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162nd out of 788 books
—
703 voters
Pat of Silver Bush (Pat of Silver Bush #1)
Patricia Gardiner loved Silver Bush more than anything else in the world. She was born and raised in the beautiful old-fashioned house on Prince Edward Island, "where things always seemed the same" and good things never changed. But things do change at Silver Bush--from her first day at school to the arrival of her new own first romance. Through it all, Pat shares her expe...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
June 1st 1988
by Seal Books
(first published 1933)
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Jun 17, 2009
Abigail
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
L.M. Montgomery Fans
Shelves:
childrens-fiction,
lm-montgomery
Review Temporarily Removed.
Pat Gardiner lives a simple, but charmed life at Silver Bush and because of this she has an inordinate dread of change. My fear before reading this was that this aspect of her personality would be exaggerated and that Pat would be an unrealistic and unsympathetic character. And truthfully Pat is a bit extreme and there were moments when I became quite exasperated with her, but for those of us who really strive to live in the moment I think Pat is the ultimate kindred spirit. Sometimes when life...more
When I was entering my teens I fell in love with L. M. Montgomery's heroines. I started with Emily of New Moon and then moved on to Anne of Green Gables. While those two series still hold special places in my heart, I must say that I am baffled by Pat of Silver Bush.
Most of Montgomery's stories are about young women, usually pre-teen through late twenties, tacking adverse situations with grace and brains. Pat, though, comes from a fairly well to do family. She has a comfortable life and wants t...more
Most of Montgomery's stories are about young women, usually pre-teen through late twenties, tacking adverse situations with grace and brains. Pat, though, comes from a fairly well to do family. She has a comfortable life and wants t...more
The Pat books were written within about ten years of Montgomery's death, in a time when her writing had become—whether due to fashion or to her own life difficulties—rather episodic and a little more prone to mistakes, as well as somewhat given to a dreamlike overuse of ellipses. Considering the hardships she suffered through her own depression and her husband's, the wonder is that there aren't more oddities in her novels of that last decade (which novels includeAnne of Windy Poplars and Anne of...more
Pat is my favorite LM heroine and these are my new favorite LM books. Pat loves everything about her home Silver Bush from her family, house, chicken coop, to each tree and cat on the place. As Judy the Irish voice of wisdom and humor in the books says, Pat had the gift of loving. Her intense love for so much of what other people didn't even notice brought her a lot of joy and also exquisite pain; yet I think Pat was happier than other people and other people were revitalized by associating with...more
3.5, probably. What an odd little book. It's always jarring to read about LMM's characters going to movies and moving from beaus to boyfriends, because I picture them all being set around the turn of the century. Not so. I did grow to like Pat very much, and her ambition to stay home and take care of her beloved Silver Bush. I feel like we saw her grow up more smoothly than either Anne or Emily, but having it all happen in one book instead of two felt odd. I read this on my iTouch from Gutenberg...more
L.M. Montgomery has a beautiful, flowing writing style, but to me, getting through this novel was like pulling teeth. The main character, Pat, just drags her feet from start to finish, and this book covers 10 years of her life. Of course, the book is about how change comes, no matter how hard you resist it, and change isn't always necessarily a bad thing. Which is a great lesson to be learned. Normally, I am great with change. It happens, to me it's exciting. Granted, I think my baby is growing...more
for a little while, this book had me quite worried, because i thought i was going to have to give lucy maude a one or two star review, which simply seems sacrilegious. in the end - like, literally, the last fifty to seventy-five pages or so - it got better and i actually sort of liked it, but goodness gracious. getting there was sort of excruciating. pat is just a really difficult character, in the sense that i was incredibly annoyed at how insipid and twee she was for most of the book. everythi...more
Not LMM's best either - it takes quite some time to get into it. (Although going to Silver Bush before reading it does help with the long descriptions at the beginning.) I'm not the biggest fan of Pat, especially in the beginning - she's frankly quite unreasonable! It gets better when she meets Jingle, and Bets, and when she grows up a bit. The second half is definitely better.
It is interesting to read in light of the info I got while reading Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery, though...more
It is interesting to read in light of the info I got while reading Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery, though...more
At the beginning of the book, Pat is a gullible seven-year-old who loathes change, loves nature and her house (Silver Bush), and whose only ambition is to stay in her house forever with her brother Sid and make cheeses.
Needless to say, that would make for a very boring book. Despite Pat's resistance, change comes, and she learns to abide with it. There can be good changes, such as the arrival of new friends Jingle and Bets, and there can be bad change, such as her brother Joe leaving to be a sai...more
Needless to say, that would make for a very boring book. Despite Pat's resistance, change comes, and she learns to abide with it. There can be good changes, such as the arrival of new friends Jingle and Bets, and there can be bad change, such as her brother Joe leaving to be a sai...more
Although I like almost everything L.M. Montgomery ever wrote, I have to admit that the Pat books are not my favorites. Pat Gardiner lives with her family at Silver Bush, an old house and farm on Prince Edward Island. Unlike Montgomery's other heroines, Pat has no ambitions other than to stay at home forever, taking care of the home and family she loves.
