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Nov 09, 2011

Lisa rated it:

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6 comments like (13 people liked it)

Apr 08, 2008

Gwen the Librarian rated it:

As a huge fan of Anne as a girl, the adult in me did not want to spoil any of my memories by picking up this prequel commissioned for the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables. As a librarian, I felt it was my duty to suck it up and read. I was not disappointed.

Before Green Gables seems to stay close to Anne's own description of her life before arriving at Green Gables (but it's been a few years since I last read it, so purists may have gripes I didn't notice). It opens with t More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jun 24, 2008

Christina rated it:

Actually, I want to give it 3.5. It's not perfect -- Anne starts speaking like an 11-year old when she's like 3, there isn't anything especially innovative, and there are some mindsets and turns of phrases that felt anachronistic -- but in general I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. It almost ended up on my "Abandoned" shelf, but I wanted to keep reading about Anne's childhood. And the end result was that I got super re-energized to reread the actual Anne series, to the More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 19, 2008

Emily rated it:

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3 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 04, 2008

Dave rated it:

My wife and I spent our honeymoon on Prince Edward Island and, there, I was introduced to Anne Shirley and Lucy Maud Montgomery, and her Anne books. I enjoyed them very much, so when I heard that a prequel was being published to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables, I picked it up as soon as it came into my local library.
This book is clearly very well-researched, giving Anne's bacground leading up to the beginning of Lucy Maud Montgomery's original se More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 17, 2008

Bobbi rated it:

For all of those Anne of Green Gable fan out there, this is a great book. I felt it blended seamlessly with the original series. I'm not sure why it's not considered a children's book, other than I'm sure that it was marketed to reach those of us who are nostalgic and sentimental about Anne. I felt that the author was true to the story and characters. It was a pleasant and fun read.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 03, 2008

Julianna rated it:

Nothing good happens to Anne before Green Gables! Although the book is well written it is extremely depressing. The author describes the loving home and happy parents of Anne who both die! So sad! Then she is taken in by a woman who treats her bad and ends up having 4 or 5 little boys after she takes Anne in. Anne helps her take care of all the boys. The one person, an older daugher Eliza, treats her like a daughter but moves out of the house to get married. Anne is heartbroken! Then you thi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 10, 2008

CmPete rated it:

Some prequels shouldn't be written at all they may be ok run of the mill novels, but they don't live up to the originals. Some require you to suspend what you know about the original books so you don't scream "NO!! Ashley's eyes weren't blue!!" as you read...
Before Green Gables is NOT one of those. This book takes very few liberties with what we already know about Anne-with-an-e, and provides a generous history for the beleoved heroine. I was entranced by the description of An More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2008

aisha rated it:

As I have enjoyed the "Anne of Green Gables" series since I was a young girl, I was excited to hear that a prequel was out. However, I am always wary of books about beloved characters NOT written by the original author. So, I was prepared not to get too emotionally attached from the get-go.

I needn't have worried. Budge Wilson does a tremendous job of showing us Anne's early upbringing and marrying it with the "Anne with an e" we come to know and love in the " More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 26, 2008

Michelle rated it:

I was pretty wary of reading this book because I LOVE the Anne books and was scared of this one ruining the story for me. However, Wilson did a great job of capturing the small town Canada lifestyle where children are more than plentiful and education is a prized virtue.

That said, the first 100 pages or so were not interesting to me. Almost completely unrealistic. I felt Anne from birth to 4 years old was a little too smart/advanced and I just didn't believe in her. But thankfully, More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 31, 2008

Alice rated it:

I would not recommend this book to anyone except fans of the original work. It is a book that does not live up to its promise. As you read it, you may realize that you loved the book "Anne of Green Gables" as much for L.M. Montgomery's superb writing as for the character of Anne. With a more pedestrian writing style, the magic of the story fades.

Several years ago I started searching out every Montgomery book and short story that I could find, and was captivated by her excel More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jun 20, 2008

Katie rated it:

When I saw this book at the store, I was immediately excited, then wary. As a devoted fan of the Lucy Maude Montgomery's treasured series, I wondered if this book could live up to the true Anne books.

