Review of the Oh My Anne Mobile Game

Last month, I received a notification that the "Oh My Anne" mobile game was available to download for iOS, and I decided to check it out and review the game.

This new mobile app was announced back in December 2022. The game is based on L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. After the game's soft launch, it was released more widely this spring.

You can view the lovely "Oh My Anne" trailer here:

The game's trailer begins with Anne looking for her daughter Rilla Blythe. Rilla is holding a dandelion puffball. When Anne asks Rilla what she is doing, Rilla uses sign language to explain that she is making a wish to the "dandelion fairy" to be less of a burden to her mother. Anne is shocked at Rilla's fears and reassures Rilla that she is not a burden. Anne explains that when she was young, she was just like Rilla and that the unconditional love she received at Green Gables changed her life. Rilla asks to hear more about the story of Green Gables. Anne tells her to make a wish to the dandelion fairy to hear the story.



Anne counts to three and Rilla makes her wish and blows. A dandelion seed flies through the air and across time to the door of Green Gables where a young Anne Shirley turns around.



The mobile game begins with this same sweet trailer. I found it touching and surprising that Rilla was deaf and had fears that she was a burden to Anne considering that Rilla was not deaf in L.M. Montgomery's stories.

After the trailer, you begin the gameplay. Each day when you log in to the game, you receive a reward for your attendance.



In episode 1, Anne encounters Green Gables with Matthew.



According to the game's storyline, Marilla was injured when she fell off her rocking chair, so Green Gables is quite dusty. Anne aims to help by cleaning and re-decorating Green Gables with new furniture. She's just entered the house and hasn't even met Marilla yet, so her behavior is quite forward and a bit odd.



You can play various matching games to earn coins and dandelion fairy points. These coins and points allow you to redecorate and move forward in the gameplay.



In this matching game, Anne Shirley is being chased by an angry bee.



The game is free-to-play, but there are additional locked features and rewards for players who purchase in-game virtual goods for microtransactions with real money. These features include special photos and dresses for Anne.



The dialogue for the game is a bit amusing. At times, Anne is even more dramatic in the game than in L.M. Montgomery's stories.



Overall, the game is good for passing time if you enjoy matching puzzle games and decorating games. The animation scenes are playful, and Anne is very expressive. I'm not quite sure where the storyline is going as Anne discovers more about Green Gables and Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. I think younger players might find the game more enjoyable than older ones (like me).

I hope that the animators who created the trailer will make an animated Anne of Green Gables film in the future. I was intrigued at the relationship between Anne and Rilla, the fact that Rilla was deaf, and the use of sign language in the trailer. I'd love to see how they would continue Anne and Rilla's storyline in a novel way.

Have you played the "Oh My Anne" mobile game? What did you think of it?

Image credit:
Screencaptures from the "Oh My Anne" mobile game and trailer.

Created April 21, 2024.
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The New York Times Book Review Harshly Reviewed Anne of Green Gables in 1908

In 1908, after Anne of Green Gables was published, the novel was reviewed by The New York Times Book Review. The book was harshly reviewed by an anonymous reviewer who said the character Anne Shirley, “greatly marred a story that had in it quaint and charming possibilities.”

Personally, one of the first words I think of in describing Anne Shirley is "charming." It's a bit sad that the reviewer missed out on Anne's charms, don't you think?

In 1924, bylines were required for the The New York Times Book Review, and reviewers had less freedom to be callous because they were no longer anonymous. Read more about the unsympathetic reviews written anonymously for The New York Times Book Review prior to 1924 in "When the Book Review Went Really Harsh" by Tina Jordan published in The New York Times on August 27, 2021.

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Created September 12, 2021.
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The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume One: A Life in Print

The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume One: A Life in Print edited by Benjamin Lefebvre was published by University of Toronto Press in December 2013. A part of "The L.M. Montgomery Library," this book reprints a collection of interviews, essays, forewords, reviews, and other published documents by and about L.M. Montgomery and provides notes and commentary about the documents. In his introduction, Benjamin Lefebvre states that the book "gathers together ninety pieces published from the immediate aftermath of the publication of Anne of Green Gables to a few years after Montgomery’s death. Among the highlights of this volume are a number of essays and letters by Montgomery as well as several interviews with her from across her career."


Here is the description of the volume from University of Toronto Press:

Now available in paperback, The L.M. Montgomery Reader assembles rediscovered primary material on one of Canada’s most enduringly popular authors, spanning the entirety of her high-profile career and the years since her death.

The first volume, A Life in Print, focuses specifically on Montgomery’s role as a public celebrity and author of the resoundingly successful Anne of Green Gables (1908). The selections give a strong impression of Montgomery as a writer and cultural critic as she discusses a range of topics with wit, wisdom, and humour, including the natural landscape of Prince Edward Island, her wide readership, anxieties about modernity, and the continued relevance of "old ideals." These essays and interviews, joined by a number of additional pieces that discuss her work’s literary and cultural value in relation to an emerging canon of Canadian literature, make up nearly one hundred selections in all.

