Read Love Reviews: Much Ado About Anne

Much Ado About Anne by Heather Vogel Frederick

Pub. Date: August 2009
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Format: Paperback, 315pp
Age Range: 9 to 12
Series: Mother-Daughter Book Club #2

ISBN-13:  9781416970798

Synopsis from BN.com:

The mother-daughter book club is back!

This year the mothers have a big surprise in store for Emma, Jess, Cassidy, and Megan: They've invited snooty Becca Chadwick and her mother to join the book club!

But there are bigger problems when Jess finds out that her family may have to give up Half Moon Farm. In a year filled with skating parties, a disastrous mother-daughter camping trip, and a high-stakes fashion show, the girls realize that it's only through working together — Becca included — that they can save Half Moon Farm.

Acclaimed author Heather Vogel Frederick captures the magic of friendship and the scrapes along the way in this sequel to The Mother-Daughter Book Club, which will enchant daughters and mothers alike.

My Review:

If you like reading the book club's featured selections, I would recommend doing so before reading a Mother-Daughter Book Club novel.  I was surprised to find out that Much Ado About Nothing has its book clubbers discuss not only Anne of Green Gables, but Anne of Avonlea, too.  There is even a quote pulled from the third Anne book, Anne of the Island.  The connections between the story and the book club selections were perhaps not as frequent or as strong this time around, but the girls' love for Anne Shirley and her world is apparent.

I enjoyed Much Ado About Anne, despite a slow start.  This installment keeps the four-part organizational framework of the original, and my enjoyment of the first section was hampered by three things.  First, I was surprised that the mothers would decide to allow the bossy, know-it-all Calliope Chadwick and her snooty daughter Becca into the club.  I was willing to believe, though, that the mothers' graciousness was meant as an example to their daughters.  Second,  I was a little disappointed that the girls appeared to have taken a step backward in development.  The first book showed the girls growing closer to each other and their parents.  Here, they begin a little more mean-spirited than I remembered from book one.  And why does Cassidy seem more secretive (secrets abound and the plot sometimes hinges on them) and distant from her mother?  It seems the author has the girls regress in order to get them into an Anne Shirley-esque scrape or two before learning more life lessons.  Finally, the early focus on Clementine's TV show delays our opportunity to meaningfully explore the girls' thoughts and feelings.

I still heartily enjoyed my reading of the novel.  In some ways, the storytelling has improved.  While book one tended to tie things up too quickly and neatly, Much Ado About Anne allows events to be messier and more mixed-up.  And in some cases, situations, though improved, are not fully resolved.  This is more true to life.

Once more, the series uses humor nicely to offset the occasional weight of lessons learned and wisdom imparted.  Mrs. Wong is again at her ridiculous best, with her penchant for causes and her over-enthusiasm for all things organic and vegan.  And Mrs. Chadwick needs no help or disparagement from the others (it's nice to see the parents model respect for their kids) -- she makes a perfect fool of herself.

 

As the novel progressed, I found that the strengths of the first book remained.  I'm still fond of the whole Hawthorne clan and the closeness they share.  Emma and Phoebe Hawthorne have a believable bond.  It's heartwarming to see such a healthy mother-daughter dynamic portrayed amid a genre in which parents are often absent.  Emma, Jess, Cassidy, and Megan show themselves to be still, at heart, the same good girls they were in the first book, so I was able to forgive their apparent lapses and backslides.  They are, after all, growing girls, and kids their age sometimes need to learn the same lesson more than once before it sticks.  In the end, the girls learn the the value of trust, teamwork, and loyalty, and families and friendships are both strengthened and broadened.  And though our heroine's future is uncertain, like Anne, Cassidy faithfully steps forward trusting that even if she cannot see what lies around the bend, her future's filled with hope.

 

Want to start at the beginning?

For a review of book one in the series,

click on the cover!

Read Love Reviews: Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
(First published 1908)

Pub. Date: April 1982
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 308pp
Age Range: 10 and up
Series: Anne of Green Gables #1
ISBN-13: 19780553213133

Synopsis from the book jacket:

As soon as Anne Shirley arrives at the snug white farmhouse called Green Gables, she is sure she wants to stay forever...but will the Cuthberts send her back to the orphanage? Anne knows she's not what they expected -- a skinny girl with fiery red hair and a temper to match. If only she can convince them to let her stay, she'll try very hard not to keep rushing headlong into scrapes and blurting out the first thing that comes to her mind. Anne is not like anybody else, the Cuthberts agree; she is special -- a girl with an enormous imagination. This orphan girl dreams of the day when she can call herself Anne of Green Gables.

