Children and Childhoods in L.M. Montgomery

Children and Childhoods in L.M. Montgomery: Continuing Conversations was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in October 2022. This book of scholarship explores L.M. Montgomery's portrayals of childhood in her writing. It was edited by Rita Bode, Lesley D. Clement, E. Holly Pike and Margaret Steffler. The volume contains contributions by Kate Scarth, Lesley D. Clement, Rita Bode, Margaret Steffler, Bonnie J. Tulloch, E. Holly Pike, Åsa Warnqvist, Heidi A. Lawrence, William V. Thompson, Yoshiko Akamatsu, Balaka Basu, Laura M. Robinson, Vappu Kannas, Holly Cinnamon, Rosalee Peppard Lockyer, and Kit Pearson.

Here is the description of the volume from McGill-Queen’s University Press:

From Jane Austen to contemporary fanfiction and adaptations, literary portrayals of the child and imaginings of childhood are particularly telling indicators of cultural values and when they shift.

Inspired by the responsive reading practices of L.M. Montgomery herself, those demonstrated by her characters, and those of her diverse readership, Children and Childhoods in L.M. Montgomery works with concepts of confluence, based on organic, non-linear readings of texts across time and space. Such readings reconsider views of childhood and children by challenging power hierarchies and inequities found in approaches that privilege more linear readings of literary influence. While acknowledging differences between childhood and adulthood, contributors emphasize kinship between child and adult as well as between past and present selves and use both scholarly approaches and creative reimagining to explore how the boundaries between different stages of life are blurred in Montgomery’s writing.

Children and Childhoods in L.M. Montgomery addresses Montgomery’s challenges to prescribed assumptions about childhood while positioning her novels as essential texts in twenty-first-century literary, childhood, and youth studies. Contributors include Yoshiko Akamatsu (Notre Dame Seishin University), Balaka Basu (UNC Charlotte), Rita Bode (Trent University), Holly Cinnamon, Lesley D. Clement, Vappu Kannas, Heidi Lawrence (University of Glasgow), Kit Pearson, Rosalee Peppard Lockyer, E. Holly Pike, Laura Robinson (Acadia University), Kate Scarth (UPEI), Margaret Steffler (Trent University), William Thompson (MacEwan University), Bonnie Tulloch (UBC), Åsa Warnqvist (Swedish Institute for Children’s Books).

Reviews

“By presenting Montgomery’s fiction as conversing with past and present creative writers, contributors provide a helpful focal point within the broad framework of the collection, extending prior conceptual understandings of the cultural role of reading.” Irene Gammel, author of Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic

“This collection [is] valuable and [a rarity] in academic literary studies. It is a book both for scholars and for the “Maud Squad.” Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’histoire de l’éducation

The book includes the following content and essays:

Introduction by Lesley D. Clement, with assistance from Rita Bode, E. Holly Pike, and Margaret Steffler

Part One: Conversing with the Past: Vulnerability, Resistance, and Resilience

1. Emily of New Moon and Fanny of Mansfield Park: Childhood at Home in Jane Austen and L.M. Montgomery by Kate Scarth
2. L.M. Montgomery’s Precocious Children: Resisting Adult Narratives of Death, Dying, and the Afterlife by Lesley D. Clement
3. Vulnerable Situations: Boys and Boyhood in the Emily Books by Rita Bode

Part Two: Conversing with the Present: Fantasy, the Ideal, and the Real

4. The Performance of the Beautiful Dream Boy in Novels by L.M. Montgomery and Frances Hodgson Burnett by Margaret Steffler
5. Lost Boys and Lost Girls: The Kindred Offspring of J.M. Barrie and L.M. Montgomery by Bonnie J. Tulloch
6. Magic for Marigold, Childhood, and Fiction by E. Holly Pike

Part Three: Continuing Literary Conversations: Transformative Relationships and Spaces

7. Loving, Larking, and Lying: Free-Spirited Children and Disciplinary Adults in the Works of L.M. Montgomery and Astrid Lindgren by Åsa Warnqvist
8. Absent Fathers: Conversations between L.M. Montgomery and Madeleine L’Engle by Heidi A. Lawrence
9. Transformative Girlhood and Twenty-First-Century Girldom in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables by William V. Thompson

Part Four: Continuing Transmediated Conversations: Anime, Fanfiction, and Television Adaptations

