January has flown by! And now it's time to wrap-up the L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge at Reading to Know.
I'm sure you, and my friend Carrie, are all glad that I'm finished reading Montgomery books.
The Montgomery Books I Read
I accomplished most of my goals for the Montgomery Reading Challenge.
I read and reviewed: Mistress Pat, Magic for Marigold, and The Story Girl. But I didn't get to the illustrated Anne book that I wanted to read with my kids. I'll put it back on the shelf and pull it out again next January.
I also wanted to watch Anne of Green Gables with my children. We did that as a Family Night and you can read about it on my new blog, Everyday Family Living.
What I Learned
I learned a few things about myself by reading these three books.
- I learned that I do not enjoy long flowery descriptions. I'm not sure if this is the result of social media or if it's just my personality to want an author to get to the point.
- I am a grown up. Duh, right? What I mean is that Montgomery writes from the imaginative carefree perspectives of children. Adults in her books though not the enemy are seen as overbearing, too practical, and only concerned about their responsibilities. By her descriptions I am an adult. Which is probably why I find it difficult to enter into her imaginative worlds.
- I'd rather read my friend Carrie's reviews of Montgomery's books than the actual books. Reading Carrie's posts makes me want to read the books. They make me want to like Montgomery's books because Carrie enjoys them. She see so much delight and fun in them that I just don't see.
- One Montgomery book a month is about my limit. I think part of my difficulty this year is that I read 3 Montgomery books in the span of 3 weeks. It was too much for me. I'm going to have to remember that next year.
Are you are "grown up" or do you enter into the magic of Montgomery's books!
3 comments:
This year I read the last four books in the Anne series with Anne newly married, progressing through having six children and then sending two sons off to war. Though the main focus of the books is still on the children, I enjoyed seeing Anne matured. She and Gilbert were wise, funny, and balanced, but most of the other adults were eccentric to some degree.
I agree about the flowery descriptions. I like them less each time I read them, but at least in these books they were easy enough to skim through until the action picked up again.
I haven't read these books but now that I've finished going through Anne again, I'm looking forward to exploring some of LMM's other books next time.
I was reading a book of Laura Ingalls Wilder's newspaper columns, written before she started the Little House books, and your post here came to mind. If LMM was flowery, LIW was very practical and down to earth. I'm eager to reread one of her books now to remind myself of how she wrote there.
I should have mentioned this in the previous comment, though I took up way too much space there as it was. :-) But I'm hosting a LIW reading challenge this month and would love to have you join us for that.
Barbara, I'm planning to participate in your LIW challenge. We're spending the month reading Little House in the Big Woods and doing a unit study for history/literature.
Post a Comment