Before Green Gables

BOOK NAME: Before Green Gables
AUTHOR: Budge Wilson

This book is actually a prequel to the Anne of Green Gables series. My mother and grandmother read the books as girls and really encouraged me to read them too, and I’ll never regret it. This amazing prequel is written by a different author than the original, but is written just as beautifully. It is the most amazing book I have ever read and I hope that the rest of the series is even better!

It is a very heart wrenching story because this little girl, Anne Shirley, makes so much out of so little and is able to scrape together a decent life while working non-stop. Anne is orphaned at three months old and is deprived a wonderful life with her amazing parents. From then on she goes to different households until she finally somehow lands on a train that may take her to the place of her dreams. Anne is wise beyond her years due to all the responsibility she must carry on her small shoulders. But she has a wonderful imagination which helps her survive all her hardships.

I would recommend this book to anyone, but I would especially recommend this book to fourth graders and up just so you can sympathize and enjoy it more. What I love about it is that you can always find some way to relate to Anne and can really imagine in your head what she’s doing at that moment. No matter how many books I read I don’t think any can beat this one except maybe the original, but I’ll have to read it and find out. Stay tuned!

Comments

escape2books
April 19, 2010, 3:27 pm

I am not sure if I want to read it. I have already read Anne of Green Gables so I might look at it ……maybe
iluvapplepieyum
April 19, 2010, 7:08 pm

i dont think i would read it either
MasterLioness
April 19, 2010, 11:55 pm

I like Anne, she is imaginative,
she has ideas, she changes names of places,
she insists on her names being
written A-N-N-E instead of
A-N-N. I just like her, i have read
a little of the first book,
and watched both the 1st and
2nd movies.
Emma
April 20, 2010, 12:15 pm

Cool. Sounds like a book I would like. Is it old style though, like Laura Ingalls Wilder, or is it in modern times?
denzell2000
April 20, 2010, 5:11 pm

i think its a very cool book
jindo2108
April 20, 2010, 9:48 pm

My mom keeps encouraging me to read this. I still don’t understand what it is about. Can someone please,please explain what the original is about?
I might read it. I’m sorta in the same boat as Emma.
escape2books
April 21, 2010, 3:33 pm

jindo2108, Anne of Green Gables is a story about an orphan who is sent to an older couple instead of a boy. The book follows her life until she graduates. This is book one of a series so you can read about her when she is older too.This is a funny, heartwarming book and I suggest you read it. I hope this helps!!!!
swimmer girl5
April 21, 2010, 9:49 pm

i read anne of green gables…… it was sooooo gooood!
jindo2108
April 21, 2010, 10:56 pm

Thanks, escape2books,I’ll try it!
CherylByrel:D
April 25, 2010, 9:31 am

Thnks!Totally adored this review!U hve gr8 writing style!im so glad my class lib has both of the books,m so gonna check them out!
CherylByrel:D
April 25, 2010, 9:38 am

