4.5 stars.I am not sure whether I read Anne of Avonlea as a child because I remember none of it and I also know I could not get my hands on every book in the series. This one may have been one of the ones I pined for but never managed to track down in my book small world of the mid twentieth century.

I thoroughly enjoyed this version read by Barbara Caruso. She narrates well and I will certainly stay with her as I listen through to the other books in the series. After a small break I will be on to Anne of the Island.

There are many witty little events that happen in this book that I chuckled out loud at. Like Anne and a parrot that belongs to a next door neighbour. I liked the irrepressible Davy one of the twins that come to live with Anne and Marilla. His reasoning and thoughts often had me smiling. However Dora was a very flat character and we did not see much of her. Davy was a little jealous of the attention Anne gave to one of her pupils Paul Irving. I liked Paul too, but he was a little too perfect for my taste.

In this book Anne spends two years teaching at the local school. As a teacher myself I identified with many of her thoughts and experiences and fully sympathised with her over her terrible Jonah day. Some of the views expressed, especially over physical punishment was before her time, but then again Davy would prefer a good walloping rather than the boring punishments meted out to him by Anne and Marilla.

There is an author visit that excites Anne and Diana, a mishap with a plate that lands Anne in one of the funniest situations, I could imagine a cartoon of it and made a note to look at a physical book to see what illustrations are in it. I'd actually like to buy a set of Anne books so I am looking around. Any suggestions for a good version - let me know.

Anne is still full of imagination and romance and her heart receives a fullness of it, although at this point Anne is more interested in matchmaking romance for others, rather than being ready for her own. We leave Anne here at the age of eighteen, ready to go off to college.

So happy I made it a priority to listen to this book. The book I think stands the test of time.

I picked up a book I had no intention of reading on a whim and discovered one of my new favorite series.

This must be positive karma for an immensely lovely deed I did in a past life. (It couldn’t have been this life, because I spend most of my time reading and eating cookies, and while I’d count both of those as immensely lovely activities I don’t know if I can unbiasedly say they’re really contributing to the greater good.)

I did not own this book when I finished the first one, an evil I had to counteract by purchasing this the next day. And then reading it immediately. And, once again, enjoying every second of it.

I do not know where all this good karma came from but I DO NOT want it to stop.

These books are just so lovely. I don’t even want to pick up the next one (which would be book #4) because then I’m one book closer to finishing the series, and I absolutely can’t have that because I want to live in this series forever.

I don’t know if I’ll ever really be able to write a true review of an Anne book. I definitely couldn’t with Anne of Green Gables. I think the best I’ll ever be able to do is write at length about how desperately I wish Anne and her kindred spirits were real, and I could live in Avonlea with them and visit Green Gables and all their beautifully named haunts. I’d go to school in the early twentieth century (previously a nightmare scenario for me) in a heartbeat if Anne Shirley would be there.

I just love these books so much.

Bottom line: It’s a very rare thing to find a story you love so desperately that you feel lucky to have discovered it. That’s how I feel about Anne.

------------------
pre-review

i.

love.

Anne.

infinity stars / review to come!!!!

It was wonderful to be back with Anne again! This was a buddy read with Carolyn and Leeanne and it is lovely to be able to have a discussion about the story, to see what stands out to each reader and the different observations made. I am very excited by the prospect of following Anne's journey through life, and I loved every moment of this book.

Anne's time as a teacher was very enjoyable, and her endeavours with the Avonlea Village Improvement Society and the rather amusing results of their efforts was more interesting than I would have guessed. What I loved about the first book, and what continues with the second, is how it is all so engaging and exciting, even though it is not an action focused book. Anne's friendships, her 'kindred spirits', her earnest enthusiasm for life and the world makes for captivating reading. L.M. Montgomery's writing has this magical quality to it that makes even the simplest chapter riveting.

The addition of Davy and Dora to the family was a mostly enjoyable one. While I wasn't as fond of Davy as Marilla and Anne seemed to be, he did not irritate me as much I had feared. I suppose that is damning him with faint praise, but he was quite an exasperating child! I much preferred Dora. In our discussion, Carolyn called Dora 'serene' and I think that fits her so well. I tend to think of her now as Serene Dora, a title of sorts. She is such a sweet little thing and thoroughly unappreciated by Anne, Marilla and everyone else really.

