Remember the 2010 Winter Olympics With Quatchi

Last February, I turned 29. On the day I went out for my birthday dinner, my mind was mostly occupied with thoughts of LOST, as the final season of my favorite TV series had begun the week before and I was busy trying to find ways to use that as a springboard for my own creativity. However, when we got home, we turned on the television to find the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics occurring, and I quickly got caught up in the excitement of this international event. While I’ve never been too attuned to sporting events in general, I love the spirit of intercultural communication and unity that pervades the Olympics. Yes, it’s a competition, but it’s also a time when it’s easy to feel a sense of kinship with people around the world as millions of eyes focus upon the same displays of athletic prowess. The world always feels a little smaller when I watch the Olympics.

The next day, a package arrived from my friend Cynthia, who lives in Toronto. I don’t recall discussing the impending Olympics with her ahead of time, but I opened the box to find it full of official gear. Because they were held in Vancouver, the Olympics were a matter of national pride throughout Canada, and I appreciated Cynthia’s thoughtfulness in making me feel more fully a part of the festivities. For the rest of the winter, I could often be seen wearing an ice-blue scarf and matching hat with flaps that cozily covered my ears, both bearing the emblem of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Along with these practical items, I also got a plush Quatchi, the irresistible mascot of the 2010 games.

Quatchi is meant to be a Sasquatch, though he doesn’t look much like a traditional Bigfoot to me, at least the one I have. He’s a cuddly little butterball, almost perfectly round with arms that dangle at his sides. His hands are beige; he seems to be wearing mittens. Meanwhile, he appears to be wearing boots, which are striped in alternating shades of brown. On the left boot is the 2010 Olympics symbol. The bottoms of the boots are a lighter brown and ridged like corduroy. Aside from the hands and boots, the only part of Quatchi that is smooth is his face, which stretches across the middle front of his head and is just large enough to accommodate a thick black smile and two black eyes, as far apart as they can get, and a shiny brown plastic nose.

The rest of Quatchi is covered in shaggy brown hair about the shade of the titular alien on the campy 1980s TV series ALF. Just underneath his chin is a tuft of hair that is more beige in color, but otherwise the hair is uniformly medium brown. Quatchi’s fur is incredibly soft, as is whatever he is stuffed with. The tag indicates that he is made up of polyester fibers. There’s variation in the textures of this little guy, particularly when you factor in the crystal blue earmuffs resting atop his head, but he is 100 percent snuggly.

I only wish he were a bit bigger. At seven and a half inches tall, he’s a little larger than your average Tribble, a wheat-eating furball that causes Captain Kirk oodles of headaches in a classic Star Trek episode. That smaller size makes him an ideal desktop decoration, but he’s so cuddly that he’d make a great substitute for a teddy bear if he were maybe four times the size he is now. That would also make him look more Bigfootish, I imagine; right now he’s more of a Littlefoot. But whatever his size, he sure is cute with that soft fur, the arms that seem to be begging for a hug and the understated but expansive grin that exudes friendliness. The 2010 Winter Olympics are long over now, but Quatchi serves as a welcome reminder of that great moment in Vancouver history.

Farley Follows His Nose and Finds an Adventure

For Better or For Worse will always have a special place in my heart as the comic strip that convinced me to start reading the Sunday comics. My mom had read one of the strips aloud, and it felt so pertinent and true-to-life that I was intrigued and had to read it for myself, and then I decided that I really ought to make a regular habit of it. Since Elizabeth had many of my personality traits and was just a little older than me, I always found plenty to relate to in the strip, in which the characters aged at a normal rate and creator Lynn Johnston crafted many complex storylines.

With the strips covering nearly 30 years in the life of the Canadian Patterson family, it was only natural that Farley, the great big English Sheepdog who was the family pet, would not make it to the end of the strip, and the storyline dealing with his death was one of the most touching and heartbreaking of the strip’s long run. However, in 2008, Johnston decided to go back in time, creating new strips involving the Pattersons as a young family, and in 2009, she and her daughter, Beth Cruikshank, collaborated on a picture book that brought Farley roaring back to life.

Farley Follows His Nose is not a collection of comic strips. Johnston’s distinctive style is stamped all over the pages, but she has huge spaces to work with instead of the usual tiny boxes. There’s something really visceral about that, as refreshing as a big wet dog shaking himself out over a verdant lawn, as Farley does early in the book. We see matriarch Elly, the strip’s main character, at the beginning and end of the book, and we get enough of a glimpse of the children to see that Elizabeth is a toddler – clutching the stuffed bunny she loses in the television special The Bestest Present – and Michael is in elementary school. The focus, however, is on the exuberant Farley.

This is a very simple story that reminds me a bit of Beverly Cleary’s Ribsy, in which the beloved dog belonging to Henry Huggins gets loose and traverses the town on a series of adventures. Ribsy’s trek lasts longer; Farley’s is restricted to one day. But the dog’s-eye – or, more accurately, dog’s-nose – view is similar, as is the series of friends he makes, only to quickly continue on his way. The story is held together by the device of a wave of words or phrases, four of them all smooshed together, each in a different color. Each phrase is a smell that captures Farley’s attention, and the rainbow-colored list is followed by an “and…” that takes readers to the next page, where the most exciting smell of all is presented in extra-large, colorful letters and followed by an exclamation point.

