Anne of Green Gables [Paperback]

I hope you have already experienced this book yourself, but if you haven't I can only begin to tell you how wonderful it is, the rest you will have to discover for yourself.

I grew up reading it, loving the fact that year after year I could watch Anne growing up, just like I was. I always wanted to be just like her and, to tell the truth, I still do! She is the sweetest, loveliest character ever to grace the pages of any book. She is bubbly, imaginative and irrepressible, and always positive no matter what the situation may be. This book shows her through the highs and lows of her childhood after coming to live with the Cuthberts.

I picked the book up the other day after many years of not reading it, semi-expecting that my memory of it would be better than the book actually is. By the end of the first page I was enthralled once more by this beautiful, sparkling world of fun, imagination, minor catastrophes ("always look before you leap, especially into spare room beds") and the sweet innocence of times gone by. The writing is so flowing and touching that no matter how many times I read it and think I'm immune, it still manages to make me laugh out loud, both at the whole story, and at the lovely little hidden touches of humour that I missed while reading it as a child, and also cry buckets when the situation calls for it.

This is a book that everyone should read and have as part of their childhood, or indeed adulthood. It's certainly one that I'll never stop reading.

I first read Anne of Green Gables when I was 8... I loved it then and still love it now (some years later). It's an all time classic, heartwarming story, with everlasting appeal for age 8s to adults. First published in 1908, it's every bit as readable now as I'm sure it was 100 years ago.

Naughty, dreamy, emotional Anne is a wonderful role model - with her fiery temperament and endless chatter, she can sometimes be a nuisance, but her adoptive parents, Marilla and Matthew, wouldn't have her any other way. She's bright, hard-working, caring and sociable and they soon find it hard to remember ever being without her.

Marilla and Matthew originally applied for a "boy" from the orphanage to help with work on their farm in idyllic Avonlea (Canada), but when Anne turns up lost and lonely, and immediately falls in love with Green Gables, they find they haven't the heart to send her away. Follow Anne's story from her arrival, age 11, to when she's 17 and leaving college, and then be sure to follow on with the rest of the "Anne" books - they're all delightful, and I can't recommend them enough!

I can't add much to the actual reviews here: lots of useful, interesting and perceptive comments about the entire 'Anne of Green Gables' series have been submitted already, at both Amazon.co.uk and American Amazon.com.

However, I'm not as familiar with the books as I was during my library ticket prime some three decades ago, and I needed to piece together a reading order now that I'm re-discovering them with younger members of the family.

Pinning this order down is surprisingly difficult - the 'Anne' books were not written in chronological order, and there are two books of short stories that are set in Avonlea, but not about Anne Shirley. Also, 'Anne of Windy Poplars' and 'Anne of Windy Willows' are one and the same novel; the latter title was used in the UK upon first publication, but now appears to be used only in the Penguin paperback edition. There are two 'sequels' that are actually about Anne's children, and then several more books by L. M. Montgomery that sound similar but are not part of the `Anne' series.

So, in the hope other customers find this useful, here's the reading order for the series, at least as far as I can make it out:

1)'Anne of Green Gables'

2)'Anne of Avonlea'

*2.5) Short stories 'Chronicles of Avonlea'

3)'Anne of the Island'

4)'Anne of Windy Poplars' (also known as 'Anne of Windy Willows')

5)'Anne's House of Dreams'

6)'Anne of Ingleside'

7)'Rainbow Valley' (a sequel, in which Anne is an adult background character, with her daughter Rilla taking up the juvenile protagonist role)

*7.5) Short stories 'Further Chronicles of Avonlea'

8)'Rilla of Ingleside'(another sequel primarily featuring Rilla, obviously!)

There are also at least two further sequels and short story compilations which opportunistic editors and publishers have assembled in recent years from previously discarded manuscripts. I haven't read these, and probably won't - L.M. Montgomery had a fifty year writing career, and I'm reluctant to read material that she herself rejected lest it diminishes my huge fondness for her works.

Now, having sorted out the running order, here are a few cautions to avoid disappointment when you decide to read the whole series:

Firstly, at least at the time of writing, not all the books in the series are available on Kindle. I downloaded all those that are, but had to go back and fill in the gaps with hard copies; now we have an incomplete set of paperbacks and an incomplete set on Kindle, so not ideal.

Secondly, as seems often to be the case with Kindle editions, there are a surprising number of typos. This is confusing when L.M. Montgomery has certain characters employ Prince Edward Island dialect, and you're not sure whether the eccentric vocabulary is intentional, or a misprint. A few are so key that they actually affect comprehension.

Finally, some - but not all - of the Kindle editions use American spellings. This didn't bother me, but if you're buying these books for a child still learning to be confident in their reading, I'd strongly recommend you stick to the actual books rather than the Kindle versions, despite the temptations of money-saving and convenience.

Individually, not all the books merit five stars; some are better than others, and 'Anne of Ingleside' is probably my favourite. The Kindle editions don't do justice to the books as yet, and need further revision. But overall, I loved these books, it was great fun to return to them, and you don't need children in the house to enjoy them all over again.