I love this book so much. I had been planning to reread this childhood favorite this year and after a difficult weekend, I decided to pick it up as a perfect comfort read. It was everything I remembered and more, and I found myself eagerly anticipating favorite scenes and dreading Matthew’s death from the earliest pages. 

I actually couldn’t believe how much I recalled from the book. I didn’t realize how many of the scenes had left such an impression on me, but I wasn’t the least bit surprised by how quickly and completely I fell back in love with Anne and Matthew and Marilla and Diana and Green Gables and Avonlea. I swooned at Gabriel’s innocent, misguided expressions of admiration from Anne, and I can’t wait to see their love story develop as I read the subsequent books (which I don’t remember ever reading as a child). Anne’s friendship with Diana is so beautiful—wholesome, honest, unabashed, and loving—and her connections with her classmates and teacher are so meaningful. I forgot that Anne completely captured the spirits of judgmental Mrs. Rachel Lynne and Diana’s snooty aunt Miss Barry, and those amusing anecdotes had me giggling aloud upon this reread. Anne’s friendships remind me of my own childhood adventures and make me appreciate the fabulous friends I had to explore with at that time. Of course, the development of Anne’s relationships with Matthew and Marilla are the most heartwarming, and I teared up every time any one of them realized how grateful they were to have found each other. 

This is very nearly a perfect book that exceeded every one of my expectations upon this reread. My only qualm is the plotline about Mr. Phillips courting one of his students, which either didn’t register at all or didn’t register as important enough to remember when I was a child but totally made me uncomfortable in 2023. However, given that this book was written in 1908 and that sixteen was considered a perfectly reasonable age to become a teacher (at least in Anne’s case), I am willing to forgive this cringey plotline and look forward to sharing my love for this book without hesitation with my future children. Anne is a fabulous role model, curious, creative, imaginative, self-confident and self-conscious in healthy measure, joyful, and loving, qualities that I hope to cultivate among the young people I interact with and with myself as well. 

Off to order the entire rest of the series which somehow I don’t think I ever read!