Farley does a lot of sniffing in this book. We often see him raising his nose to the air or snuffling in the dirt as onomatopoeic words describing his olfactory activities surround his head. It’s his sense of smell that leads Farley to the next stop on his uncharted adventure, and when he decides the time has come to head back, all he has to do is follow the smells backward, reminding me of the classic animated Sesame Street sequence in which a lost child was advised, “Try to remember the things you passed, and when you come back, make the first thing last.” He doesn’t do it entirely consciously; he’s mostly thinking about the possibility of returning to the site of the best smells of the day, which included hot dogs, popcorn and children. Still, it’s a good strategy, and it makes me wish my sense of smell was a little more fine-tuned.

This is a story that is repetitive and uncomplicated, but with just enough variation from page to page to keep things interesting. Most pages include only a couple sentences, with the pictures doing most of the talking. The primary audience is clearly children about Elizabeth’s age; even Michael could probably consider this a bit below his reading level. However, when it comes to longtime fans of the strip, Farley Follows His Nose is fantastic fun for all ages.

Booky Makes Her Mark Melodramatically

Booky Makes Her Mark is the first in a series of Canadian made-for-TV movies based on a book series about a Depression-era family living in Toronto. However, it takes place several years after the two movies that follow it, and it was the third movie that I saw. Hence, I had a hard time thinking of it as the first. While all the movies were directed by Peter Moss, there are significant differences between this movie and the next two, and I’m not sure which is truer to the book. In any case, although I mostly enjoyed this installment, it’s easily my least favorite of the three.

The only actors who appear in both this movie and the ones that follow are Megan Follows and Stuart Hughes, who are Francie and Thomas Thomson, Booky’s parents. Francie is tough and resourceful, while Thomas is hardworking but very angsty. As the movie begins, Thomas is once again out of work, and the family is evicted. It’s just the first in a string of unfortunate events that occur in this rather bleak film. Despite the difficult times, the other two movies have an upbeat tone to them, and nothing ever seems to get Francie down for long, but here, she is almost as cantankerous as Thomas, who is at his most ornery yet.

Tatiana Maslany looks as though she could legitimately be the older version of Rachel Marcus, the actress who plays Booky in the other two movies. In this one, she is 15 years old, and that means major teen melodrama. The 11-year-old is almost always cheerful and plucky, but at 15, she is prone to flinging herself down on her bed and wailing, “This is the worst day of my life!” It seems every time something good happens to her, something comes along to ruin it. Granted, her misery is usually at least somewhat understandable, but she almost always blows it out of proportion, especially considering the life-or-death concerns that plague her parents. It would seem I should relate to her more in this movie than the others, since it is here that she decides she wants to be a writer, but more often than not, I found her behavior annoying. Her most redeeming quality is her consistent kindness to Roy-Roy (Philip Riccio), a mentally disabled man who lives in the neighborhood.

Booky’s little brother Jakey, who provides many light moments in the other two movies, is nowhere in sight. Not having read the books, I don’t know if something happened to the character or if he was just cut from the adaptation and then added back in later, but I missed his presence, particularly since Booky’s older brother Arthur (Erik Knudsen) is such an obnoxious ne’er-do-well in this one. The character whose personality is most consistent throughout the series is Willa (Sarah Allen), Booky’s sweet, studious older sister, but oddly, she seems to be the same age in this movie as she is in the other two.

Additionally, it’s a little jarring that neither of Booky’s close female friends is in this movie, though rich blonde Gloria (Kate Todd) is similar to Laura and plain brunette Ada-May (Lauren Collins) is a lot like Rosie. Georgie (Ephraim Ellis), the object of Booky’s affections in Booky’s Crush, is present, but she doesn’t think much of him, instead reserving her ardor for the wealthy and handsome Lorne (Mike Lobel).

As Booky’s parents try to scrape out the family’s survival, Booky deals with a series of humiliations, some the fault of her parents, others the fault of her friends but most at least partly her own fault, as she is so prone to overreactions. The mildest criticism sends her into the depths of despair, while an accomplishment turns her into an insufferable egotist. My favorite segment of the movie finds her out in the country with her hardscrabble Aunt Aggie (Roberta Maxwell), a spinster farmer, working her fingers to the bone in the hopes that all that clean country air will cure her of her chronic cough. Aggie’s determination and no-nonsense way of putting things is refreshing in the midst of all the soaring teen emotions.

As with the other movies in the series, this one is rich in period detail, and the sets look very realistic. I would say this one is a bit less of a family film, since none of the characters are younger than their teens and since the overall tone is darker. There’s also a bit of profanity, and we see several teens smoking cigarettes. On the other hand, one point of interest unique to this movie is the presence of L. M. Montgomery, author of the Anne of Green Gables series, as a character who meets with Booky and offers her advice on her writing craft. Fans of Anne or other Montgomery characters may want to check out the movie just for that. While I prefer the movies that focus on Booky’s younger years, Booky Makes Her Mark is still a well-crafted film that shines a light on a fascinating historical period.

Get to Know Winnie the Pooh's Namesake in A Bear Named Winnie

This Friday, the new Disney movie Winnie the Pooh hits theaters, and though I’m not sure how well the tubby little cubby can compete against the final installment of that equally popular British export known as Harry Potter, I know I’m not the only one looking forward to seeing him on the big screen again. In anticipation of that event, I watched A Bear Named Winnie, the 2004 live-action film directed by John Kent Harrison, who wrote it with John Goldsmith based on the true story by Simon Vaughan.

