Celebrating Anne on Literacy Day

September 8th is International Literacy Day. To celebrate, we wanted to focus on one Canadian author and their connection to a great Canadian novel. 

Anne Shirley was first brought to life in L. M. Montgomery's original Anne of Green Gables novels in 1908. The character has been a champion of literacy ever since.

Anne's contagious passion for knowledge gives her an extensive vocabulary. Her love for reading makes her imaginative, romantic, idealistic, and often leads her to trouble.

It's not surprising her timeless story has left an impression on a Canadian author, Margaret Atwood. 

People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?- Lucy Maud Montgomery,

"Anne is the triumph of hope over experience," says Atwood: "It tells us not the truth about life, but the truth about wish fulfilment."

But Anne's "dark underside" is what distinguishes it from other "girls' books" of the early 20th century, says Atwood.

"This is what gives Anne its frenetic, sometimes quasi-hallucinatory energy, and what makes its heroine's idealism and indignation so poignantly convincing." 

"Anne has stayed the same." 

Atwood first "grinned and snivelled" her way through the book at the age of eight. She revisited the books with her her own child in the 1980s, then took a family trip to Prince Edward Island, stayed in Charlottetown, and saw the Anne of Green Gables musical.

Regarding the sequel novels that follow Anne into adulthood, Atwood wrote, "I felt about these later books much as I felt about Wendy growing up at the end of Peter Pan I didn't want to know."

With Season 3 of Anne with an E starting September 22, there will come new storylines and characters: Anne turns 16, navigates new relationships and explores issues such as gender equality and Indigenous rights.

No matter how Anne's storyline evolves with time, we agree with Atwood. Although more than one hundred years have passed, "Anne has stayed the same."