There's a feeling of domesticity and hominess which pervades the books, and I appreciate that more than I used to, but Pat is so neurotically at...more
There's a feeling of domesticity and hominess which pervades the books, and I appreciate that more than I used to, but Pat is so neurotically at...more
I forgot I even owned this! Well, what can I say--it certainly wasn't up to par with the Anne series, but it shined in its own right. Main character Pat, however, was insufferably sensitive and cheesy for the first half of the book. Yes, you love your home of Silver Bush. Yes, it is the best place in the whole wide world. Get ooover it! >:O And the character of "Judy" was practically like the poor man's Irish version of Susan/Rebecca Dew! I can't believe I'm saying that about an LM Montgomery...more
The first 115 pages can be summed up in 3 sentences - Pat hates change. Pat loves Silver Bush. Both of these are portrayed to the extreme. After that the story gets moving better as Pat gets older and her world expands a little. Pat is Anne at her worst with all talk of poetry and wonder and feeling everything deeply without Anne's humor and intelligence. The story also lacks a wide breadth of characters to take some of the focus off Pat's more annoying traits. Her siblings and parents are names...more
I was afraid to start this novel at first, even though I'm a great admirer of L.M. Montgomery's work. As a teen I had read all the Anne books, and I've reread a few in the series a few times since then. I have read Emily of New Moon, The Blue Castle, and Kilmeny of the Orchard. I did not enjoy Kilmeny at all, and whenever I read an L.M.M. novel that I've never read before I get a little scared that it's going to be like Kilmeny.
My first observation upon getting into the novel was the lack of dep...more
My first observation upon getting into the novel was the lack of dep...more
I had a really hard time getting into this book. It took me about 3/4 of the way through till it started getting interesting. Most of Pat's relationships aren't developed enough for my tastes, so I didn't get into the other characters, never learned to love them and feel for them as she does. I enjoyed the character of Jingle, he was interesting to me. Judy was fun, but I got tired of having to read the Irish accent. It slowed me down. I do identify to a certain extent with having a hard time wi...more
I loved this book. Originally I was only reading two books for this month's L. M. Montgomery Reading Challenge (Emily of New Moon and Kilmeny of the Orchard), but I decided to try this one as well, and I'm so glad I did. Pat is a lovely character, and her affection for home and family was delightful. I loved all the descriptions of Silver Bush and the surrounding area. In a funny sort of way, I found Pat's fondness for Silver Bush reminiscent of Noel Streatfeild's Apple Bough - another book I lo...more
I have this book and must have read it before, but I don't remember a bit of it. I thoroughly enjoyed it (again?). Typical L.M. Montgomery, peaceful homey story set in the country on PEI many years ago. Like all Montgomery's books, it made me wish very strongly that I had lived in the country on PEI 75 years ago. I have to remind myself about the whole outhouse/chamber pot thing that somehow doesn't every come up in these kind of books and that there are advantages to living now.
What is really...more
What is really...more
LM Montomery is a wonderful writer whose works recreate a simpler time and the wonder of childhood. In Pat of Silver Bush we meet Pat, who loves her dear home Silver Bush and her family. She loves them so much she struggles to have friends, but finds fast friends with Elizabeth and Jingle, a boy who need Pat as much as she needs him.
I love looking into the worlds LM Montgomery invents, going back to the simpler days, not only back in time but back into childhood as well. The story gets tedious b...more
I love looking into the worlds LM Montgomery invents, going back to the simpler days, not only back in time but back into childhood as well. The story gets tedious b...more
I love this book! It's a laugh-out-loud funny and very charming story. My favorite characters are the hilarious housekeeper Judy and the darling orphaned neighbor boy, Jingle. Montgomery does her best work when writing about childhood. She does a wonderful job showing how magical it can be. And every time I read one of her books, I am reminded to be more aware of a grateful for the beautiful world around me.
I have to say a word about the book's sequel, however. Mistress Pat is an excruciating n...more
I have to say a word about the book's sequel, however. Mistress Pat is an excruciating n...more
Unlike many other LMM novels, I read this one for the first time in adulthood. I was apprehensive about how I would take it, not having fond childhood memories connected to it, but I turned out to love it quite a bit. It's probably not going to be one of my favourite LMM novels, because Pat as a heroine is a bit too passive, her main characteristic being resistance to change and so every conflict in the story being the result of outside forces. It's not as interesting as heroines who have a powe...more
I loved Pat of Silver Bush! Most of the "big" stories and series by L. M. Montgomery, I've grown up with, but Marigold, Jane, and Pat were somehow passed by in my girlhood reading lists. :) It's a delight to find that Maud's books are as enchanting to discover at nearly 20 as they were at 8.
