If there were ever a formative novel in my life, this is the one. I read it for the first time when I was about 7yo. And then several times over the next few years but not since. Oh I’ve watched the 80s series a thousand times, and I’ve read bits and pieces of it over the years but never from start to finish. Along the way, I became terrified of doing it because I worried it would just not hit the same, not have the same magic. Would “ruin” the place it has in my imagination. Etc.

I shouldn’t have worried. It held up quite magnificently. Oh I’m sure it didn’t have the impact on me that it had on my child’s mind, how could it. And of course I could easily pick out the problematic stuff in it that completely went over my head, it is to be expected. But I was charmed and delighted and amused and moved all the same, even beyond any feeling of nostalgia. That Anne girl, she’s a little bit magic. I ended up crying through the last three chapters and I’m so glad I decided to pick up the series again.