10. The Problems and Possibilities Inherent in Adaptation: Emily of New Moon and Emily, Girl of the Wind by Yoshiko Akamatsu
11. Continuing Stories: L.M. Montgomery and Fanfiction in the Digital Era by Balaka Basu
12. Anne with an Edge: CBC-Netflix’s Rereading of Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables by Laura M. Robinson

AFTERWORDS

Preface to the Afterwords by Lesley D. Clement and Margaret Steffler

Emily Kent - The Afterlife of Emily of New Moon by Vappu Kannas
Anne’s Nature by Holly Cinnamon
My Maud by Katie Maurice by Rosalee Peppard Lockyer
Dear Maud by Kit Pearson


Image credit:
Book cover of Children and Childhoods in L.M. Montgomery from McGill-Queen’s University Press.

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Created November 27, 2022. Last updated June 12, 2024.
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Even in grey November...

"Spring would come back even in grey November and her poor, cold, dead, little heart would beat again."
-L.M. Montgomery
A Tangled Web

Read more quotes by L.M. Montgomery.

Image credit:
Photograph by World of Anne Shirley.

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Created November 22, 2022. Last updated April 19, 2024.
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Green Gables House, Prince Edward Island National Park Playing Cards

Today, I found another fun gift idea for an Anne of Green Gables fan. It's a pack of 52 playing cards featuring the Anne of Green Gables House at Prince Edward Island National Park. Do you think Marilla Cuthbert and Rachel Lynde would play a game of gin rummy with these cards, or would Rachel disapprove?

Created November 15, 2022.
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Anne of Green Gables Watercolor Print and Quote

Here's a lovely gift idea for an Anne of Green Gables fan. It's a pretty fall watercolor print by the artist Lane Martin with a quote by L.M. Montgomery from Anne of Green Gables. You can customize your order to be printed on different types of paper or canvas in a variety of sizes (8 x 10", 11 x 14" or 18 x 24"). Several framing choices are available for the print too.

Created November 14, 2022. Last updated April 19, 2024.
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The Winter Wind by L.M. Montgomery

In January 1904, L.M. Montgomery published the poem "The Winter Wind" in The Farm Journal, a journal devoted to the farm, orchard, garden, poultry and household economy. The journal's motto was "Practical not Fancy Farming."

Here is a digitized image of the poem scanned from microfilm available at Archive.org:


Here is the full text of the poem:

THE WINTER WIND
BY L. M. MONTGOMERY

I am the gladdest of winds that blow
Though I come from the realms of ice and snow.

I waken the notes of the pine tree lyres
When the sunset kindles its crimson fires.

I dance over meadows and valleys white
In the sparkling frost of a winter night.

I croon a song that is low and sweet
When the dawn creeps out on her silver feet.

I nip and pinch with a right good will
The children’s cheeks on the coasting hill.

I sting to action the hearts of those
I meet on my way from the Northland snows.

Laughter rings when I whistle by,
For a right good, rollicking wind am I.


Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. (1904, January). The Winter Wind. The Farm Journal. 28(1): 1. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/sim_farm-journal_1904-01_28_1/mode/2up

Created November 12, 2022.
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November had been a vexing month

"But November had been a vexing month all through...one day glorious...the next day savage."
-L.M. Montgomery
Mistress Pat

Read more quotes by L.M. Montgomery.

Image credit:
Photograph by World of Anne Shirley.

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Created November 5, 2022. Last updated April 19, 2024.
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The Time of the Clover Blossom by L.M. Montgomery

In June 1904, L.M. Montgomery published the poem "The Time of the Clover Blossom" in The Farm Journal, a journal devoted to the farm, orchard, garden, poultry and household economy. The journal's motto was "Practical not Fancy Farming."

Here is a digitized image of the poem scanned from microfilm available at Archive.org:


Here is the full text of the poem:

THE TIME OF THE CLOVER BLOSSOM
BY L. M. MONTGOMERY

The wind from the slopes of pineland

Drifts over the wide green fields

To mingle its breath with the incense

That rose-red clover yields;

The clouds on the far horizon

Are white in the peaceful blue,

And the brooks are tenderly crooning

The sun-warm valleys through.