I was pleasantly surprised! Authorized by the Montgomery heirs, Budge Wilson did a good job of capturing Anne's spirit through her turbulent upbringing. I wondered as I began reading how a story we already know as sad could be an uplifting book but the author reminds us that Anne has More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 26, 2008

Susan rated it:

This book was a delightful rendering of Anne's childhood before Green Gables. I was surprised to read book reviews that thought that this book was depressing because of all the misfortunes that befell Anne in her childhood. Weren't misfortunes Anne's lot before she arrived at Green Gables? Yet inspite of her misfortunes, it is Anne's ability to use her imagination to get her through the "depths of despair" and to find joy and goodness in the people and world that surrounds her which ma More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 25, 2008

Rhonda rated it:

Though Anne Shirley had often alluded to the difficult years before her arrival at Green Gables, readers were left to fill in the blanks themselves. Now, thanks to careful research, author Budge Wilson has written a prequel of Anne's earliest days.

As young Anne often dreamed about and romanticized the schoolteacher parents who died during her infancy, Wilson begins with the story of their newlywed love. Some readers may find this section "unnecessary," as it takes place be More...

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Sep 10, 2011

Sarah rated it:

One of the flurry of L. M. Montgomery related books that came out last year for the 100th anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables, Wilson's story attempts to fill in the details of Anne Shirley's life before Matthew Cuthbert picked her up from the Bright River train station.

Obviously, this was not the prequel but Montgomery would have written, but this isn't the same world as Montgomery's and Wilson does a great job of telling Anne's early story for today's audience. Sh More...

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Jul 15, 2011

Alyssa rated it:

It's not perfect. I don't think there is any way a modern author could accomplish the doubly impossible trick of going back in time and jumping into another author's head. I honestly can't imagine the book being any better, even while I note its flaws.

One of the difficulties of imagining Anne as she must have been before she arrived in Avonlea, is that Anne was extraordinary at age 11. What forces caused her to become that 11 year old child? Who influenced her, what events shaped her? More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 01, 2011

Rachel rated it:

For Christmas, I asked for the complete Anne of Green Gables movie trilogy and eagerly rewatched the first movie. After the holidays, when browsing the discounted books at the local bookstore, I came across this book. When I went to the library a few weeks ago, I discovered that the book was in stock, so I checked it out. My ultimate plan was to read this prequel and then continue on with the 7-book set that has sat on my bookshelf unopened for years.

Before Green Gables chronicles t More...

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Aug 16, 2010

Teghan rated it:

The official prequel to the novels...and not a bad one either. It went along pretty on-point in regards to what we already knew about Anne's life pre-Green Gables and Budge Wilson created the rest of it within a believable reality.

The books include a cast of characters that a very LMM-esque in nature and it shows that Wilson worked hard to ensure that mood.

However, I nearly stopped reading the book several times at the beginning. The book starts with Anne's parents, Walter More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2010

Sara rated it:

In Before Green Gables we hear, for the first time, what Anne Shirley's life may have been like before arriving as an eleven year old orphan on the Cuthbert farm. Suffering the devestating loss of both her parents at the tender age of three months, Anne is shuffled from one foster home to the next, ill-used and barely allowed to escape, even to attend school, compulsory in her native Novia Scotia. Finally, even the foster homes are no longer and she finds herself in what seems to her to be a m More...

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Jul 03, 2009

Fashiongirlgoldberg rated it:

OK, this book wasn't bad, but, it was really depressing. She of course started the book out with the perfect couple who were really in love, then the wife becomes pregnant has this kinda weird baby with a ton of red hair but who they nonetheless think is the greatest thing. Then the wife's close friend and her family catch some sort of awful disease which of course the mother picks up. Then she dies. Then the father dies. So this lady who they hired to look after the wife after she has the baby More...

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May 04, 2009

Caroline rated it:

Pretty good. I have to leave off a star because anything like this can only be speculation. LMM didn't write it. But, it seems to fit with the clues in the original books. I'm planning on rereading them to double check my most dubious feelings from this book. Like, I don't buy the part where Anne was already in love with PEI. I'm pretty certain that happened after she got there. And I'm not sure the timing at each of those families was correct, but the story flowed well, so I wouldn't be More...

