This collection of essays brings together passionate readers and literary critics from Canada, the US, Japan, and Australia. The essays ruminate on readers’ individual and collective relationships to one of the most iconic characters of Western literature: Anne of Green Gables. This relationship is imagined and interrogated through a range of critical and creative lenses, including studies of fan culture, translation, adaptation and imagination. The collection is unique in inviting responses that draw deeply on personal connections to Anne, and the ways that readers’ relationships to her have shifted over time. The book will appeal most particularly to readers seeking essays and other works that bridge the divide between a critical and a more personal response to ‘our Anne girl’.

This collection of essays brings together passionate readers and literary critics from Canada, the US, Japan, and Australia. The essays ruminate on readersâ (TM) individual and collective relationships to one of the most iconic characters of Western literature: Anne of Green Gables. This relationship is imagined and interrogated through a range of critical and creative lenses, including studies of fan culture, translation, adaptation and imagination. The collection is unique in inviting responses that draw deeply on personal connections to Anne, and the ways that readersâ (TM) relationships to her have shifted over time. The book will appeal most particularly to readers seeking essays and other works that bridge the divide between a critical and a more personal response to â ~our Anne girlâ (TM).

When no one stands up to a bully, can anyone be truly safe? “Weaves together a tender and poignant coming-of-age story with a powerful narrative.” —Lyn Yeowart, author of The Silent Listener Tormented at school, ten-year-old Jane wants a best friend more than anything. Her wish is answered when Acacia moves in next door, and a carefree summer break beckons. Yet as their friendship blossoms and secrets are shared, Acacia remains stubbornly guarded about her home life, especially when it comes to her mother’s new boyfriend Daryl, a Harley-riding ladies’ man. At a neighborhood party, Jane stumbles onto a disturbing scene involving Daryl and is coerced into silence. Frightened and confused, she stays quiet, but when sounds of violence start emerging from Acacia’s house, she hopes an adult will intervene. Instead, everyone turns a blind eye. Jane’s own family seems to be deteriorating into chaos too, as if the darkness in Acacia’s house is spreading like ripples in a pond. It will end in disaster if no one acts, and it may end in tragedy if someone does . . . “A brave and hugely necessary book.” —Tabitha Bird, author of The Emporium of Imagination

An affecting biography of the author of Anne of Green Gables is the first for young readers to include revelations about her last days and to encompass the complexity of a brilliant and sometimes troubled life. Once upon a time, there was a girl named Maud who adored stories. When she was fourteen years old, Maud wrote in her journal, “I love books. I hope when I grow up to be able to have lots of them.” Not only did Maud grow up to own lots of books, she wrote twenty-four of them herself as L. M. Montgomery, the world-renowned author of Anne of Green Gables. For many years, not a great deal was known about Maud’s personal life. Her childhood was spent with strict, undemonstrative grandparents, and her reflections on writing, her lifelong struggles with anxiety and depression, her “year of mad passion,” and her difficult married life remained locked away, buried deep within her unpublished personal journals. Through this revealing and deeply moving biography, kindred spirits of all ages who, like Maud, never gave up “the substance of things hoped for” will be captivated anew by the words of this remarkable woman.

A charming and heartwarming true story for anyone who has ever longed for a place to belong. “Anne of Green Gables,” My Daughter, and Me is a witty romp through the classic novel; a visit to the magical shores of Prince Edward Island; and a poignant personal tale of love, faith, and loss. And it all started with a simple question: “What’s an orphan?” The words from her adopted daughter, Phoebe, during a bedtime reading of Anne of Green Gables stopped Lorilee Craker in her tracks. How could Lorilee, who grew up not knowing her own birth parents, answer Phoebe’s question when she had wrestled all her life with feeling orphaned—and learned too well that not every story has a happy ending? So Lorilee set off on a quest to find answers in the pages of the very book that started it all, determined to discover—and teach her daughter—what home, family, and belonging really mean. If you loved the poignancy of Orphan Train and the humor of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, you will be captivated by “Anne of Green Gables,” My Daughter, and Me. It’s a beautiful memoir that deftly braids three lost girls’ stories together, speaks straight to the heart of the orphan in us all, and shows us the way home at last.

In this provocative, classic metaphysical thriller, a group of suburban amateur actors plagued by personal demons and terrors explore the pathways to heaven and hell Certain inhabitants of Battle Hill, a small community on the outskirts of London, are preparing to mount a new play by the neighborhood’s most illustrious resident, the writer Peter Stanhope. Each actor struggles with self-absorption, doubt, fear, and sin. But “the Hill” is not like other places. Here the past and present intermingle, ghosts walk among the living, and reality is often clouded by dreams and the dark fantastic. For young Pauline Anstruther, who is caring for an aging grandmother and frightened by the specter of a doppelgänger who gets closer with each visitation, the prospect of heaven exists in the renowned playwright’s willingness to bear the burden of her terror. For eminent historian Lawrence Wentworth, the rejection of his desire pulls him deeper inside himself, leaving him vulnerable to the lure of the succubus and opening wide the entrance to hell. A brilliant theological thriller, Descent into Hell is an extraordinary fictional meditation on sin and personal salvation by one of the twentieth century’s most original and provocative literary artists. Charles Williams, a member of the Inklings alongside fellow Oxfordians C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Owen Barfield, has written a powerful work at once profoundly disturbing and gloriously uplifting, an ingenious amalgam of metaphysics, religious thought, and darkest fantasy.