{"id":81,"date":"2008-03-18T23:07:22","date_gmt":"2008-03-19T03:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/18\/review-of-before-green-gables-by-budge-wilson\/"},"modified":"2008-03-30T21:46:30","modified_gmt":"2008-03-31T01:46:30","slug":"review-of-before-green-gables-by-budge-wilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=81","title":{"rendered":"Review of Before Green Gables, by Budge Wilson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"image90\" height=\"96\" alt=\"before_green_gables.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/before_green_gables.jpg\" \/><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Before Green Gables:\u00a0 The Prequel to Anne of Green Gables, <\/em>by Budge Wilson<\/p>\n<p>G. P. Putnam&#8217;s Sons, New York, 2008.\u00a0 389 pages.<\/p>\n<p>ISBN: 978-0-399-15468-3\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Before Anne Shirley, the red-headed orphan, came to Green Gables, no one wanted her.\u00a0 She helped Mrs. Thomas, with all her children and a drunken husband, and then Mrs. Hammond, who had twins three times in succession, before she ended up in an orphanage.<\/p>\n<p><em>Before Green Gables <\/em>tells the story of Anne&#8217;s first eleven years.\u00a0 I knew they were hard years, so I thought it would be a depressing book, but of course a hard-core fan of L. M. Montgomery can&#8217;t resist reading it.<\/p>\n<p>Although the book didn&#8217;t quite reach L. M. Montgomery&#8217;s genius, there were moments when I did feel the author had captured Anne&#8217;s soul and given us insight into how she might have become the jewel we see in <em>Anne of Green Gables.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I loved the picture Budge Wilson gives us of Anne&#8217;s parents, Bertha and Walter Shirley, two schoolteachers, very much in love with each other and with their new baby daughter.\u00a0 She portrays how the cleaning lady was touched by their lives &#8212; enough to take in their baby even when her own house was full.<\/p>\n<p>I like the side characters the author portrayed in Anne&#8217;s life, especially the Egg Man, who taught her to love words.\u00a0 I like the teachers she encounters who feed her soul, so hungry for beauty.<\/p>\n<p>Most of all, this book gave me a story of a girl who cherished transcendent moments and refused bitterness, in spite of a life of drudgery and hardship.\u00a0 Anne relished\u00a0beauty and found friendship, even if only in a reflection and an echo.<\/p>\n<p>My own hardships seem small in comparison.\u00a0 Oh, to be like Anne, finding moments of beauty even when doing so takes great imagination.<\/p>\n<p>This book is a worthy addition to Anne&#8217;s legacy.<\/p>\n<p>Link to the review on the main site:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Fiction\/before_green_gables.html\">www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Fiction\/before_green_gables.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before Green Gables:\u00a0 The Prequel to Anne of Green Gables, by Budge Wilson G. P. Putnam&#8217;s Sons, New York, 2008.\u00a0 389 pages. ISBN: 978-0-399-15468-3\u00a0 Before Anne Shirley, the red-headed orphan, came to Green Gables, no one wanted her.\u00a0 She helped Mrs. Thomas, with all her children and a drunken husband, and then Mrs. Hammond, who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-fiction-review","category-historical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}