Anne of Green Gables

Anne Shirley names the world as she moves through it. An apple-blossomed road becomes the White Way of Delight; a plain pond becomes the Lake of Shining Waters. When the buggy rounds a bend beneath a canopy of snowy blossoms, even her endless chatter falls silent before a beauty she calls the first thing that couldn't be improved upon by imagination. That capacity for wonder is the engine of this book, and it works its slow magic on everyone — the sharp-tongued neighbor Mrs. Rachel Lynde, the dark-haired bosom friend Diana Barry, and one teasing schoolmate who makes the mistake of calling her "Carrots."

Lucy Maud Montgomery writes Avonlea in lush, unhurried detail: gardens crowded with peonies and narcissi, a whitewashed east gable room, a brown dress with the puffed sleeves a girl dreams of. Beneath the comedy runs something tender. Marilla's rare "rusty" smiles give her away long before she can admit what the child has come to mean, and Matthew's inarticulate devotion speaks through small gestures he never explains.

"But it's a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than Anne of nowhere in particular, isn't it?" she asks, and the question holds the heart of it. Here is a story about how an ordinary place becomes home once someone loves it enough to name every corner. The door stands open.