The Book that Changed My Life: 'Anne of Green Gables'

Stephanie Burkinshaw

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

As a child who struggled to learn to read and who found the academic aspects of school life difficult, Anne of Green Gables changed my life. 

I had always found reading hard and don't remember reading much before that, except Ladybird books; I was the last person in my class to become a "free reader". 

At that point, no one had diagnosed my dyslexia. I had special lessons, taken out of class for learning support. I never found a book that interested me; everything felt beyond me. 

On my Mum and Dad's 25th wedding anniversary, aged 10, I refused to come down to their party because I was watching the final episode of the Kevin Sullivan TV production of Anne of Green Gables, a series that had held me spellbound for weeks. At this point, I had no idea whatsoever that it was based on a book. Eventually, a friend of my parents came upstairs and, having revealed the existence of L M Montgomery's novels, then proceeded to coax me downstairs with the promise that she would buy the first two books in the series for me. 

She posted them to me and I still remember my excitement as I saw the cover for the first time (see above), which featured an image of the actor, Megan Follows, who played Anne in the series. And, for the next five years, I was obsessed, reading and re-reading the novels over and over and over again - to the point where, to this day, I can still recite certain passages word for word. 

Anne was such an imaginative, independent and unusual character, who came so alive on the page, her passions, adventures, dreams - and mistakes - felt so real and so powerful. I identified with her propensity to daydream and to get lost within those daydreams. I became so absorbed in the books that I often came to believe myself to be Anne at various times, role playing, imagining living her life on late nineteenth century Prince Edward Island. 

And, in a way I was barely conscious of at the time, my confidence as a reader increased exponentially; with that new-found confidence came a love of literature for the first time: I found books enriching, comforting, illuminating, a source of inspiration and solace. Without Anne of Green Gables, I would not have studied English Literature at university, would not have become an English teacher and would not have passed on to others my love of books. And, over the past year or so, it has been a joy to read the Anne series with my own daughter and to watch her engage with Anne with the same excitement and empathy as I did at the same age.