I’m an NPR groupie, and an Anne-girl, so it was a special bit of fun to hear that one of our own in the children’s lit blogging world was on NPR talking about Anne. Gwenda talks about her favorite things about Anne of Green Gables, and NPR showcases the gorgeous new cover Modern Library has released. The best thing about the cover? No face! We are once again free to experience Anne completely in our imaginations.
What made me a little sad about reading the first chapter excerpt from the book (aside from the fact that I have lost my original green hardbound 1950’s copy which I found in library discards in the third or fourth grade – it’s probably been “cleaned up” AKA tossed, by my Dad) is that the language — which thrilled and charmed me and rolled around deliciously in my vocabulary-hungry mouth — is too hard for a lot of the young readers I know. There are reading group versions of this book, devised to render the archaic language more easily accessible, but the beauty of Anne to me was her love of beautiful words, and her absolute insistence on collecting as many as possible to express her mercurial moods. Without that, this classic orphan tale could be just another Annie, or Pippi Longstockings…