I adored Miss Lavendar just as much as Anne did, and also found Charlotta the Fourth a fun character. Her fervent admiration of Anne was completely understandable. I know Davy was probably a little too precocious and earnest for some readers, essentially a young boy version of Anne herself, but I really did love him and found the talk he has with Anne about his mother and her mention of her own parents particularly touching.

I had spied the title of the final chapter at the start of the book and I admit my heart had dropped a little. A Wedding at the Stone House. I had thought Anne would be the bride, and I couldn't help feeling let down that it had all happened so quickly. Because of this, I had thought the earlier dream of college would be replaced by that of being a very young wife and mother. But I was wrong-- and thrilled to be! When Marilla came up with a solution that allowed Anne to head off to college I was blown away, thrilled for her and adored Marilla for not letting the opportunity slip by. And the romantic in me loved that Miss Lavendar's Prince returned at last. I was very satisfied with every part of the book, but especially the final chapters, which felt perfect.

I restrained myself to only a few chapters a day so that I didn't devour the book in one sitting, and after a few days I found myself making sure it was the final thing I read before trying to sleep. There was something so calming and heartwarming about finishing the day with Anne's adventures and observations.

I look forward to seeing what comes next for Anne and everyone else in Avonlea.

5+ stars (9/10 hearts). This book picks up exactly where book one left off, and it is the perfect sequel.

Anne is an older, maturing girl now and I loved watching seeing her grow more. There is so much to be learned from this book—lessons of how to live simple, everyday life with beauty and truth and inspiration. Marilla is much the same as in the old book, yet more mellow. Mrs. Lynde, Diana, Jane, Ruby, the Allans—all delightfully the same.
And there are new characters—Mr. Harrison, absolutely hilarious; Paul, a darling; Miss Lavender & Mr. Irving, both wonderful; Davy, so funny and so real; and a thousand other minor but real characters.

This book is full of beauty and truth and romance, and hilarious humour... proof that everyday life is full of romance and tragedy and comedy.... The writing style is gorgeous, as always, and the messages are SO good. And I love how this book ends—Montgomery is a GENIUS with closing paragraphs. This is just such a beautiful book, and an excellent book for girls to grow up with. I just can’t express how good and beautiful it is…

Content: A couple euphemisms, a few opinions I don’t agree with, a mention of ghosts (as unreal).

A Favourite Quote: “I’d like to add some beauty to life,” said Anne dreamily. “…I’d love to make [people] have a pleasanter time because of me … to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn’t been born.”
A Favourite Beautiful Quote: Anne rose betimes the next morning and blithely greeted the fresh day, when the banners of the sunrise were shaken triumphantly across the pearly skies. Green Gables lay in a pool of sunshine, flecked with the dancing shadows of poplar and willow. Beyond the land was Mr. Harrison’s wheatfield, a great, windrippled expanse of pale gold.
A Favourite Humorous Quote: “…he’s a real bad man.”
“Indeed he's not,” said Marilla indignantly.
“He is … he says he is himself,” asseverated Davy. “He said it when he prayed in Sunday School last Sunday. He said he was a vile worm and a miserable sinner and guilty of the blackest ’niquity. What did he do that was so bad, Marilla? Did he kill anybody? Or steal the collection cents? I want to know.”
Fortunately Mrs. Lynde came driving up the lane at this moment and Marilla made off, ... wishing devoutly that Mr. Bell were not quite so highly figurative in his public petitions, especially in the hearing of small boys who were always ‘wanting to know.’

Still dreamy and sweet. Love the ridiculous scrapes Anne gets into. Looking forward to more Gilbert in the next one.

Mutlaka okuyun diyebileceğim bir seri değil. Ancak kendisiniz iyi hissetmek için bir şeyler okumak istediğinizde bu kitap tam da o kategoride. İlk kitaba göre çok daha eğlenceli.

"In the twilight Anne sauntered down to the Dryad's Bubble and saw Gilbert Blythe coming down through the dusky Haunted Wood. She had a sudden realization that Gilbert was a schoolboy no longer. And how manly he looked—the tall, frank-faced fellow, with the clear, straightforward eyes and the broad shoulders. Anne thought Gilbert was a very handsome lad, even though he didn't look at all like her ideal man. She and Diana had long ago decided what kind of a man they admired and their tastes seemed exactly similar. He must be very tall and distinguished looking, with melancholy, inscrutable eyes, and a melting, sympathetic voice. There was nothing either melancholy or inscrutable in Gilbert's physiognomy, but of course that didn't matter in friendship!