My review:

I just adore Anne of Green Gables! Avonlea is such a beautiful location for an imaginative getaway!

While not a fantasy, the world in which the characters of Anne of Green Gables live is brought to life through vivid descriptive passages.  The setting is king, becoming a character in itself.  Montgomery's vivid portrayal of the idyllic natural landscape is as large a part of her storytelling as Thomas Hardy's poetic descriptions of his fictional Wessex or Dickens' careful descriptions of filth, wont, and squalor in London streets and workhouses.  Whether seen through the eyes of the narrator or described by Anne, there is no doubt that Avonlea is a beauty to behold:

"Anne came dancing home in the purple winter twilight across the snowy places.  Afar in the southwest was the great shimmering, pearl-like sparkle of an evening star in a sky that was pale golden and ethereal rose over gleaming white spaces and dark glens of spruce.  The tinkles of sleigh bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through the frosty air, but their music was not sweeter than the song in Anne's heart and on her lips."

Besides the setting, another thing that immediately impresses me about Anne of Green Gables is Montgomery's facility for creating characters that seem as alive as can be.  At the novel's opening, it's appropriate that we should be introduced first to the meddlesome Rachel Lynde, who with her "all-seeing eye" spies on the goings and comings in the town of Avonlea.  From the get-go, we feel that we know and understand Rachel, Marilla, and Matthew.  And we look forward to getting to know them better, as well as meeting other townsfolk.  Each character has a unique voice, especially the loquacious Anne who speaks her own language with words and phrases like "the depths of the despair," "kindred spirit," "bosom friend," and "tragical".

From the moment when Anne Shirley arrives in Avonlea nothing and no one will be the same.  Just as her imagination reshapes her reality, this small, wiry, orphaned "freckled witch" of a girl will transform the world around her.  Her presence at Green Gables alters more than just her small gable room -- Anne changes the residents of Green Gables, Matthew and Marilla. While Marilla and Matthew teach, guide, and love Anne, she in turn teaches them.  While we see this unlikely family take shape and watch Anne grow, we find that she not only impacts the hearts of friends and families whose lives she touches, including the cantankerous Aunt Josephine Barry, but she makes readers love her, too.  Indeed, even Mark Twain, creator of his own rapscallion, Huck Finn, adored Anne Shirley.  In a letter to Montgomery, he writes that she is “the dearest and most lovable child in fiction since the immortal Alice.”

At the novel's beginning, eleven-year-old Anne is a bit like a young, untamed horse.  She's full of more spunk, zest, and joie-de-vivre than one body can reasonably accommodate.  This unbridled spirit, combined with a limitless imagination lands her in a great many scrapes and escapades.  But luckily, Anne learns that each dawn brings "a new day with no mistakes in it".  We watch her grow, both physically and emotionally -- by novel's end she is over sixteen -- learning lessons from each of her amusing and touching adventures and from her own foibles.

We see in young Anne a spark of childhood imagination and energy, but more than that, a vigor that does not fade as she ages.  Anne is the embodiment of spirit.  She knows what it is to be alive.  As such, she takes nothing for granted.  She loves mornings and soaks up not only the beauty in the world around her, but also any morsel of learning or knowledge that she can.  As she grows, Anne becomes as reflective as she was impulsive.  She never loses sight of the many blessings she has been given, and is grateful for all that she has.  Her gratitude and enthusiasm is as infectious as her charm.  She makes you laugh and cry.  She helps you dream and imagine right along with her.  But most of all, Anne leaves you grateful to have, as she does, your own little slice of  heaven on earth.  It may not be Avonlea, but it's home.  And who better to teach us gratitude for the simple pleasures and blessings of a loving home, than Anne Shirley, the most beguiling and loveable orphan you'll ever meet!

Alas, the only thing wrong with Anne of Green Gables is that the story has to end.  As Anne says:

"The worst of imaging things is that the time comes when you have to stop and that hurts."

But luckily, there are seven more books in the Anne of Green Gables series!