In this movie, set during World War I, we get the story of Lt. Harry Colebourn (Michael Fassbender), a young Canadian soldier in a veterinary corps who rescues an orphaned bear cub and smuggles her aboard the train to training camp. He names her Winnipeg after his hometown and calls her Winnie for short. While his gruff commander, Col. John Barret (Gil Bellows), warns him that he’s going to have to do something about her before they head off to do some real fighting, Winnie quickly grows very attached to Harry, and shaking her off isn’t going to be so easy.

Winnie is the bear after whom Winnie the Pooh is named, and the movie is framed by scenes several years later that show her at the London Zoo, where she is one of the most popular residents. The bulk of the movie deals with her presence at the training camp in Quebec and later in England, after Harry pulls off another smuggling act, this time in a sea chest. His chief accomplices in this endeavor are geeky Ivy League graduate Ian Macray (Jonathon Young) and cheerful goofball Randy Taylor (Aaron Ashmore). As powerful as the bond between Winnie and Henry is, the movie is just as much about the friendship between these young men, particularly Henry and Ian.

Winnie, played by three different bears named Chester, Charlie and Bonkers, is a charming creature, though she is loud and rather disaster-prone. She has a habit of bellowing in moments of distress, and her ingenuity causes problems when she escapes and makes for the mess tent. However, in times of tranquility she is a comfort to those around her, whether she is nuzzling noses with the camp horses or wrapping her furry limbs around Harry in a firm bear hug. There are moments of comedy with her disastrous antics, but the story more often veers toward the heartwarming.

The only member of the cast I recognized was Ashmore, who has so consistently charmed me as Smallville’s fresh-faced Jimmy Olsen. His character here is of a similar disposition, and he adds levity to most of the scenes in which he appears. Young brings an uptight but sympathetic air to Ian, who is sheltered and jittery but very passionate about his veterinary work. The core friendship between Ian and the more outgoing Henry is helpful in getting us to understand the plight of soldiers during this time. The stern but kind presence Bellows brings stands in contrast to the lunacy of the unit’s top commander (David Suchet), a general who is far removed from soldiers’ concerns.

A Bear Named Winnie is mostly a war story, though its PG rating keeps it from becoming too graphic, even as it delves into some of the harsh realities of wartime. It’s a tale of friendship and how bonds forged in trying times can carry the despairing through to happier days. Christopher Robin and A. A. Milne are characters in the movie, and an end-credits note confirms their identities, but this is not really their tale. They have just enough of a screen presence to tie the movie in with the Winnie whose popularity continues a century later. That Winnie remains my favorite of all fictional bears, but it seems the real Winnie had a lot to recommend her as well.

Torontonians Find Joy in a Depression-Era Christmas in Booky and the Secret Santa

This week, while browsing Netflix, I came upon the Booky series of TV movies based upon the books by Bernice Thurman Hunter. I watched the last one first, then proceeded to Booky and the Secret Santa, which came out in 2007. The children in this G-rated slice of historical fiction directed by Peter Moss are noticeably a bit younger, but they look mostly the same, and whatever characters are in both movies are portrayed by the same actors. This movie is set in December, and I presume it’s supposed to be about nine months before Booky’s Crush.

While times are lean in Booky’s Crush, the sense of monetary crisis is even more acute in Booky and the Secret Santa. Toronto is teetering on the brink of Depression, and Thomas Thomson (Stuart Hughes), a hardworking harness maker, is out of a job as the company employing him switches over to using motorized vehicles. That’s bad news for the whole family, especially his daughter Booky (Rachel Marcus), whose best friend Laura Westover (Emilia McCarthy) is the daughter of a woman one character describes as a “social-climbing nobody.” Uppity Mrs. Westover (Nahanni Johnstone) doesn’t want her daughter hanging around with a girl whose family is practically impoverished. All Booky wants is the freedom to enjoy her friend’s company and enough money to make a nice Christmas like those to which she is accustomed.

I found the class dynamics at play in this movie interesting, and I love the Christmassy setting. It often seems to be the case that remarkable things occur around Christmas, and that’s what Booky is hoping will happen here. Unlike her practical teenage sister Willa (Sarah White) and angsty older brother Arthur (Dylan Everett), Booky has not yet entirely let go of the possibility that Santa Claus could exist. She doesn’t believe in him with the fervor displayed by her little brother Jakey (Noah Ryan Scott), who is desperate for a red trike, but she still thinks he might be out there somewhere. In fact, he might be living among her friends and neighbors, and they don’t even know it.

The most dynamic side character this time around is Mrs. Westover, who comes across as incredibly shallow and persnickety. One of the chief questions of the movie is whether she is capable of genuine friendship or whether every friendly gesture she makes is merely a means to an end. Silent sparks fly when she and Booky’s mother Francie, a spunky woman played by Megan Follows of Anne of Green Gables fame, are in the same room. Through the adults, we see the struggles that typified the late 1920s and early 1930s, while the children, particularly Booky and Laura, demonstrate the joy and hope that the season can bring even in the darkest times.

Johnstone is exquisitely annoying in her role, but the best addition to the cast this time around is Kenneth Welsh as Mr. Eaton, the kindly owner of one of Canada’s most prominent retailers. He and Booky, whom he affectionately calls “Little Bluebird” because of her vibrant winter coat, forge a friendship after she gets a job distributing nut samples outside her aunt’s store. He is a regular customer, and he finds her cheerful and inquisitive nature a delight. Booky, inspired in part by a comic book about a detective with a dual identity, begins to wonder if her elderly friend with the twinkle in his eye could actually be Santa. And if he is, might he be able to help the Thomsons have a merry Christmas after all? Walsh is wonderful in the role, especially whenever he lets loose with a rumbly laugh that sounds suspiciously like a “Ho ho ho,” and he and Marcus have quite a sweet rapport.