Gilbert stretched himself out on the ferns beside the Bubble and looked approvingly at Anne. If Gilbert had been asked to describe his ideal woman the description would have answered point for point to Anne, even to those seven tiny freckles whose obnoxious presence still continued to vex her soul. Gilbert was as yet little more than a boy; but a boy has his dreams as have others, and in Gilbert's future there was always a girl with big, limpid gray eyes, and a face as fine and delicate as a flower. He had made up his mind, also, that his future must be worthy of its goddess. Even in quiet Avonlea there were temptations to be met and faced. White Sands youth were a rather "fast" set, and Gilbert was popular wherever he went. But he meant to keep himself worthy of Anne's friendship and perhaps some distant day her love; and he watched over word and thought and deed as jealously as if her clear eyes were to pass in judgment on it. She held over him the unconscious influence that every girl, whose ideals are high and pure, wields over her friends; an influence which would endure as long as she was faithful to those ideals and which she would as certainly lose if she were ever false to them. In Gilbert's eyes Anne's greatest charm was the fact that she never stooped to the petty practices of so many of the Avonlea girls—the small jealousies, the little deceits and rivalries, the palpable bids for favor. Anne held herself apart from all this, not consciously or of design, but simply because anything of the sort was utterly foreign to her transparent, impulsive nature, crystal clear in its motives and aspirations."

"Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps. . . perhaps. . .love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath."

...oh, Gilbert Blythe...<3

I just LOVE Anne

Just loved following more of Anne’s adventures and life in book 2 of the Anne of Green Gables series! In this book we follow Anne’s life a few years after her start in the town of Avonlea as a teacher. She is 16 years old and still as joyful as ever. She put her dream of going to college on hold so she can help Marilla with the farm, but we follow her beautiful life as a successful teacher and as a big help to Marilla of helping raise 2 rowdy twins! My favorites: Miss Lavender and her story, the twins, Davy and Dora and I really enjoyed Paul’s character. Also, the friendship between Anne and Diana was precious. I’m giving this 4 stars as I didn’t love this as much as I did the first book of course, but still had such a great time in Anne’s adventures. I just love how Anne sees the world and seeing her role as a teacher!

4.5⭐️

The middle was a little slow, but that ending was so poignant! Montgomery sure knew how to write a romance!! (Sanderson should take some pointers.

2023 Review
If Miss Lavendar was the only plotline in this book I would love it just as much. I still find Davy/Dora bland but it bothered me less this time around. There is a quietude to Anne of Avonlea that fills my soul with a gentle hush and I never want to let it go. Each book in this series is a favorite for me in a way, and in this one it's Miss Lavendar, the Golden Picnic, and spending more time with the characters who inhabit Avonlea.

2021 Review
Anne of Avonlea is one book in the series whose joys I forget until I read it again (hence the list of loves below). Miss Lavendar, the golden picnic, that final scene with Gilbert. Montgomery delivered the "flowers of quiet happiness" that she promised in Green Gables. I might have downgraded this a star because of ~issues~ detailed in the next paragraph, but Miss Lavendar crowns my enjoyment always. Our cottagecore queen! If I could move into any literary house, it would be Echo Lodge.

Davy has never been my favorite character, and Montgomery writes Dora terribly. I don't know why she did that. Dora is just like a young Marilla, but she gets no narrative graces from the author like Marilla does. The one time she feels like a human little girl is when she's scared by her schoolmate's stories. Even when Davy royally messes up Dora's life, Montgomery plays off Dora's pain as slightly ridiculous. Imagine, being a five-year-old with a wackadoo brother and a dying mother. You choose personal neatness and quietude as ways to maintain some sort of control over your completely unstructured life, and people make fun of you for it! Poor thing. I know she gets no narrative justice later on, so I'll just have to imagine it for myself.

Side note, I love the cover of this edition. My copies of the Anne books were all mismatched for years, and my husband gave me this lovely set for Christmas one year. Most of the time, I don't count on book covers reflecting the contents with detail, but this cover illustration by Julene Harrison shows real familiarity with Anne of Avonlea (as did the cover for Green Gables, but the choices were more generic). The A.V.I.S. sign, the cow and broken fence, Ginger! Simply charming.

