My Heart Fills with Happiness by Monique Gray Smith & Illus by Julie Flett

This book was sitting at our school bookfair, in among all the Shopkins, unicorn journals, and Disney character easy readers. 

I am not generally a huge fan of Scholastic bookfairs. BUT. This book. 

The dedication immediately piqued my interest. 

This book is dedicated to the former Indian Residential School students and their families--may you find what you seek...

Indian Residential Schools always interest me--such a devastating part of American history that is so under the radar. 

This book is full of reasons our hearts fill with happiness. 

The illustrations by Julie Flett are gorgeous. I love that they feature Native people. 

This page right here sold me on the whole book. Heart eyes! 

oh the delight

Love, love, love!

Grandmothers are the best

And at the end, we get a chance to think about what makes us happiest. 

A narwhal mommy and baby and a grandfather and grandbaby. 

A Cow's Alfalfa-bet by Woody Jackson

Growing  up as a dairy farmer's daughter in the 1990's, Woody Jackson was kind of everything. We had t-shirts with his art, mugs with his art, and prints of his art. 

When I grew up enough to get nostalgic for this kind of thing, I discovered that he had a few kids books of his art. Must. Buy. 

Most people probably know him as the artist for Ben and Jerry's ice cream, but to us, he was a kind of chronicler of our cows and farm. Unfortunately we didn't have quite the mountains that Vermont does for a backdrop, but still, a northern dairy farm was pretty much us.  

This is an alphabet book, so for each letter there is an illustrated picture. 

Color is a big part of the appeal in his art. 

Oh the moon on summer nights...!

Bright yellow barns? Why not? 

There is no plot, but I LOVE THIS BOOK. 

This is one kids book that I will probably always have on my shelf. 

Kilmeny of the Orchard by LM Montgomery

LM Montgomery, while I love her dearly, can be a teensy weensy bit melodramatic. This book is where she showcases all her mad melodramatic skills. 

The book is told from the point of view of the man you see brooding in the background on the cover, which is somewhat unusual for LM Montgomery. Eric Marshall has just graduated from college and is at a loose end before going to work for his millionaire father. A friend needs a break, so asks Eric to substitute teach for him for a month on PEI in a small town named Lindsay. 

And wouldn't you know it, Eric goes and falls in love with the one impossible girl in Lindsay. Kilmeny Gordon has never been out in public and has never spoken. Her mother decided her own personal beauty was a terrible burden, so decided Kilmeny should stay out of the public eye for fear she would realize she is beautiful. There is a complicated backstory to her mother, which you learn through the book. It is sad, dark, and mildly insane. LM Montgomery was never afraid to bring a little dark into her writing. 

Kilmeny can play violin like magic, is incredibly beautiful, and totally innocent due to her lack of contact with the outside world. One thing I don't exactly like is that Kilmeny's worth is definitely dependent on her beauty. Eric is a millionaires son. Falling in love with a poor girl from a rural PEI town is not really part of his millionaire father's life plan for Eric. Eric tells his father and anyone else who questions his choice of girl "Just wait until you see Kilmeny." Not interact with her and enjoy her wit, but just observe her beauty; that will justify my choice of woman. Kilmeny has a lot of great characteristics, so she is not some vapid beauty. Eric appreciates her musical talent, her wit, her intelligence, her pleasure in life, but it is her beauty that he keeps mentioning. 

There are occasions when stereotypes are brought into LM Montgomery's works, and this is one of them. Kilmeny has an adopted brother-ish sort of person who happens to be Italian. The poor guy is forever being irrational, brooding, and passionate. Because that is how Italians are apparently. At least in 1910's PEI. 

So Kilmeny of the Orchard is melodramatic, somewhat shallow, and stereotypical. If you read this book with a modern sensibility, you will likely roll your eyes. However, most people come to this book after Anne or Emily and already adore LM Montgomery, so they will love this book based on that fact alone. And really, for this time and in this place, the sensibilities in this book are pretty representative.

And guess what? I love this book. I can't take it seriously, but this was one of my first ever LM Montgomery books. (It just so happens this is her shortest novel.) I listened to Anne when I was very little, so loved her, then read this when I was too young to tackle of book of Anne's length, but wanted more LM Montgomery. So I love this book for sentimental reasons. Plus, I was much more melodramatic as a nine year old or whatever I was when I read this. So I probably didn't roll my eyes at all. 

