Look! Look! I finally read another book for the Canadian Book Challenge.
Keeping with my YA/children’s theme, I read Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson. It’s a prequel to Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, published by Penguin Canada in honour of Anne’s 100th anniversary of publication. The hardcover edition matches the 100th anniversary collector’s edition of Anne: a pale green jacket and a small gold-framed drawing off Anne on the cover. Penguin has also released a large, hardcover scrapbook of L.M. Montgomery’s letters, art, and photography.
Before Green Gables, unsurprisingly, chronicles Anne’s life before she arrives in PEI to be adopted by Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. It starts a little further back, in fact: first we meet Walter and Bertha Shirley, Anne’s parents, just as Bertha discovers she’s pregnant. Wilson follows Anne’s story as she becomes orphaned, lives with the Thomases and then the Hammonds, and goes to the orphan asylum (none of this information constitutes a spoiler – anyone who’s read Anne knows how her story unfolds).
At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about Before Green Gables. The voice didn’t seem right, and details were included that the prudish and proper L.M. Montgomery would never have dreamed of writing in, such as Bertha Shirley’s internal monologue about her missed period. Wilson’s prose seems aimed at a slightly younger audience than was Montgomery’s. The change in voice seemed jarring, and I wasn’t sure whether I could accept it.
But then I realized that Budge Wilson is not L.M. Montgomery, and her voice is her own. That doesn’t make the book inferior, it just makes it different. Wilson’s story is imaginative, evocative, and true to Montgomery’s character. Anne is loveable and spunky, but not perfect, which is just right.
I was sad when the book ended, even though I knew Anne was about to embark on her new life at Green Gables.