While the time period matters in Booky’s Crush, I would say that it’s even more significant in this movie, which shows more broadly the effects of the economic downturn as well as the creative ways that people dealt with it. Some of the Christmassy aspects of the film are most endearing. My favorite seasonal moment comes when a neighbor girl comes by, pulled on a makeshift sleigh hitched up to several children tied together and sporting twig-antlers on their heads. It just goes to show that you don’t need a lot of money or fancy gadgets to have a good time.

While I loved Booky’s Crush, I think I enjoyed Booky and the Secret Santa even more. Although one would be most inclined to watch it near Christmas, this story of friendship and optimism makes for great viewing any time of year.

Puppy Love Abounds in Booky's Crush

As someone who grew up with the exquisite Kevin Sullivan Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea miniseries, I was excited to happen upon a series of Canadian period movies featuring a spunky young main character and starring Megan Follows, who made such an impeccable Anne. In the Booky movies, based on the novels by Bernice Thurman Hunter, Follows plays Francie, the mother of intelligent, tomboyish Booky Thomson (Rachel Marcus), a middle schooler in Depression-era Toronto. She has two close friends in tall, blond Laura (Emilia McCarthy) and short, brown-haired Rosie (Ariel Waller), but in Booky’s Crush, she is fixated on a new classmate, cute but mildly troublesome Georgie (Connor Price). Her teacher selects her to tutor Georgie in spelling, but who will tutor her in the complex art of getting him to ask her to the upcoming school dance?

Booky isn’t the only one with a crush in this family-friendly made-for-TV movie. Shy Rosie carries a torch for Booky’s older brother Arthur (Dylan Everett), a quiet, artistic lad concerned by his father’s implication that he may need to give up his passion to take on more practical work. The oldest Thomson, sweet librarian Willa (Sarah White), has a fiscally unfeasible passion as well; she wants to go to medical school, as does the young man she fancies, a frequent visitor to the library. To quote the precocious 8-year-old author of How to Talk to Girls, “A crush is like a love disease,” and half the people in this movie seem to be infected. It’s all very innocent; the movie remains firmly within G-rated territory at all times. It’s also very true to life, and anyone who’s ever endured a powerful crush will likely find it easy to sympathize with Booky and giggle a bit over the heightened drama such emotions bring, especially in one so young.

Thomas Thomson (Stuart Hughes) is the character through whom we see the pinch of the Depression most acutely. He has a job – at a chocolate factory – but he fears he could lose it any day, and this makes him testy around others. His concerns about the unstable job market produce tension with the rest of his family, especially Arthur. Hughes and Follows, who are romantically involved in real life, make a realistic couple, fraught with material worries but still able to indulge in simple joys. While Thomas comes across as rather distant and cantankerous throughout much of the movie, Francie has a consistent warmth and sparkle, even when she is laying down the law.

Other indications of the era include the Thomsons’ ancient hand-me-downs, the discussion of how nice it would be if girls could wear pants and Francie’s recollection of hearing the news that the Titanic had sunk. In many ways, the movie reminds me of Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, the recent movie based on the Depression-era doll and her accompanying books. Both movies balance serious issues with light-hearted childhood fun set against a bleak but still vibrant historical backdrop.

Several engaging threads run through this movie, and since almost equal time is devoted to the adult and child characters, it really is an ideal film for the family to watch together, with different storylines resonating more with different people. Everyone in the cast does a great job, with Marcus nailing the dizzy confusion of realizing you’ve fallen for someone and Everett conveying the anguish of having one’s dreams squashed. This wasn’t the first movie in the series, but I don’t get the sense that order is particularly important. I plan to watch the rest of the movies, which currently are available through Netflix Instant Streaming. Old-fashioned family entertainment of this kind that is both well-crafted and educational isn’t that easy to come by, so I look forward to getting to know Booky and the rest of the Thomsons better as I explore the other installments.

Budge Wilson Imagines Anne's Life Before Green Gables

I've been on an Anne of Green Gables kick lately, so when I ran out of L. M. Montgomery's Anne books, I decided to read Before Green Gables, the prequel released in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the publication of the original novel. Canadian author Budge Wilson tackles the tale of Anne's life prior to her life-changing encounter with Matthew Cuthbert. Based on what Montgomery's Anne had to say about her early years, I expected a prequel would be pretty grim, and Wilson's certainly is that. Virtually gone is the humor so characteristic of Montgomery's stories, and poor Anne has to dig deep to find something to be happy about in her unpleasant circumstances.

Wilson does a pretty effective job of populating young Anne's life with a variety of interesting characters. She first introduces us to Walter and Bertha Shirley, giving us a solid idea of the love-filled life Anne might have enjoyed had her parents survived beyond her early infancy. Wilson lets us peek into the heads of various characters throughout the novel, but she focuses mostly on Anne, who is resilient and hard-working and whose imagination keeps her resentment from consuming her.

The childhood I imagined for Anne was similar to Wilson's in some ways. I envisioned a lot of hard labor and little love, and that's basically what Wilson conveys. While neither of Anne's homes is anywhere near as idyllic as Green Gables, however, Anne doesn't find herself entirely devoid of affection. On the one hand, she is expected to shoulder an even heavier burden than I'd guessed, cooking, cleaning and in all other ways caring for a series of young, unruly children. On the other, each of her guardians cares about her to some extent, even though they don't treat her very well, and in each place she finds kindred spirits to comfort her.

