Cori-Beth's Books

Do you have a book that sticks out to you from when you were a child, or even as an adult, and you still read it to this day?  Or if you don't still read it, you just remember it from when you were a child or from years ago?  Well, I do.

When I was younger, I was gifted a copy of Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.  Now that's not the book that sticks out most from when I was a child, not as much as another one.  I don't remember who gifted me the book, but it very well could have been my Aunt Mary.  She really liked reading all of Lucy Maude Montgomery books.  Since I was gifted the book, I have collected all of the books in the Anne series as well as all of Montgomery's other books.  It took me several years to do so.  In fact, I found some in a bookstore in a mall in the area of Toronto, Ontario named Queen's Quay.  On a whim I looked in there while on a church trip to see the Blue Jay's game at what was then called the SkyDome.  I found books I couldn't find anywhere else.  This was before online shopping and Amazon.

Back to the Anne series.  I have read the series at least two times, and the one book in the series that always has stood out to me as my favourite is the very last one, Rilla of Ingleside.  It is about Anne and Gilbert's youngest daughter Rilla.  If you know the Anne series, then you know who Rilla is named after.  None other than Marilla, who, along with her brother Matthew, adopted Anne when she was just 11 years old and an orphan.

The book takes place during at time that was dark in the world, World War One.  Of course, during that time, it wasn't called World War One because they didn't imagine that a second world war was going to happen.  It was called the Great War.  The book speaks about how Anne and Gilbert, all of their children, and the community react to the war and all the young men going off to fight.  Will their sons go off to war?  Will their husbands go off to war?  Will they return the same way they left?  How does Rilla react as she sees her brothers one by one enlist?  What's going to happen when her closest brother, Walter, is thinking about going off to war?  He is the most sensitive and intuitive of the Blyth siblings.  A poet with a quiet spirit and demeanour.  He hears what he calls the piper calling him and other young men.  He sees the piper leading young men away to fight.  Will he follow the piper?  What about the one young man that Rilla is love with?  Will he come back from war?  Will her brothers come back from war?  They surely will be changed.  Life continues.  Dances continue.  But it's not the same.

Rilla of Ingleside made me laugh and cry.  I found it amusing when all the women and young ladies would gather for crocheting and knitting bee during the week and gossip.  One character would even run the flag up the pole, the Union Jack at that time in Canada, when a good news report came back from Europe about the war, a victory for the Allies and Britain for example.  When sad news came back, I was crying right along with the characters.  It's one of those rare books that will actually make me cry.  One of the many reasons I liked about it, as crazy as that may sound.

So what book or novel has stood out for you (that isn't necessarily a favourite of yours) even years after you have read it?  What book have you read several times, even if it's not your favourite, but you have to read it over and over?  Something by Lucy Maud Montgomery, like me?  Or another book?  And why?  I have others, of course, but there isn't enough space to discuss all of them.

If I leave you with one thing after all this meandering, enjoy what books you enjoy and be sure to share your love of them with others.