Each volume in The L.M. Montgomery Reader is accompanied by an extensive introduction and detailed commentary by leading Montgomery scholar Benjamin Lefebvre that traces the interplay between the author and the critic, as well as between the private and the public Montgomery.

Reviews

"While Lefebvre’s The L.M. Montgomery Reader is a vital resource of primary sources from and secondary assessments of one of Canada’s most popular twentieth-century authors, it is his insightful and knowledgeable analysis that shapes and gives meaning to the collection. The depth of his knowledge results in a work that is as comprehensible as it is comprehensive."
—Andre Narbonne, American Review of Canadian Studies

"With this volume, Lefebvre broadens our understanding of Montgomery’s reception and reputation both within Canada and internationally, unearthing previously obscure content and commentary and making it accessible to a far wider audience. This reader will thus prove a valuable resource to both existing and future scholars of Montgomery’s work and life, as well as those fans keen for a little more insight into the ever-elusive figure of L.M. Montgomery."
—Sarah Galletly, British Journal of Canadian Studies

The book includes the following contents:

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

Introduction: A Life in Print by Benjamin Lefebvre
A Note on the Text

1 [Such a Delightful Little Person] (1908)
2 Author Tells How He Wrote His Story (1908)
3 Origin of Popular Book (1908)
4 The Author of Anne of Avonlea (1909)
5 Miss Montgomery, the Author of the “Anne” Books (1909) by A. Wylie Mahon
6 A Trio of Women Writers (1909) by Donald B. Sincair
7 Canadian Writers on Canadian Literature – A Symposium (1910)
8 Says Woman’s Place Is Home (1910)
9 Want to Know How to Write Books? Well Here’s a Real Recipe (1910) by Phoebe Dwight
10 Miss Montgomery’s Visit to Boston (1910)
11 Four Questions Answered (1910) by Lucy Maud Montgomery
12 Miss L.M. Montgomery, Author of Anne of Green Gables (1910)
13 How I Began to Write (1911) by L.M. Montgomery
14 [Seasons in the Woods] (1911) by L.M. Montgomery
15 With Our Next-Door Neighbors: Prince Edward Island (1911) by Thomas F. Anderson
16 [The Marriage of L.M. Montgomery] (1911)
17 A Canadian Novelist of Note Interviewed (1911)
18 Interviews with Authors (1911) by Anne E. Nias
19 The Old Minister in The Story Girl (1912) by A. Wylie Mahon
20 L.M. Montgomery: Story Writer (1913) by Marjory MacMurchy
21 L.M. Montgomery at Women’s Canadian Club (1913)
22 L.M. Montgomery of the Island (1914) by Marjory MacMurchy
23 What Twelve Canadian Women Hope to See as the Outcome of the War (1915)
24 The Way to Make a Book (1915) by L.M. Montgomery
25 How I Began (1915) by L.M. Montgomery
26 [This Hideous War] (1915)
27 What Are the Greatest Books in the English Language? (1916)
28 My Favorite Bookshelf (1917) by L.M. Montgomery
29 The Author of Anne (1919) by Ethel M. Chapman
30 The Gay Days of Old (1919) by L.M. Montgomery
31 Introduction to Further Chronicles of Avonlea, by L.M. Montgomery (1920) by Nathan Haskell Dole
32 One Little Girl Who Wrote to L.M. Montgomery and Received a Reply (1920)
33 A Sextette of Canadian Women Writers (1920) by Owen McGillicuddy
34 Blank Verse? “Very Blank,” Said Father (1921) by L.M. Montgomery
35 “I Dwell among My Own People” (1921) by L.M. Montgomery
36 Bits from My Mailbag (1922) by L.M. Montgomery
37 From Fiction Writers on Fiction Writing: Advice, Opinions and a Statement of Their Own Working Methods by More Than One Hundred Authors (1923)
38 Novel Writing Notes (1923) by L.M. Montgomery
39 Proud That Canadian Literature Is Clean (1924)
40 Canadian Public Cold to Its Own Literature (1924)
41 Thinks Modern Flapper Will Be Strict Mother (1924)
42 Symposium on Canadian Fiction in Which Canadian Authors Express Their Preferences (1924)
43 Something about L.M. Montgomery (1925)
44 L.M. Montgomery’s Rilla of Ingleside: A Reader’s Journal (1925) by Altair
45 Famous Author and Simple Mother (1925) by Norma Phillips Muir
46 The Day before Yesterday (1927) by L.M. Montgomery Macdonald
47 Who’s Who in Canadian Literature: L.M. Montgomery (1927) by V.B. Rhodenizer
48 About Canadian Writers: L.M. Montgomery, the Charming Author of “Anne” (1927) by Katherine Hale
49 On Being of the Tribe of Joseph (1927) by Austin Bothwell
50 Minister’s Wife and Authoress (1928) by C.L. Cowan
51 An Autobiographical Sketch (1929) by L.M. Montgomery
52 Modern Girl Defined by Noted Writer (1929)
53 L.M. Montgomery’s Ideas (1930)
54 The ’Teen-Age Girl (1931) by L.M. Montgomery
55 Anne of Green Gables at Home (1931) by A.V. Brown
56 An Open Letter from a Minister’s Wife (1931) by L.M. Montgomery
57 Life Has Been Interesting (1933) by Mrs. L.M. Macdonald (L.M. Montgomery)
58 The Importance of Beauty in Everything (1933) by L.M. Montgomery
59 From Courageous Women (1934) by L.M. Montgomery
60 Author to Get No Profit as Green Gables Filmed (1934)
61 Film Preview of Noted Novel Honors Canadian Woman Writer (1934)
62 Is This My Anne (1935) by L.M. Montgomery
63 Foreword to Up Came the Moon, by Jessie Findlay Brown (1936) by L.M. Montgomery
64 Come Back with Me to Prince Edward Island (1936) by L.M. Montgomery
65 Memories of Childhood Days (1936) by L.M. Montgomery
66 The Mother of the Anne Series – Lucy M. Montgomery (1937) by Eva-Lis Wuorio, Translated by Vappu Kannas
67 The Book and the Film (1937)
68 For and about Girls (1937) by L.M. Montgomery
69 Prince Edward Island (1939) by L.M. Montgomery, O.B.E.
70 Beloved Writer Addresses Several Aurora Gatherings (1940)
71 Noted Author Dies Suddenly at Home Here (1942)
72 Lucy Maud Montgomery (1942)
73 L.M. Montgomery’s “Anne” (1942)
74 Body of Island’s Beloved Authoress Home for Burial (1942)
75 Island Writer Laid to Rest at Cavendish (1942)
76 The Creator of “Anne” (1942)
77 [L.M. Montgomery’s Last Poem] (1942)
78 L.M. Montgomery / Mrs. (Rev.) Ewen Macdonald (1942)
79 L.M. Montgomery as a Letter-Writer (1942) by E. Weber
80 L.M. Montgomery’s “Anne” (1944) by E. Weber