Wilson seems determined not to give us any cardboard villains. Mrs. Thomas, with whom Anne lives for her first nine years, served as a housekeeper for the Shirleys, a job that brought her more happiness than any portion of her marriage to an alcoholic, unstable husband. She begs him to let her adopt Anne, but when she bears four children over the next five and a half years, she quickly loses interest in the orphan girl. Working outside the home, she starts absurdly early in delegating responsibility to Anne, and she often snaps at her. Yet occasionally, she treats Anne with kindness, if only because she reminds her of her parents. Mr. Thomas is a brutish monster of a man when he is drunk, and his addiction nearly leads the family to ruin on several occasions. Yet he never mistreats Anne, and in fact, he comes to quite enjoy conversing with her and trying to get the knack of her ability to imagine away her problems.

As a fan of the Kevin Sullivan adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, which begins with Anne still living with the Hammonds before the man of the house suffers a fatal heart attack, I have always pictured Mrs. Hammond as middle-aged and exceptionally cross, constantly subjecting Anne to a barrage of verbal assaults. But Wilson paints Mrs. Hammond as a young woman in her twenties who is merely overwhelmed. Her husband is decent and hard-working but basically uninvolved in the raising of his unwieldy family, which eventually includes eight children, all under the age of six. Mrs. Hammond never hollers at Anne or knocks her around; she merely wanders around in a daze, scarcely aware of what is happening around her and leaving Anne to do the bulk of the child-rearing.

I have mixed feelings about these semi-sympathetic portrayals of Anne's guardians. On the one hand, it's nicer to imagine that Anne's childhood wasn't completely miserable, and one might wonder how someone who suffered nothing but abject neglect and abuse could turn out so well. And after all, Anne does tell Marilla that she feels sure her guardians "meant to be" good to her, even if they didn't quite manage it. But she also spoke of always being unwanted, and that's not really the case here; she's too indispensable to be truly unwanted. And there are several people in her life who genuinely love her.

Eliza, the eldest of the Thomases, is as much a mother to Anne as Anne's daughter Rilla is to the "war baby" Jims in Rilla of Ingleside. For nearly six years, she tells Anne stories and showers her with love. Then she marries out of the family and Anne's life. Her next kindred spirits arrive when the Thomases move to Marysville, where Anne gets her first schooling. There's the saintly teacher, her sympathetic aunt and a withdrawn intellectual who learns to live again after befriending Anne. The frustrating thing about these three is that while they do little things to cheer Anne up and expand her mind, none of them offer to take Anne in when Mr. Thomas dies and she is left without a home. Once with the Hammonds, she bonds with the schoolteacher there, and even the orphanage teacher takes a shine to her.

I always pictured Anne's first 11 years as being comparable to Harry Potter's, with no kindred spirits in sight. But nearly 400 pages of nothing but ill treatment would make for a rather tedious story, and the novel is enough of a downer as it is. It could definitely use a dose of Montgomery's humor. Little Anne doesn't get into any ridiculous messes like Green Gables does; it's just day after day of dreary diaper-scrubbing, vegetable-chopping and baby-minding. I imagine Wilson figured she has enough to deal with already, but I would have loved at least a couple of laugh-aloud scuffles.

Along those lines, Anne is just a little too perfect. She speaks in complete sentences at the age of three and even makes use of metaphors. By the time she's five, she speaks like a college English major, and she's practically running the household to boot. It doesn't seem very realistic, and certainly not too consistent with Montgomery's depictions of five-year-olds. Yes, Anne is an unusual girl, but Wilson takes it too far. Also inconsistent with Montgomery is the narrative style, which is fairly stark as opposed to flowery, and Wilson doesn't make a great deal of effort to align herself with late-19th century sensibilities, particularly when she has characters openly discussing biological issues that would never have been broached by Montgomery.

If you are a fan of the Anne books, Before Green Gables is an interesting installment. Wilson does a pretty good job of filling in the gaps in Anne's early life, despite lacking Montgomery's distinctive style. Was a prequel really necessary? Of course not. But if you've always wondered about Anne's early years and could use a little help in imagining them, Wilson's book is worth a look.

The Blythes and the Merediths Enjoy a Few Blissful Years in Rainbow Valley

Last week, I read Rilla of Ingleside, the eighth book in Lucy Maud Montgomery's series of books that focus on plucky orphan Anne Shirley and her children. This week, I backtracked to the seventh. I should have read that one first, of course, but my curiosity about Montgomery's take on World War I was more immediate, plus I wanted to complete the series on a positive note, and I figured Rilla would be rather depressing. In Rainbow Valley, we meet four children whose mother has died and who like to hang out in a graveyard, as well as a pair of adult sisters who have lost both of their parents and, in the case of one, a sweetheart. Despite these specters, however, the book never feels gloomy or oppressive. After all, death taints every installment in the series, and on the whole, this is one of the cheeriest of the "Anne" books. I call it an Anne book loosely because she is barely involved in the occurrences of the novel (though she's even less visible, and only referred to as "Mrs. Blythe" or "Mrs. Dr. Dear", in the eighth book). Her children are more involved, but the main focus is on John Meredith, the new minister in town, and his four free-ranging children.

It's interesting to read this book in light of the one that follows, since we get to know the Merediths so well here. They move into the background in Rilla, as sweethearts of Blythe youngsters, participants in Ladies' Aid efforts and soldiers. They have important roles to play, but Una is the only character who is fairly well fleshed out within that book itself. If I'd read this book first, I certainly would have cared more about the Merediths when I got to the concluding volume.