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Apr 30, 2010

Lydia rated it:

I grew up with Anne of Green Gables. As a pre-teen I yearned for my own bosom friend like Diana, I wanted to taste raspberry cordial (although not get sick), I wanted to walk through a forest and quote poetry. I even wanted red hair, although Anne with an E would say that hers was the bane of her existence. More than once I would find myself in the depths of despair and I can remember thinking at those times that yes, my life was a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.

So to say that More...

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Feb 26, 2010

Kirsten rated it:

A breathtaking look at the beginnings of the ANNE OF GREEN GABLES series, we see her parents and their lives before being touched by Anne. We follow Anne through family after family up till she comes to Green Gables. Wilson's storytelling and writing expertise is a gem, the characters are well-rounded and detailed, their hardships not taken lightly throughout the whole story. I'll definitely be rereading BEFORE GREEN GABLES again.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 21, 2011

Heather rated it:

We learn about Anne's life before she came to Green Gables in this prequel by Nova Scotian author Budge Wilson. After her schoolteacher parents die of fever, Anne goes through two foster homes (both full of babies to take care of) and eventually to an orphanage. Throughout all of it, she uses her imagination and boundless sense of hope to survive in her awful circumstances.

I thought this stood up well as a prequel to the Anne series. When I first started it I wasn't very impressed wi More...

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Jul 29, 2011

Ellen rated it:

Buku ini menceritakan kisah Anne Shirley dari sebelum kelahirannya hingga 11 tahun yang dijalaninya sebelum akhirnya ia datang ke Avonlea, Pulau Prince Edward. Di buku ini juga digambarkan bagaimana Anne menjalankan hidupnya sejak ia lahir dan harus menjadi seorang anak yatim piatu sejak usia 3 bulan. Selanjutnya ia juga harus berpindah-pindah dari satu keluarga ke keluarga lain dan bekerja keras di usianya yang masih sangat muda. Namun di luar kesulitan yang dihadapinya, Anne belajar banyak hal More...

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Jun 07, 2011

Charlynn rated it:

Of course, because of my love for the original series, when I saw this in the library, I had to check it out. Though Budge Wilson's work not measure up to its inspiration, I did enjoy delving into Anne's past, even if it was through the eyes of another author besides L.M. Montgomery. It belatedly provided a reference point to some of her - Anne's - thoughts, comments, and habits. It also made me want to go back and reread the original series again, though I withheld from doing so. My chief compl More...

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Jul 14, 2008

Toni rated it:

As a prequel to the much-loved Anne of Green Gables, I felt the author did a commendable job of capturing Anne's character. AOGG is one of the few books I read over and over, so it was really enjoyable to read about Anne's life prior to coming to Prince Edward Island and Green Gables. One can only wonder if Lucy Maud would have approved...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 24, 2009

JennyGranola rated it:

Many people have reviewed this book and expressed disbelief in Wilson's depiction of Anne's earliest years. I have to state for the record that as fans of the Anne series you should use your imaginations a little bit more and allow yourselves to dream a little bigger. I can back this up by using my own special daughter as an example. She is living proof that a child can speak in full sentences before age one, read by age three and correct her father's (extensive) knowledge of poetry by age 4. Sh More...

2 comments like

Feb 09, 2009

Melissa rated it:

First of all, I liked this one. It was sweet and charming and an easy read. Wilson's style and plot devices mimic L.M. Montgomery's seamlessly. However, I see that as part of the problem in this case. Anne is too much like the girl we meet at Bright River too early in her life for me to suspend disbelief. In addition, while in terms of human psychology Anne couldn't have had such a terrible childhood as I had always pictured, I think that her relationships with her teachers and neighborhood More...

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Jan 23, 2012

Tamra rated it:

A "prequel" to the Anne of Green Gables series (which I love), this book gives us the story of Anne's adoring and in-love parents, how Anne came to be orphaned, and the life she led before coming to Green Gables. I appreciated and liked how the author included explanations of how Anne came to be the Anne we know when we are first introduced to her in the series, although I found the toddler/very young Anne a little overly precocious to be believable. But the back story of Anne's life m More...

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