also,here’s a bit of my writing:pls comment and improve in whtever way u can:D

A windy morning,as the playful wind tickled my face,I woke up to my mother’s singing.Her’s was a voice of pure beauty.Usually,one would say that the voice would sound nice,or even magnificent,but mother’s was truly one of unadulterated beauty.The lyrics of a song could only sketch a scene,but her voice painted them.The clearness of her voice this time sang of a poor old man knocking on death’s door and his faithful old terrior.She sang with such sorrow,remorse and pain that I knew something horrible had happened.When I went into the kitchen to ask my mother about it,I saw tears of grief on her fair face and was struck with a sense of pure terror when she whispered to me,”Papa is gone.”
Last evening,my father had left to fish,as was his job.I thought he had returned while I was sleeping,but that was not the case.I ran,ran,ran,to the hills,the sea and the sky for comfort of my loss.They were my friends,and one could always trust friends.My friends were there.They whispered quiet soothings as I ran,my knees aching,my muscles tortured,up and up,higher and higher the huge hill,to the very top.And their,I let out my sorrows.
“All that matters is gone,washed away,no no!How can it be that the world is so cruel,so atrocious it took one I loved away?No!No!How is fate so selfish,how can it be?I,who run that mountains in the sunlight,always second,never first.I lose,I always do,and always will and will always be,the runner up in life”
I sang my miseries to my friends.The sky darkened,sad for me.The wind blew gently at my face,covering it with the air’s light kisses.The grass on the hill drooped in sorrow.They consoled me and nursed me back to my normal self.But no,I could not ever be myself again.I had lost a piece of myself when my father left.It could never be filled.And so I ran.I ran,ran,ran.Far and wide,into the yonder.I ran,ran,ran,soothing my hurt,my pain.I ran,ran,ran,faster and faster,straining my legs with every step.I ran,ran,ran,higher and higher,upper and upper,my feet bare,dirty and sore.I ran,ran,ran trying to see the Heavens above the wispy clouds,whether my father had made it there,to the promised land.But I was only mortal.I soon scratched my foot on a sharp stone and fell,down,down,down.The physical pain now excruciated me as well.I was being both pushed to the limits of my emotion and physicality as I realized that it was not a sharp rock I had stepped on,but a deadly blue-diamond scorpion,known to wander in those areas.The poison would kill me in hours;unless I could struggle through the searing pain and reach the nearest healer’s house,a mile away at the very least.I slapped my forehead upon acknowledging my foolishness;it would kill me this time.I limped,slow as tortoise,to the healer’s home.Between about one-third of this journey I felt the pain ebb away to reveal a cooling numbness.This was more dangerous than the pain,it was when the poison had set in.If I start to feel sleepy,that is it.The poison would have already gone too deep for any medication to help.With the pain gone,I could run fast enough to get the in time but I had used up all my energy before.I knew what would make me run.It would tear at my heart,and make me have nightmares,but it would save my life.I thought of how my father died.My mother always said my father would one day be caught fishing.Fishing?You ponder,What is so wrong about fishing?Fishing in my village was banned by the village head because it was,quote,”Barbaric and uncivilized”.Of course,the greed-filled head just wanted all the fish to himself and make us starve,so he banned fishing from other people’s ponds.But it was such a ridiculous notion to think of anyone owning a pond.But,typically,the head claimed it his because he was the ‘head’.What magnified this unfairness was that the penalty for fishing was death.By drowning.I imagined my father,his kind eyes,his cleft chin,his warm smile,in murky water,going down,down,down,pushed by the chief with a scornful smile.”No!”I gasped.He had to go up,up,up,higher,higher,higher!I ran,ran,ran,my father’s dead corpse in that murky water in my mind.

Copyright Cheryl

Its a short fictional story i wrote on the spur.
escape2books
April 25, 2010, 9:19 pm

CherylByrel:D, you defininetly could be a writer if you REALLy wanted to. Personally I HATE to mauch desciption and I thought that there was to much of it. Also I know you had to make the father die because of the scorpion, but I thought it took to long to get to the scorpion part. I noticed you had a lot of poetic descibions, have you ever written poetry? If not maybe you should try it!!!! I have even written poetry :] All in all I must I was a little bored in the beginning,but what a great use of your spare time!!!
puppy124
April 26, 2010, 8:31 pm

I read this and loved it! Younger people might think the original series is boring (long and tiny print), but I loved them too.

Suggest reading the original series before this.
Anonymous
April 29, 2010, 12:55 pm

I’ve watched the movies so I’ve ruined it for myself. Oh bobs! Anyway, I wouldn’t have read it because I’m not really into these type of books. I’m more modern or like… ancient Egyptian times. Ya know? Nice review, though.

- DogEared Blogger, Emelie
GeorgeHarrison
May 19, 2010, 2:54 pm

I read the original and was really dissapointed. Guess it’s just not my kind of novel.
climber
July 4, 2010, 10:28 pm

MAN I CAN”T FIND IT!!!!!!!
starz321
July 17, 2010, 8:34 am

I’m reading the Anne of Green Gables books right now. I am on the third one, and I think Anne has turned into one of my “bosom” friends (Anyone who read the original will get my meaning!!). She has such a great imagination!!!
Yes, i am more of a more modern reader, so i surprise myself by liking this.

cherylbreryl:D – That was a awesome story!!! I love those dramatic, gruesome endings!
ReaderGirl
July 21, 2010, 4:30 pm

Hi, everyone! I have both of the books at my house, but I don’t know which one to read first. Will there be spoilers if I read the prequel first? Thanks!
-ReaderGirl
readlikecrazy
March 2, 2011, 11:14 pm

I loved this book, even if it isn’t by Lucy maud Montgomery. I have read all of the anne books, and they are sooo wonderful!
julibuli8
September 3, 2011, 1:28 pm

I read most of the Anne of Green Gables books and I absolutely give them all five stars! I will most likely read this one too!
moongoddess_60
August 25, 2012, 5:50 pm

I have all the Green Gables books. Somebody got them for me and they are really weird. They don’t follow the Anne of Green Gables movie at all.

Moongoddess_60————–>>>>>>>>