Anne of Green Gables and the Case for Challenging Books

by Amy Elliot

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say this past year of homeschooling was pretty mediocre. Even for long-time homeschoolers like our family, this pandemic has brought about some challenges and pulled more than a few weaknesses into the light! In fact, one of the only subjects that I can confidently say we’ve tackled with any measure of success is literature study. And, for my 8yo this year, lit study meant reading Anne of Green Gables. 

Reading Anne is a milestone in Canadian girlhood; I think her character probably holds a similar place for us as the one held by Laura Ingalls in the collective American mind. Anne is spunky, determined, resilient; her escapades are ridiculous, the lessons she learns are deeply important, and she is a symbol of redemptive grace. The series (oh, there’s a series!) begins with the book Anne of Green Gables, where we first see Anne as a malnourished, temperamental, proud young thing, fresh from the orphanage, and come to live with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert at Green Gables Farm on Prince Edward Island.   

There is, undoubtedly, a streak of fun throughout the story. Anne gets into ‘scrapes’ and mischief – all in good fun, of course – and is sometimes sassy, or difficult and petulant.  In short, she’s written like a real girl, and not like some of the oddly pristine specimens of girlhood offered to fans of old-fashioned novels. She’s a Josephine March, certainly, and not an Amy. 

There’s also a great deal of difficulty to work through. Anne is deeply embarrassed at times; she makes awful mistakes and faces unfair consequences. At the end of the first book, her beloved guardian Matthew dies in a scene that remains etched in the memory of every Canadian girl. It’s not an easy book to read. And while there isn’t anything wrong with the average 8yo reading the first book of Anne, many would argue that there wouldn’t be much to get from it at such a young age, either. 

As I watched my daughter struggle through the novel for months on end, I wondered many times if maybe this was all ‘too much’ for her. If, maybe, I had reached a bit too high in my eagerness to share a story that has meant so much to me through the years.  The print was so tiny, and the book so much thicker than any she had read alone before – should I have just handed her something easier? I wondered if the beautiful themes of Marilla’s softening heart, Matthew’s pure love, Anne’s haughty spirit brought low, if it was all just over her head. 

We went through the book in our usual way. She read to herself, and then told me about what she had read and we discussed it. We covered new vocabulary, answered some questions about the narrative asked in our study guide, followed a few rabbit trails, and all the other odds and ends of experiencing a book. Slowly, to my delight, I saw her falling into the story. Like the first reading of any book worth its ink, I’m sure great swathes of it passed her by, which will make a re-reading all the more delightful in the future, but…she understood. She understood the sadness and the joy and the mischief so much more than I thought she would. She surprised me with her depth and with her enjoyment. 

The last day of reading found her curled up on the sofa, lost in the final chapters. I had warned her that something sad would happen, as we always try to warn our loved ones, as if the warning will prevent the sadness. And as she finished the story, I saw she was crying. I think we both felt a sense of accomplishment when she closed the back cover. 

I am often too quick to default to the things I know my children can do. It’s easier, both academically and emotionally, to simply assign something I know they can grasp easily.  But time and again they surprise me with their insight, with the depth of their analysis, with their attachment to themes and characters. Their childish minds are uncluttered with the endless dead ends and random biases that clutter up my own more developed sensibilities.   

Anne lived for my daughter as she hasn’t lived for me in decades, and there were much more prosaic lessons learned as well, lessons about reading a big, heavy, intimidating book all by yourself and about difficult words and how they sometimes can express exactly what you mean in a way modern language cannot. But when I remember the reading, when I remember Anne at all, now, it is with a picture in my mind of my lovely daughter, crying over Matthew Cuthbert. You can only cry over a character once they’re known to you – once they’ve crossed the barrier of text, and become a friend. 

Amy is a voracious reader with three smallish children and a lot of books in her house. Her offspring insist that they all live in a library. Amy knows this is not true, because if it were, things would be cleaner.