Australian children’s book author, illustrator and visual storyteller. I weave magic, creativity and fun into all I do.

The New Page Podcast

Listen on Apple Podcast and Spotify now.

New Voices of the South Coast: A Showcase for Debut Writers

Liv without the E

I took a self-guided journey to Avonlea to connect with my late mother and the whimsical girlhood of Anne of Green Gables.

I’m here to admit I skipped the childhood reading milestone of Anne of Green Gables and somehow still made it out into adulthood with a love of fanciful daydreaming and romantic thinking.

I’ve only recently found myself in Avonlea within the last year, a purposeful step towards reading more physical books and finding connection with my late mum. When she passed most of her memories and stories were locked away by the people who loved her. The pain of her absence was and sometimes is a heavy one to carry.

It wasn’t until my early twenties when I set out to unravel the tapestry of her life that I found she had called her country cottage set upon a sheep station in Western Victoria ‘Green Gables’.

At the time this didn’t mean much to me. I thought it a little odd she had named it after an old book that in my mind was similar to a Picnic at Hanging Rock. Which was required reading for high school English. I’d only seen a couple of snippets from the old Anne movie in passing and nothing had stuck in my mind other than Anne was an orphan girl taken in by a begrudging husband and wife. Those details I was to find out later were wrong.

One of my many lifelong dreams has been to have a farm, with a beautiful two-story white house with a wrap-around verandah. Think practical magic with a little more chinoiserie. One where I can watch the sunset while I sip my evening tea and all the cavalier dogs I’ve rescued enjoy a nap at my feet. I’ve even had a few dreams where I’ve lived in said house, with not quite so many dogs but an equally delightful place with a bubbling brook down the slope from its white-washed weatherboards.

Earlier this year I decided to ditch my usual audiobook route and go old school with a physical copy. Yes, I know what I’m missing out on and yes, I am also aware of the irony of being a published author/illustrator with no audiobooks to date. However, I’ll simply state that my mind favours words spoken at me in 2x speed and physical books get dusty on my shelves. That was until I found the ultimate hack for reading. Now this might only work with my brain, or maybe ADHD brains I’m not an expert but I think I’ve found a way to power through any TBR pile. I read the book aloud.

It’s that simple. It slows me down enough to pace myself and somehow I absorb everything I’m reading. It’s like my own personal audiobook and I while I can’t read much faster than I can speak I find it entirely relaxing to curl up with a good book and enjoy each word I’m presented with.

This is how I started my journey with Anne of Green Gables. I’d borrowed a copy from the library after striking out at my usual opp shop haunts. In doing this I found myself enthralled in Anne’s life, I could relate to her mind, the rose-coloured glasses in which she viewed the world and her profound need for love and acceptance. You could say it felt like meeting a kindred spirit.

There was a bittersweet comfort in knowing my mum had also read the same words in her childhood. To be frank I’m only guessing she read them at an earlier age, most of what I know of her are small snippets I piece together. Which makes reading her home namesake even more special to me. In between those pages, she had found some sense of sisterhood and I set about to find out why.

I was met with my first wrong assumption a few paragraphs in. Anne was not adopted by a husband and wife like I originally thought. She was begrudgingly welcomed into Green Gables by an elderly brother and sister who needed more help around the farm. They had sent out for a little boy from the orphanage and instead received Anne, a wide-eyed, eager-to-please orphan with bright flaming red hair.

I felt like I knew early on why both my mum and I resonated with the world of Avonlea set upon the fictional Prince Edward Island. Both of us lost our mums at a very early age, her at seven and I at one. There’s an indescribable connection through grief that I find hard to explain and often comprehend.

Similar to Anne my mum was taken into an orphanage after her mother’s passing, she returned to family a few years later but I sensed Anne’s life, whatever age she had read her stories would bring her both comfort and a sense of loss.

I saw Anne despite going through turmoil, uncertainty and the loss of both of her parents at a young age was full of hope. She yearned for girlhood, silliness and marvelled at the beauty of the world. I’m sure there’s a psychological angle to view Anne’s maladaptive daydreaming but really in the harshness of the world sometimes it’s better to try and find the light than to crawl around in the dark.

That’s why I adore Anne so much, I can overlook some of the less-than-feminist ideals that might not align with my compass, reminding myself that this was written at a time before women had little rights to make choices in their lives. Instead, I find the commonality of girlhood into womanhood, the comfort of a chosen family and the joy in friendships and whimsy.

In a way, I feel like my reading has brought me closer to my mum and that was the main reason I set about my self-discovered journey to Avonlea.

While I might be reading L. M. Montgomery’s words later in life, I believe I found them just when I was meant to. I’m now the proud owner of an almost complete collection of her writing and perhaps one day put them on the bookshelves of my own Green Gables (the one with all the cavaliers of course!).