All over the leagues of grasses

The shadows and ripples go,

And a bluebird is blithely singing

In the pasture down below;

For he knows that near him is cradled

His mate in her tiny nest,

And the time of the clover blossom

Is the sweetest and the best.

Song on the hills and uplands,

Song in the meadows fair,

Song in the beautiful valleys,

Song on the forest air!

And a gladness deep and lasting

That broods on the starry sod—

In the time of the clover blossom,

The world is near to God.

Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. (1904, June). The Time of the Clover Blossom. The Farm Journal. 28(6): 223. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/sim_farm-journal_1904-06_28_6/page/222/mode/2up

Created November 4, 2022.
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Buttercups by L.M. Montgomery

In May 1910, L.M. Montgomery published the poem "Buttercups" in The Farm Journal, a journal devoted to the farm, orchard, garden, poultry and household economy. The journal's motto was "Practical not Fancy Farming."

Here is a digitized image of the poem scanned from microfilm available at Archive.org:


Here is the full text of the poem:

BUTTERCUPS
BY L. M. MONTGOMERY

Like showers of gold-dust on the marsh,

Or an inverted sky,

The buttercups are dancing now

Where silver brooks run by.

Bright, bright,

As fallen flakes of light,

They nod

In time to every breeze

That chases shadows swiftly lost

Amid those grassy seas.

See what a golden frenzy flies

Through the light-hearted flowers!

In mimic fear they flutter now,

Each fairy blossom cowers.

Then up, then up,

Each shakes its yellow cup

And nods

In careless grace once more—

A very flood of sunshine seems

Across the marsh to pour.

Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. (1910, May). Buttercups. The Farm Journal. 34(5): 311. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/sim_farm-journal_1910-05_34_5/page/310/mode/2up

Created November 3, 2022.
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Nutting Song by L.M. Montgomery

In November 1906, L.M. Montgomery published the poem/song lyrics "Nutting Song" in The Farm Journal, a journal devoted to the farm, orchard, garden, poultry and household economy. The journal's motto was "Practical not Fancy Farming."

Here is a digitized image of the poem scanned from microfilm available at Archive.org:


Here is the full text of the poem:

NUTTING SONG

Light, light, rings our laughter

O’er valley and hill,

To chime with the musical

Call of the rill.

The blue skies above

With their sunshine o'erflow,

And over the meadows

Beguiling winds blow—

Heigh-ho for the nutting.

Through the boughs of the chestnuts

The mellow lights fall,

And the song of the nutters

Rings clear over all.

The maples are flame

On the crest of the hill,

And amethyst hazes

The far valleys fill

In the time of the nutting.

The mornings are frosty,

The noons are a-gleam,

The blue air is quivering

Over the stream.

The wood ways are drifted

With billows of gold,

And the world sings a song

That can never grow old

In the time of the nutting.

Oh, ours is the laughter,

The frolic and mirth,

The heyday of autumn,

The bounty of earth.

The music that echoes

The whole world along

Is borne in our hearts

And enchained in our song

In the time of the nutting.

L. M. MONTGOMERY.

Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. (1906, November). Nutting Song. The Farm Journal. 30(11): 374. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/sim_farm-journal_1906-11_30_11/page/374/mode/2up

Created November 2, 2022.
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November Dusk by L.M. Montgomery

In November 1904, L.M. Montgomery published the poem "November Dusk" in The Farm Journal, a journal devoted to the farm, orchard, garden, poultry and household economy. The journal's motto was "Practical not Fancy Farming."

Here is a digitized image of the poem scanned from microfilm available at Archive.org:


Here is the full text of the poem:

NOVEMBER DUSK

A weird and dreamy stillness falls upon
The purple, breathless earth, the wind-less woods,
The wimpling rims of valley solitudes,
The wide, gray stubble-fields and fallows wan—
A quiet hush, as if, her heyday gone,
Tired Nature folded weary hands for rest
Across the faded vesture of her breast,
Knowing her wintry slumbers hasten on.
Far and away beyond the ocean’s rim
The dull-red sunset fades into the gray
Of sombre, wind-rent clouds that marshall grim
Around the closing portals of the day,
While from the margin of the tawny shore
Comes up the voice of waters evermore.

L. M. MONTGOMERY.

Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. (1904, November). November Dusk. The Farm Journal. 28(11): 372. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/sim_farm-journal_1904-11_28_11/page/372/mode/2up

Created November 1, 2022.
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