This one was brimming with folklore in a way that gave it a slightly different feel from the others I've read. There was perhaps more of an old-time or backwoods feel--especially in the character of Judy Plum...more
This one was brimming with folklore in a way that gave it a slightly different feel from the others I've read. There was perhaps more of an old-time or backwoods feel--especially in the character of Judy Plum...more
For some reason, I really resonated with the Pat of Silverbush books. They were realistic to me, and Pat has such a love of home and the familiar, and then there are so many unexpected twists and turns in the plot, like real life, that it was endearing.
Strangely enough, I really liked the part where she has a frightening fever and loses all of her hair. And then when it grows back in curly and a darker color, well, I was just fascinated by that to no end.
There's just something so resonating in...more
Strangely enough, I really liked the part where she has a frightening fever and loses all of her hair. And then when it grows back in curly and a darker color, well, I was just fascinated by that to no end.
There's just something so resonating in...more
This book is really much more melancholy than most of Montgomery's works. Nevertheless, it is still another fantastic PEI story with lots of character and a strong sense of place. Pat seems a little shallow as a character since she is so obsessed with Silver Bush, so it is a little hard to relate to her, but the housekeeper Judy is a fabulous character if ever there was one. Judy and her lovely Irish Brogue keep the book clipping along in spite of Pat.
I discovered Pat, after finding Anne, and Emily, and while she isn't my most favorite of Montgomery's girl heroines, I have read this book several times now...
Pat, like many of Montgomery's girls is a nature lover, is imaginative (though not as much as Anne Shirley), and unlike the others is very much a homebody. This clannishness is something that is a little odd to understand now, when families are spread so very far apart.
Though, we do see Pat grow, and change her opinions in the eleven year...more
Pat, like many of Montgomery's girls is a nature lover, is imaginative (though not as much as Anne Shirley), and unlike the others is very much a homebody. This clannishness is something that is a little odd to understand now, when families are spread so very far apart.
Though, we do see Pat grow, and change her opinions in the eleven year...more
The book is about a 7 year old girl living on Prince Edward Island. I have a friend with a 6 year old so I can easily see the thoughts and actions as described. Pat loves widely and deeply. Which means that change is dreaded, but must be faced as a fact of life. This book shows 11 years of Pat's loves and growth through changes. I enjoyed the descriptions of her emotions, her surroundings, and how she faced each change.
I remember loving the "Anne of Green Gables" books as a kid - even though I didn't get all of the motivations. I was very much like Anne at the time, and being more grown up gave me a new perspective on the writing style. I think I would love them even more now, having read "Pat" and understood and absorbed so much more about the people and why they do things and so forth. I really loved this.
While I have dearly enjoyed Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon, this was also an excellent read. The story of Pat is different from LM's other heroines, and the stories therein were a delight to read. Pat is very much a homebody unlike the other heroines, so this book was different but nonetheless wonderful to read.
My rating for this book is based on how much I loved it as a kid/young adult. I was a great connoisseur of L.M. Montgomery, and out of everything she wrote, this book/series was my favorite. There's a particular love of home and of place here, as there is in all of L.M.'s work, but it's especially strong here.
Book club for June. So far: Pat hates change. Got it.
***
The second half grew on me quite a bit, maybe around when Jingle's mother shows up. Pat is still a little too obsessed with Silver Bush, but she became a little more complex as life started happening to her. It got me interested enough to go straight on to Mistress Pat!
***
The second half grew on me quite a bit, maybe around when Jingle's mother shows up. Pat is still a little too obsessed with Silver Bush, but she became a little more complex as life started happening to her. It got me interested enough to go straight on to Mistress Pat!
Pat is a very serious girl with one love, her home, Silver Bush. Montgomery is true to her writing style in describing Silver Bush, the lush landscapes and the trees. I will never look at a tree the same way after reading this book.
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Lucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908.
The author of the famous Canadian novel Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery, was born at Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Nov. 30, 1874. She came to live at Leaskdale, north of Uxbridge Ontario, in 1911 after her wedding with Rev. Ewen Macdonald on July 11, 1911...more
More about L.M. Montgomery...
The author of the famous Canadian novel Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery, was born at Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Nov. 30, 1874. She came to live at Leaskdale, north of Uxbridge Ontario, in 1911 after her wedding with Rev. Ewen Macdonald on July 11, 1911...more
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Jun 17, 2009 03:09pm
updated Jun 17, 2009 07:25pm