Twelve-year-old Jerry is the oldest, and he doesn't let his siblings forget it, particularly when they form the Good Conduct Club in an effort to stop inadvertently giving local gossips something to talk about. He is the one who most often points out transgressions, and he also is in charge of coming up with appropriate punishments, some of which have severe consequences. Eleven-year-old Faith is kind but spunky. She is the most Anne-like child of her generation. Trouble seems to follow her around, and her attempts to make amends sometimes lead to even further scandal. Still, her courage is admirable; she's determined to help her father as best she can, whether it's by making a public speech, printing a letter in the newspaper or paying a visit to a wealthy potential parishioner.

Gentle ten-year-old Una is a delicate child with a slightly otherworldly air about her, which makes her a good match for poetic Walter Blythe, whom she secretly admires. Shy and compassionate, she puts her own reservations aside on more than one occasion in order to appeal on someone else's behalf. I like all of the Merediths, but Una is my favorite. Nine-year-old Carl is the youngest. An impish, fun-loving chap, he is rarely without some small creature or another stuffed in his pockets. Every reptile, rodent and insect in the valley seems to be his friend, which doesn't bother his siblings but startles many in the community.

In this book, there are essentially only four Blythes as well. Jem, the oldest of the bunch, carries himself with authority, reveling in masculine games as he teeters on the brink of higher learning, which will take him away from his newfound friends. Classically handsome Walter spends his days mooning about with his head stuck in a book, much to the disapproval of some and the derision of others, though generally, the Merediths appreciate his storytelling abilities. Nan and Di are twins, with Nan especially beautiful and Di especially clever. Rilla, the chubby six-year-old who will go on to be the main character in the last book, is involved in one memorable scene but generally is absent, while Shirley, the second-youngest, is scarcely mentioned at all. He's the invisible Blythe; over the course of three books, we learn practically nothing about him except that he has brown eyes, hair and skin and that he is especially close to Susan, the housekeeper.

Susan is a part of this book and makes her opinions on a number of subjects known. She is particularly outspoken in her concern about Walter wasting his time with poetry, which of course is an opinion that Anne does not share. Another prominent side character is "Miss" Cornelia, a family friend who is married but distrusts men in general and harbors a deep prejudice against Methodists. She is most important to the book because Una persuades her to take in Mary Vance, a coarse, street-smart orphan the Merediths find sleeping in a barn. Mary is likable enough, and the matter-of-fact way in which she describes the ruthless woman she escaped makes her easy to sympathize with. But she also has a tendency to scold the Merediths and make them feel badly about themselves. Her self-righteousness makes the Blythes and Merediths glad that her playtime with them is limited.

John Meredith is kindly but distracted. He spends so much time immersed in thought that his children scarcely see him, and he has no idea how much mischief they get into while no one is supervising them. A widower who cannot imagine falling in love again, he keeps his mind on heavenly things. His children adore him, but they worry that their shenanigans could cost him his job. Across town lives a very different sort of widower. Argumentative, agnostic Norman Douglas never comes to church, and he's known throughout the glen for his terrible temper, which cost him the love of his life in his youth. Despite his subsequent marriage, he still carries a torch for fiery Ellen West, the only woman he's ever known who can keep pace with him in a debate. She lives in a house on a hill with her younger sister Rosemary, who is as kind as Ellen is abrasive. Rosemary develops a close bond with the minister, much to the alarm of her sister, who lives in dread of the thought of solitude.

The romantic entanglements of these adults are rarely in the forefront of the novel, but Montgomery slips hints of them in until the final chapters, when she explores them more thoroughly. It's nice to have the adult perspective to counter all of the exploits of the lively children, though their misadventures are well-written and quite engaging. The romance that gradually blossoms between John and Rosemary is one of the best in the series, and heaps better than Rilla's non-courtship with her longtime crush Kenneth in the eighth book. One thing that makes it so satisfying is the consideration for the children involved. It isn't until Faith stumbles into a heart-to-heart talk with Rosemary after suffering a calamity that she realizes just how bereft she has been without a mother in whom to confide. It's clear that while Rosemary is falling in love with John, she's falling in love with his children as well, his children who so desperately need a little more attention and guidance than their father is able to give.

It seems fairly plain to me that Montgomery had already planned on writing the eighth book as she was working on this one. For one thing, it's dedicated to the memory of three soldiers who died during World War I. For another, there are hints of things to come sprinkled throughout the novel. Jem is obsessed with playing soldier; Anne thinks it's a passing fancy, but he's every bit as gung-ho about the idea when the opportunity comes for him to actually sign up in Rilla. Ellen West discusses her conviction that the Kaiser is a threat to the peace of Europe and her frustration that almost nobody seems to agree with her. There's a rather elegiac quality to some of the writing about the idyllic valley, as Montgomery knows that not only will the children soon face adulthood, but war will tear them apart.

Most heavy-handed, though, is Walter's vision of "the Piper", which occurs in the eighth chapter after he tells his playmates in the valley the story of the Pied Piper coming and leading all of the children away from their homes. He gets a faraway look in his eye, and he announces that the Piper will come to the valley and that he and the other boys will be forced to follow him while the girls stay at home and wait for their return. Just before this, Una demonstrates her perceptive nature when, instead of pitying the lame lad in the story who cannot follow the Piper, she is happy for his mother, who is able to have him home safe, unlike all of the other mothers in town. The image of the Piper concludes the novel as well, with Walter asserting that he has grown closer, to which notion Jem responds enthusiastically. More foreshadowing of Walter's actions in Rilla comes in the form of his decision to get into a fistfight with a classmate who insults his mother and his friend. After the event, John Meredith tells him, "My motto, Walter, is, don't fight till you're sure you ought to, and then put every ounce of you into it." It seems likely this advice comes back to him when he finally decides to become a soldier.