Epilogue: Anne of Green Gables – The Story of the Photoplay (1920) by Arabella Boone

Sources
Bibliography
Index


ISBN: 9781442644915


Image credit:
Book cover of The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume One: A Life in Print.

Purchase and read The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume One: A Life in Print:


Created December 18, 2013. Last updated May 2, 2024.
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National Post Review of Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings

Judy Stoffman wrote a comprehensive review of Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings by Mary Rubio for the National Post titled "Beyond the Red Haired Girl: Her Fiction May Be Upbeat, but L.M. Montgomery’s Life Was Less So." Stoffman writes about the stark contrast between the happy endings Montgomery wrote for her "plucky heroines" and her own turbulent life.

Stoffman writes,

"In her 21 books of fiction, Lucy Maud Montgomery always provided a happy ending. Her plucky heroines, the red-haired orphan Anne Shirley the most famous among them, somehow manage to seize their opportunity to love, to marry, to find acceptance in their community after vanquishing controlling mothers, gossipy neighbours, manipulative suitors, bullying fathers, cruel grandmothers, false friends, negative aunties - the whole nasty army of discouraging, judgmental, energy-sapping naysayers bent on undermining the dreams and ambitions of the young.

Yet a happy ending eluded the lively, intelligent and hard-working Montgomery herself, who lived what may be the most tragic life of any Canadian writer and died an addict to prescription medications at the age of 67, in 1942."

Stoffman writes about the new information provided by Rubio's biography, which examines Montgomery's early life, schooling, romances, career, marriage, relationships, and children.

"Five volumes of her diaries were published by Oxford University Press beginning in 1985, but the full extent of her suffering and disappointments has not been known until Mary Rubio's Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings (Doubleday Canada, 684 pages, $39.95). Montgomery had carefully shaped and revised her diaries throughout her life, deleting the most shameful facts. Rubio, now an emeritus professor of English at the University of Guelph, spent 30 years researching her magisterial biography and has filled in all the gaps."

According to Stoffman, Rubio's new biography puts L.M. Montgomery's life in context and considers the radical shifts following WWI, including the changes in literary tastes, psychiatric treatments, and views of religion. Rubio's extensive research shows how Montgomery's life was affected by societal, cultural, and personal factors, providing a nuanced and thorough portrait of the author.


Image credit:
Book cover of Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings.

Reference:
Stoffman, Judy. (2009, January 17). Beyond the Red Haired Girl: Her Fiction May Be Upbeat, but L.M. Montgomery’s Life Was Less So. National Post. Retrieved from: http://www.financialpost.com/scripts/story.html?id=1186069

Purchase and read Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings:


Created January 18, 2009. Last updated September 23, 2024.
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