Lucy Maud Montgomery: A Writer’s Life

After watching Road to Avonlea and Anne of Green Gables, we wanted to read about the author and found this book to be very interesting. It is a great introduction, but at the same time covers all the aspects of her life, with many photos, copies of her signatures and writing, little antidotes, and snippets of very interesting information. One can draw from these some of the people that are included in her writing. There is so much on each page and even though it is not a large book, it gives so much information of all kinds, that it is truly a lovely book, one that a Avonlea fan would not want to be without. I am so glad that I came across this little but powerful gem!!

This is the perfect book for any true fan of Anne of Green Gables, Emily of New Moon or Pat of Silverbush. It is a 32 page book in the picture book format that is loaded with photos, articles, news clippings, history and little known facts about the life of the Canadian author, L.M. Montgomery, who created all of these wonderful characters and many more in her books and stories about life in Prince Edward Island. Unlike several of the longer biographies that have been written about Montgomery, this one can be read in an afternoon and combines plenty of visual fare along with the written details of this amazing woman's life. This is a book that adults who have loved Anne will find satisfyingly interesting as well as one that is suitably concise and brief. Older children will enjoy the breezy conversational style in which it is written. Photographs abound, including ones of Montgomery's various homes, her children and her husband, as well as youthful friends and "beaus" and even her favorite cat, Lucky. It traces her life from her earliest days, through growing up, her time as a teacher, a newspaper woman, a professional writer, as the author of Anne of Green Gables and the myriad other titles that followed, and as a wife and mother. Excerpts from her journals provide special insight into her heart and mind and I found these to be the most thrilling parts of all. A chronology of all her books is included as well as several websites that concern L.M. Montgomery and her books. Wonderful little tidbits are numerous and include the personal details about writing Anne of Green Gables, the starts and stops, the interruptions, the rejection slips and tears. We learn that Montgomery's secondhand typewriter didn't type capital letters very well and didn't type "w" at all! I really enjoyed this book and I believe any fan of this gifted author's work will delight in it, too. It is especially encouraging and cheering to young writers.