I don't recall that I've ever had an objection to Montgomery's language before, but I was taken aback when she put a certain racial epithet beginning with "n" in the mouth of Mary Vance. What's more, while the Meredith children are shocked and affronted by her use of the word "darn," none of them seem bothered by it. Its inclusion is indicative of the time in which this book was written, though, and thankfully, she only uses the word once. My only other major issue with this book is its limited connection to Anne, and having grown used to her decreased presence in the series after reading the sixth and eighth books, I found I didn't really mind that she didn't have much to do. I would have preferred for her to be a more involved character, but she does have a role to play. All of the Merediths feel comfortable talking with her when they have problems, and Anne's spirited defense of the family in the face of her neighbor's criticism is a shining moment. Even though the thread that links Rainbow Valley to Anne of Green Gables is fairly tenuous, I enjoyed this light-hearted novel very much and would recommend it to any fan of Montgomery's work.

War Taints the Idyllic Blythe Family in Rilla of Ingleside

Last week, I was seized by a sudden desire to watch Anne of Green Gables, the lavish Kevin Sullivan mini-series adapted from the beloved L. M. Montgomery book of the same name. I promptly followed that up with Anne of Avonlea but could not proceed to Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story because when we purchased it as part of a PBS pledge drive, it arrived damaged, and we never got around to sending it back and requesting a new copy in its place.

I did see it once, though. It was before I'd read more than the first two books in the Anne series, so I didn't have an intimate knowledge of Anne's future life to go on, but it seemed out of step with the first two installments. I later realized that Sullivan's sequel had no consistency with the books, nor did it fit their chronology. The Continuing Story is set during World War I and has a just-married Gilbert enlisting, with Anne then chasing him throughout Europe as a nurse and an entertainer. In the books, Anne and Gilbert are in their 50s during "the Great War." It is their children who enlist, and both parents remain behind to fight a different sort of battle on the home front.

A few years back, I started to read the rest of the books in the Anne series, but I'd heard that in the last two, Anne really takes a backseat to her children, so I wasn't as intrigued by those. I still have yet to read Rainbow Valley; curiosity over Montgomery's wartime novel compelled me to skip ahead to Rilla of Ingleside, which begins as breezily as any of the others, with Blythe housekeeper Susan Baker, a spunky precursor to The Brady Bunch's Alice, perusing the paper for the local news: "There was a big, black headline on the front page of the Enterprise, stating that some Archduke Ferdinand or other had been assassinated at a place bearing the weird name of Sarajevo, but Susan tarried not over uninteresting, immaterial stuff like that; she was in quest of something really vital. Oh, here it was–'Jottings from Glen St. Mary.'"

Of course, at the name "Archduke Ferdinand," anyone remotely acquainted with world history must pause and consider that Susan's priorities are likely about to change a great deal. Indeed, in the weeks and months to come, Susan becomes intimately acquainted with European geography and military tactics, thus providing much of the essential historical backdrop as she fervently discusses the headlines. All of the Ingleside women find themselves changed greatly because of the war, none more so than the title character, who goes from being a giddy, rather spoiled 14-year-old to a mature, hard-working 19-year-old by book's end. She is robbed of the gaiety she had expected those teenage years to bring, but in its place she gains wisdom and industriousness.

According to Wikipedia, this was the only Canadian novel written about World War I by a woman in its immediate aftermath. There are several male characters in the novel, but we really are getting the female perspective for the most part. Gilbert is too busy with his medical practice to spend much time around the house, so we only occasionally get his comments. We hear more from Jem, the eldest Blythe who is all gung-ho to go to war and looks on it all as a great adventure, and more still from Walter, the second-oldest son whose sensitivity and idealism lend him an ethereal quality and help cement him as the favorite sibling of Rilla, the baby of the family. But mostly, we see the war from the viewpoint of those who experience it from the sidelines.

Rilla is a terrific character. She may not be quite so memorable as the teenage Anne, but she has spunk enough to get her into some memorable scrapes as well as undertake responsibilities that would have been unthinkable to her pre-war self. Chief among these are heading up a Junior Red Cross and taking in Jims, a "war-baby," even though she has no attachment whatsoever to infants. In fact, though she cares diligently for the child, it is several months before she comes to feel any affection for him. Ultimately, however, the discipline of tending to him and the joy of observing his milestones is an immeasurable comfort as Rilla struggles to endure the atrocity of war.

I also am generally very fond of Susan, though she sometimes can become a tad repetitive with her constant interjections of "Mrs. Dr. Dear" and "...and that you may tie to." She freely offers her opinions on everything, and her outspoken nature means that she is often at the center of comical scenes, particularly Rilla's near-disastrous visit with handsome Ken Ford that ends in her first kiss. An incurable optimist, she plays well off of the gloomy Sophia, her cousin and neighbor, and Gertrude, the schoolteacher boarding with them.

I recalled Walter rather vividly from Anne of Ingleside, which was written later but takes place much earlier in the Blythe marriage, beginning shortly before Rilla's birth. That book contains some fairly explicit foreshadowing of his role in the eighth book, though of course if read in the order of publication, it's simply a reminder of what will occur. Walter reminds me a bit of Fiver from Watership Down. Delicate and oddly precognitive, he is the first to truly understand what lies ahead when news of the war first reaches their little town. "Before this war is over," he warns, "every man and woman and child in Canada will feel it ... feel it to your heart's core. You will weep tears of blood over it. The Piper has come–and he will pipe until every corner of the world has heard his awful and irresistible music. It will be years before the dance of death is over... And in those years millions of hearts will break."