There is poetry in this book, lyrical descriptions of PEI in May, and an overall happy ending. And, it is by LM MONTGOMERY, for crying out loud. So you can do a lot worse. Just don't think you will find LM Montgomery's clever, biting wit or hilarious situations. 

Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery

I have had this post sitting around for awhile, needing words. Like two years. Turns out that writing about one of your favorite books in ALL THE WORLD is difficult. I mean, where do you begin? The writing. The setting. The characters. The timelessness. The Canadianness. The marvelousness.  And quotes--LM Montgomery's writing is so marvelous it just demands to be quoted. But where to start? 

There is simply too much. 

However, this week, I have been enjoying the #12daysofannestagram pictures up. So fun! 

So I decided to get it together and do my own week of Anne. Or rather LM Montgomery. 

There are a lot of very beautiful editions of Anne of Green Gables nowadays. Every once in awhile, I am tempted to buy one. 

   

But I am a sucker for sets. I don't want a beautifully illustrated book and 6 other books that don't match the first. 

For sheer color, this set is hard to beat.  

These are my current favorites. These are by Elly McKay, a Canadian artist. It is all cut paper that she arranges just so and photographs. Or at least that is what I understand of her process. That Rainbow Valley cover!! And Windy Poplars and House of Dreams. I just really want these ones so I can look at them more closely. 

When it really comes down to it, I kind of like the one I first read, this orange-y colored 1980's edition. Familiarity. And I happen to already own the entire set. Some day when I become rich, I might buy a beautiful set. For now, I only glance at the cover and dive into the words, so the cover isn't overly important. But having beautiful things is important. So someday.... 

Still, I wonder if I will always associate this beat up, unbeautiful cover with the delight and rapture of a first time reading of Anne....

Anne is delightful. She is fierce. Imaginative. Delighted with life. Longing for all the right things. Sees all the right things. 

There are so many different reasons to love Anne. Her fierce independence, her determination, her imagination, her ability to see magic where everyone else sees the prosaic, her passion, her poetry, her fanciful fairy world.... So much to love! I love Anne the most fiercely for her ability to see magic where everyone else sees the prosaic. 

Anne loves the world around her. She can see beauty and mystery in walking across a cow pasture. I love, love, love that about her. Because that is how I want to see the world. I want to be amazed by all the incredibleness of everyday things. Because how marvelous to be delighted by the things that are right around you! How dreary to have to travel great distances to be amazed. I am all for traveling great distances too. But I expect to be just as entranced by the new place as I was at home. 

If you can find wonder in the way the sunlight hits the drops of dew on the front lawn in the early morning or the endless shades of blue in a ripening blueberry, life will never be mundane. 

Anne carried her own bit of wonder with her. She could pull it out at will to escape from her hard childhood or wander into it in daydreams to enhance the present. I love Anne for teaching me to see the poetry in the way the light falls through the maple leaves onto the lawn and to thrill to the wildness of birch leaves turned upside down and silver just before a storm. 

Anne of Green Gables one hundred and ten years old this month. And it still feels fresh to me. Sure, there are some outdated references to heathens and the French Canadians, but mostly, it is the story of a young girl making the best of the difficult hand she was dealt. The story of a young girl finding the beauty and potential in every situation. 

And I will always, always think of Anne when I pick apple blossoms and carry them inside. Of Marilla grumbling about the petals falling everywhere while Anne is in raptures about the magnificence and generosity of apple trees in giving us blossoms so freely and lavishly. 

Oh Anne. 

Buttercup Days by AA Milne

                                                                                    --from Now We Are Six

I love this poem. There are poems of AA Milne's that I love more, but this one is so sweet and buttercups are just coming out now and... I happen to love how "fist of her's" rhymes so nice with "Christopher's." It probably isn't a terribly sophisticated rhyme, but for some reason, it delights me. 

Hello Lighthouse by Sophie Blackall

Sophie Blackall! I just adore her pictures! I also adore lighthouse keepers. 

There is always an element of man vs. nature in these stories. I happen to adore them as well. 

(I am just very adoring today apparently.)

Guess what? I adore a good cross section! 

Windy 

Lonely lighthouse keeper life

Those waves!!!

And then life wasn't as lonely.

This book talks mostly about the things and people that come to or by the lighthouse. 

The lighthouse as a place of observation. 

Circles play a big part in living in a lighthouse. 

Walking the floors before delivery.

AHHH!! Isn't this super le duper sweet and cozy? 

(See? circles again.)

Northern lights

And then, inevitably, the hand of progress made his job redundant. So they moved to the mainland. 

 

I LOVE THIS BOOK.