2019 Review

Reasons why I love this book:
- The ruckuses Anne causes/finds herself in, including:
- Setting up/fixing marriages
- Improving Avonlea with results that turned her blue
- Managing the twins
- Miss Lavendar
- The general Avonlea-ness of it all

I'm so glad L. M. Montgomery wrote this book. For anyone who's had to put dreams on hold (or felt like they were on hold, even if it was just time moving too slowly), Anne of Avonlea will resonate. Anne grew so fast in Green Gables that it's lovely to watch her slow down and enjoy life (while she grows and changes) in Avonlea. Taking a couple "gap years" was a good thing for Anne. Can we acknowledge that "gap year" is annoying and should be eliminated from our understanding of young adulthood? Take a year to do what you need/want to before moving on to what society tells you is the next step in life. It's not like you're taking a year off from living, you're just making a different decision. Say you're postponing XYZ for a bit, or focusing on something else for a while. No judgment. Life moves pretty fast--if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. Dear old Island is my very favorite in the series, but I do love Avonlea for its realistic dreaminess. The quietness of Anne's and Marilla's griefs over Matthew underscores so much of the book. Avonlea is about second chances, new leases on life, adapting lifestyles to serve and love others, and growing into womanhood.

(Somehow, I always remembered that Anne and Diana had met Lavendar Lewis in the summer. Yet, they met in October. How utterly precious, since October is my favorite month, and delightful, for they meet in the fall and bring spring to Lavendar's life.)

When I was younger, my mother and I would watch reruns of Dennis the Menace. Truth be told, the only enjoyment I got out of these sessions was spending time with my mother. You see, Dennis was, to me, exactly what the title proclaims him to be: a menace. Since I was very young I've had a strong aversion to any one who causes trouble for others or keeps getting into scrapes, be they intentional or not.
As anyone who's read Anne's first installment can imagine, this made it a bit difficult for me to take to her character.
In Anne of Green Gables, Anne is rather rash and even careless in her decision making. But boy has she grown up now! I didn't think Montgomery would make young Anne grow so fast, rather I thought her character would take several installments just to reach age sixteen. Gladly, this isn't the case.

In Anne of Avonlea, Anne starts off at the age of half-past sixteen; and the book ends two years later. I must admit she's won my admiration from here on out. Anne is the sort of girl who makes you think they invented the word "spitfire" as a means to describe her alone, and coupled with her copious amount of enthusiasm and optimism, I dare say it is nearly impossible for one to not fall for her eventually!
And in the second part of her story, we see Anne strungle with her new position as schoolma'am at the Avonlea school. To top this off, she must aid Marilla in the caring of two children whom Marilla has chosen to adopt: the naughty but adorable Davy, and the prim and and slightly-dull Dora.
Sprinkle on mulitple new acquaintances, several furnerals, two engagements, a wedding . . . and you've got an awfully busy two years for our dear Anne.

This series is clearly something I'd have missed out on had Jo not spoken so highly of it through her lovely reviews, so thank you, Jo. I find myself slowly but surely warming to the characters and their world more with each chapter. And of course, as with all classics, the writing is stunning.

n  "A September day on Prince Edward Island hills; a crisp wind blowing up over the sand dunes from the sea; a long red road, winding through fields and woods, now looping itself about a corner of thick-set spruces, now threading a plantation of young maples with great feathery sheets of ferns beneath them, now dipping down into a hollow where a brook flashed out of the woods and into them again, now basking in open sunshine between ribbons of goldenrod and smoke-blue asters; air athrill with the pipings of myriads of crickets, those glad little pensioners of the summer hills; a plump brown pony ambling along the road; two girls behind him, full to the lips with the simple, priceless joy of youth and life."n

Naturally, this sort of passage always stirs up some envy in my blood; I can't help but wish I could write like that.
Although I suppose there is some comfort --- and, for other reasons, sadness --- in knowing that practically no one writes this way anymore.

Although I still can't bring myself to give this a higher rating than the one you'll read momentarily, I assure all who read this that I'm enjoying myself very much while following Anne through her journeys in life. I'll be sure to read Anne of the Island soon. 3.5 stars