The image of the Piper is one that recurs throughout the novel, eventually inspiring a poem Walter pens when he finally joins up after enduring months of disdain from those who see any healthy young man who does not volunteer for military service as a disgraceful slacker. Adoring Rilla never sees him that way and is merely relieved that it initially seems he will not follow in Jem's footsteps. Walter despises war, yet he feels himself a coward for not wanting to participate, even though he fears the killing more than the dying. Montgomery sympathetically shows his deep struggle with the morality of war, but she ultimately uses him as a rallying cry, even proclaiming that he wrote the greatest poem of the Great War. It does seem a bit presumptuous to place such a distinction on a nonexistent piece of writing when there are several real poems by soldiers that had a profound impact. Perhaps she ought to have limited its influence to Glen St. Mary. At any rate, I was disappointed that we never get to see this poem, though I suppose it never could live up to her description of it. Readers are left to take what they know of Walter and thereby try to imagine the poem's contents.

Up until the time when he enlists, Walter strikes me as a borderline conscientious objector, but there's only one character who protests the war and Canada's participation in it throughout the novel. That distinction belongs to Mr. Pryor, the man whom Susan nicknames Whiskers-on-the-Moon and easily my least favorite aspect of the book. Mostly, his exploits are just mentioned in passing; we rarely get to see him directly, and only once do we really step into his perspective for a moment. It's not all that uncommon in Anne books for our impression of characters to change as the novel progresses, and I felt sure that this was a character who would find some vindication by the time the war was over. Montgomery lets the characters spit "pacifist" out like it's a dirty word, but after four years of misery, I thought that Susan, his most vehement detractor, or at least Rilla would come to understand where he was coming from. If Montgomery had waited another ten years to write this, I wonder if she would have approached it any differently, knowing that the hard-won peace would prove sadly ephemeral.

As I read, I found myself often reminded of The Green Fields of France, a folk song written in the '70s and recently recorded by Celtic Thunder about a soldier who died as a teenager during World War I. Toward the end, the speaker wonders, "Did they really believe when they answered the cause, / did they really believe that this war would end wars?" Clearly, the Blythe boys and all of the other young men who march off to war in this novel do believe just that. As Walter writes to Rilla, "It isn't only the fate of the little sea-born island I love that is in the balance–nor of Canada nor of England. It's the fate of mankind. That is what we're fighting for. And we shall win–never for a moment doubt that, Rilla." He is only one of many characters to paint the war in apocalyptic terms, with an implication that after all the horror is ended, it will pave the way for a new world in which war will no longer be a possibility.

Nonetheless, though the book ends on a note of jubilation as the war ends and most of the local lads return home, Montgomery keeps a realistic tone. She acknowledges that life will never again be quite the same in bucolic Glen St. Mary; the evil effects of the war remind me of what happens to the similarly idyllic Shire in The Lord of the Rings, while the impact on individual soldiers recalls the experience of the hobbits who go off on their grand adventure so naive and return forever changed by their sobering experiences. Knowing that Tolkien fought and lost several close friends in World War I, the comparison seems all the more apt, particularly in the case of Walter, who, like Frodo, is an innocent who leaves his home with the desire to preserve it, but not, as he comes to understand, for himself, "for it could never be beautiful for me again," he writes. I also found it interesting that Montgomery, like Tolkien, associates death with "the west," as well as referring to the veil that is such a prominent metaphor for death in J. K. Rowling's fifth Harry Potter novel.

While death has played a part in all of the Anne books, it is much more omnipresent here as Rilla and the others spend each waking moment in dread of a phone call or a mail delivery bringing news of a casualty. Even without having read Rainbow Valley, I think I can safely say this is by far the darkest of the Anne books. But there is still some room for less oppressive elements, like schoolgirl squabbles and romance. Rilla must contend with Irene, a haughty young woman who can be quite as insufferable as Josie, Anne's schoolyard nemesis, and she learns first-hand that having two beaux is not nearly as thrilling as it sounds. Unfortunately, her courtship with Ken, the true object of her affections, isn't anywhere near as satisfying as Anne and Gilbert's. While Green Fields of France is my favorite song on Celtic Thunder's new album, my least favorite is Happy Birthday Sweet 16, and that's what kept running through my head whenever Ken showed up. Their relationship seemed very frivolous to me, with Rilla having a longtime crush on him and Ken finally falling for her simply because it had been a while since he'd seen her and suddenly she was pretty. They don't really seem to have spent any time together, and Ken's condescending attitude and Rilla's fawning don't do much to engage me. I was much more concerned about the fate of Jem and Walter than Ken. Then again, he's a more interesting character than Shirley, the youngest Blythe boy whose existence I'd half-forgotten by the time he left college to enlist.

While none of the later books has ever managed to charm me quite as completely as Anne of Green Gables, I've enjoyed them all, and Rilla of Ingleside is no exception. It's a unique installment in the Anne series, since the tone is much more serious for the most part, but it's interesting to read about World War I from the perspective of a woman who so recently lived through it. Though I think she could have fleshed Ken out some more and done away with Whiskers-on-the-Moon entirely, I otherwise found this eighth volume in the Anne series to be quite a satisfactory conclusion.