Maud of Green Gables: How L. M. Montgomery's Anne Enchanted the World

Written and illustrated by Janet Wilson 

978-1-0688776-0-5
39 pp.

All ages

September 2024 

 

While the world knows the story of Anne of Green Gables, in whatever configuration they may have enjoyed–so many adaptations!–the story of her creator, Lucy Maud Montgomery, is less known to most of us. Was her story that of Anne's? Did she write from personal experiences? Was there really a Green Gables? And how did a freckled and red-haired girl enchant the world so completely?

From Maud of Green Gables: How L. M. Montgomery's Anne Enchanted the World, written and illustrated by Janet Wilson

The story within Maud of Green Gables is about the writer and her story. It's about being brought up by her grandparents, trying to get an education at a time when women were often relegated to housework, and finding her passion in writing. It is about Maud's writing, from childhood and throughout her life, and the process of getting Anne's story rejected and accepted and then lauded globally. It's about how she felt about her book and the world. It's about how she saw herself and her place in the world, whether living on Prince Edward Island or in Ontario, whether as a freelance writer or a novelist.

 

“But oh, I love my work! I love spinning stories,
and I love to sit by the window of my room
and shape some ‘airy fairy’ fancy into verse.”

 

And, though Janet Wilson peppers her story with photographs and direct quotes from Montgomery's diaries and from her novel, reminding us that Maud of Green Gables is a biography of Lucy Maud Montgomery, it is the artwork that makes the story sing.

From Maud of Green Gables: How L. M. Montgomery's Anne Enchanted the World, written and illustrated by Janet Wilson

 Janet Wilson's oil paintings do more than just captivate. First, they let us see Anne of Green Gables again and in a different light. (And the light in Janet Wilson's art is brilliant!) We see Anne as she dreams, as she imagines, as she takes in the wonders of her world, and as she treasures moments with those she loves.

From Maud of Green Gables: How L. M. Montgomery's Anne Enchanted the World, written and illustrated by Janet Wilson

But Janet Wilson also lets us see Lucy Maud Montgomery beyond the images recorded in photographs. Those images of her as a child or as a woman, or of her homes and those in her life are static. They captured a person or a place in one moment. Janet Wilson's paintings give us heart and always radiant light. Whether Maud is reading with a cat on her lap, playing with a camera, or walking along a shore, there is a radiance that comes from within.

From Maud of Green Gables: How L. M. Montgomery's Anne Enchanted the World, written and illustrated by Janet Wilson

Maud of Green Gables could have been a dry biography about L. M. Montgomery's story, from early life and family to education and writing and then to her marriage and death. But anyone could tell that story. Telling it with the richness of this art could only be done by the likes of Janet Wilson, the artist whose realism brought In Flanders Fields: The Story of the Poem by John McCrae, written by Linda Granfield, to life. Here her art recreates Maud and Anne with light and life. Moreover, by quoting from Maud's diaries and from Anne's story, Janet Wilson connects the two women on a deeper level, reaching into the hearts of Anne and Maud simultaneously and making us feel for both writer and character and know them both a little better.

 

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Janet Wilson launches Maud of Green Gables: How L. M. Montgomery's Anne Enchanted the World this Saturday (September 7, 2024) in Eden Mills, Ontario. Check here for details, including how to purchase her new book.

 

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Anne of the Library-on-the-Hill

Written by Catherine Little

Illustrated by Sae Kimura

Plumleaf Press

978-1-7381-6524-7

32 pp.

 Ages 6-10

August 2024 

This year we will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables. There will be several titles released to observe this anniversary, some fiction, some non-fiction, and Anne of the Library-on-the-Hill celebrates Anne of Green Gables with a wholly fictionalized story about another little girl named Anne, with an "e" of course.

 

Anne, of Anne of the Library-on-the-Hill, lives with her parents in Toronto, and regularly visits the Wychwood Library with her father, an artist. This library which she calls Library-on-the-Hill is a special place for her and father, and they both relish the plethora of books they borrow. Her mother is more of an industrious woman who worries that too much imagination might not be helping Anne.

From Anne of the Library-on-the-Hill, written by Catherine Little, illustrated by Sae Kimura

Then World War I arrives, and Father must leave home to serve. His absence, monumental in itself, results in additional changes to the household, with Mother taking on laundry work and no time to take Anne to the Library-on-the-Hill for books. Fortunately, one of Mother's customers, Mrs. Mary Beal shares her own children's old books with Anne. And when a new Library-on-the-Hill is opened, Anne's Mother ultimately gives Anne permission to visit it on her own.

From Anne of the Library-on-the-Hill, written by Catherine Little, illustrated by Sae Kimura

Sadly, the family receives bad news about Father from Vimy Ridge. Missing her father terribly, Anne is comforted when her mother shares a special book that Anne's father had gifted her early in their marriage. Yes, it is Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908.

From Anne of the Library-on-the-Hill, written by Catherine Little, illustrated by Sae Kimura

There's still more that happens to the Anne of Catherine Little's story, including an encounter with the famous author herself, but suffice it to say that our Anne takes wisdom from Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne that supports her through life's good days and bad.

“I believe the nicest and sweetest days
are not those on which anything very
splendid or wonderful or exciting happens
but just those that bring simple little
pleasures, following one another softly,
like pearls slipping off a string.”

                                                                           ~ From Anne of Green Gables

 

Our two Annes, that of Lucy Maud Montgomery's story and that of Catherine Little's, share some commonalities though their stories are completely different. They both had father figures who encouraged their passions for imaginative endeavours and maternal figures who were more pragmatic. The women weren't mean; they were just prudent. Not surprising that Matthew and Anne's father both had soft spots for their Annes and defended them tactfully to the women in their lives. Beyond the characters themselves, Catherine Little intersperses her story with known experiences from Montgomery's life including her friendship with Mary Beal and attending an event that included Nellie McCLung. By borrowing elements of Anne of Green Gables to feed her story of Anne of the Library-on-the-Hill, Catherine Little pays homage to the much beloved story while giving us a whole new story. If you didn't know about Anne of Green Gables –though Catherine Little provides plenty of background information about Anne and L. M. Montgomery to get you caught up–this Anne and her library and her life would still captivate.

The art of Anne of the Library-on-the-Hill has been created by Sae Kimura, who also illustrated Catherine Little's earlier books, Twelve in a Race and Dragon's Dilemma. Using a variety of media, including acrylic, gouache, watercolour, and pencil crayon, Toronto's Sae Kimura gives an ethereal sense to Anne of the Library-on-the-Hill, which works well for a story set in the mid-late 1910s to early 1920s. The reality of Anne's life is never in question but the richness of her imagination and passion for life is always evident, in the colours of her surroundings, in the brightness of her reading, and the joy she derives from being with her father, visiting the library, and more.

From Anne of the Library-on-the-Hill, written by Catherine Little, illustrated by Sae Kimura

Celebrate Anne of Green Gables and Lucy Maud Montgomery by reading a picture book that honours both while creating something that is wholly its own. With Anne of the Library-on-the-Hill, Catherine Little and Sae Kimura remind us of the anchor that reading can be in a child's life and also the pillar that Anne of Green Gables is in both the CanLit world and internationally.