Green Gables miniseries and the 1987 Anne of Avonlea miniseries. I love Anne of Green Gables . When I was 16 years old (circa 2005) I caught the end of part one of the Megan Follows miniseries on television one night – the scenes with the raspberry cordial and Anne and Diana‘s sad parting. When I turned off the television, I thought to myself – I’m pretty sure I still have that book in a box destined for a yard sale. I had purchased it at age 11 but it was too advanced me as a young reader. I went into my basement and found the old pink Bantam paperback and devoured it over the next several days. I laughed aloud during the Story Club scenes, grinned when Anne broke her slate, teared up at Matthew’s passing, smiled when Gilbert gave up the school for Anne. I later rented (on VHS!) and watched the enti...
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We Love L.M Montgomery Week - The LMM Tag

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  The LMM Tag 1. Who introduced you to L. M. Montgomery's writing?  Tell us the story! When I was in 5th grade my best friend (whose taste I admired - I read a lot of series and she was a more mature reader than I was) was reading an LMM omnibus and I leaned my head to the left to read Anne of Green Gables while she leaned right to read one of the later books. This lasted all of a few minutes, haha. I got my own copy and tried to read it - while I was a big reader, the writing was a little hard for me and I ended up putting the book on my shelf and moving on to something else. Several years later, when I was a sophomore in high school, I caught part of the 1985 miniseries on PBS and was intrigued - THIS was the book I had struggled with as kid? I found my old copy in a cardboard box in my basement (bound for a yard sale!) and cracked it open. This time I absolutely loved it! This was my character, my book, my town. I went on to read Anne of Avonlea that summer, then Anne of ...
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Sisters of the Quantock Hills: Gwen’s Story

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  “ So that was life. People came, stayed briefly, went away. No good, then, placing your trust in people. Only land remained forever. The red soil of Somerset and the stone walls of Hillcrest would be here centuries hence. Nothing else. ” The above quote I memorized when I first read this book at age 16 and it has stayed with me ever since. I found it infinitely comforting in my adolescent depression and still think it is a beautifully written thought if quite sad. In a change from the other books in this series, very little page time is spent on the Purcell's early years and WWI. We do get to go along on the walk over the Quantocks and get to know Gwen and her fears and her relationship with Antony. The majority of this book follows Gwen at age 38 as the world prepares for another war. Gwen as homebody is the perfect anchor for this series to end on. She and Hillcrest are closely tied to one another and are the touchstone her sisters return to throughout their lives. That b...
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Sisters of the Quantock Hills: Julia's Story

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  I am sorry I waited so long to re-read this series. Each book only gets better, and goes a little further in time, filling in more of the Purcell's (and Mackenzie's) story. Julia's Story spans 1910-1930, ten years past the previous two books. I relate to something in each sister, and each is my "favorite" while I'm reading her book, which is a testament to what an amazing author Ruth Elwin Harris is. In memory this was the most romantic of the books, and I would still say so, though the romance is bittersweet and takes up less page time than I remember. I love how the writing manages to be both restrained and descriptive in equal force. The sparser the words the harder the feelings hit. After Sarah's Story the writing and content feels much more adult than young adult, not in risque content or language, but rather the age and experience of the characters. While I loved these stories before, I feel like I understand them better now. These books made (ma...
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Sisters of the Quantock Hills: Frances' Story

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    When I read these books when I was a teenager, I remember finding Frances' Story slow moving and a bit boring after Sarah's Story , but that is not the case at all on my re-read as an adult. I enjoyed this book as much (if not a bit more than) the first book. We already know the broad strokes about what happened to the Purcells (and the Mackenzies) from 1910-1920, but we see the years again through Frances' eyes and some of the events and details Sarah could not have known are sketched out. I enjoyed seeing Frances as she saw herself, not just as the stern (occasionally unfeeling) older sister that Sarah saw her as. I understood Frances as an adult in a way I didn't when I was young. I found her refusal to marry perfectly valid, and in fact got a little annoyed that Gabriel kept asking, as it felt like he was infantilizing her in his refusal to accept that she knew her own mind. I also liked that she allowed herself to grow and change her mind towards the end of th...
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Sisters of the Quantock Hills: Sarah's Story

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  I have not re-read The Sisters of the Quantock Hills in almost twenty years (!) because I was held back by two fears: What if I couldn't handle how sad the stories are in places? What if my memories are colored by nostalgia and the writing not as good as I remember? This re-read put both fears to rest. The sadness is realistic but not without hope. And the writing is amazing. I will always feel that this series is an underappreciated gem. This series was one of my favorites when I was 16. I loved the physical books- the gorgeous cover art, the font, the thick pages, even the smell of the paperbacks. I loved the story. The same period of time, told four times over, from four different perspectives, the readers gaining a deeper understanding of the "whole story" with each new point of view. These stories are beautifully written - vivid descriptions and strong emotion but all done in a very tight, almost sparse writing that makes the feelings hit that much harder because ...
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All Time Favorites

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Anne of Green Gables , Anne of Avonlea , Anne of the Island , Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. Montgomery I missed out on these as a child. My fifth grade best friend had an omnibus of three of the Anne books and I remember tilting my head left while she tilted her head right and we each tried to read it at the same time! Cute story aside, this writing was a little too much for me at that age and I didn't read Anne until I was finishing my sophomore in high school and saw the Kevin Sullivan movie on TV. I immediately dug out the copy of Anne of Green Gables I had held onto for years and read it. Loved it. I went on to read the next four Anne books before I finished junior year. I bog down in Windy Poplars because the tone reads so differently than the others - learning that L. M. wrote Windy Poplars and Ingleside years later to "fill in the gaps" about Anne explained why I had so much trouble with it. I think of these four Anne books as the original stories, and I ...
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