“By the old stone step and the sagging sill
The hopes of youth are lingering still,
And I shall find when that step is crossed
A secret of peace that the world has lost.”
~ Lucy Maud Montgomery, The Blythes are Quoted (“Come, Let Us Go”)
The school year may be new and daunting at this point, but I find comfort in the known. This is the time of year when I start searching my shelves for the old classics that I adore so much – books similar to Anne of Green Gables and The Chronicles of Narnia – the ones I grew up on. These are the stories most will be familiar with, like some rite of passage of childhood – especially for homeschoolers, our fundamentals. These are the books we found joy and wonder in, years ago; these are the books we ought to return to, especially in times like these.
Though written in 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s endearing classic about a red-haired girl named Anne (with an E!) still remains a fan favorite through the years. That, to me, is the true magic of books like these: they’re timeless. Readers still enjoy them as much as when they were first published – they often give us glimpses into the lives of others who lived so long ago in different times. Anne, dreamy and idealistic, cemented her place long ago as a much-beloved heroine. Impulsive and dramatic, she is the epitome of a free spirit, unhindered and unbound to societal rules.
Something somewhat lesser-known, however, are the sequels to Anne of Green Gables – books I have to share with any and all who will listen. In publication now are eight sequels following Anne and eventually her children, spanning all the way to the Second World War in The Blythes are Quoted, a collection of short stories and poetry published posthumously in 2009. Follow Anne’s journey from precocious eleven-year-old to mother of six; invest yourself in her children’s lives as they experience love and tragedy during the Great War. The eighth, the war book, Rilla of Ingleside, stays with me at all times. I owe my current passion for war history to this book specifically, and perhaps it is an incongruous introduction to such a hefty subject, but it has honestly shaped me in surprisingly gratifying ways over the years.
Montgomery set the Anne books in her birthplace, the gorgeous and scenic Prince Edward Island right off the east coast of Canada, and although Avonlea and Glen St. Mary are fictitious, she breathes life into them through her pen. The characters and the places Anne’s stories encompass are delightful in true Montgomery style. The Victorian and Edwardian worlds of P.E.I. spring into being through the incredibly lovely descriptions that layer Montgomery’s works. It’s poetry in prose, and it feels like a lost home – lost to time and human meddling, buried in the past, but immortalized forever by the works of Montgomery. Perhaps it was brought about by idealism, but it’s idealism that feels right.
***
“Courage, dear heart,” Aslan says to Lucy Pevensie in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a wonderful encouragement when Lucy and her companions are about to lose hope in the midst of dark waters. I always found solace in Aslan, that noble lion, so allegorically like Jesus – Aslan, who sang Narnia into being, Aslan, who sacrificed himself for Edmund, who was always there for Lucy, who was the great King, always the representation of good. Mr. Beaver says as much in the first book – “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
Narnia, through the professor’s wardrobe, was an escape for the Pevensies from the shock of the Blitz in 1940 from the evils that rampaged the world. Narnia was not peaceful, but the Pevensies could do something there. Narnia, the land of talking animals, where good conquered evil and dreams came to fruition, where talking lions defeated white witches. As a child and even now, I loved the animals of Narnia, from Strawberry the cab horse to Reepicheep the mouse to Aslan the Great. The humans, as flawed as they were, were just as wonderful. Nothing is too fanciful for children’s literature – one’s imagination is fostered and nurtured by many of these oft-read and beloved stories – and for good reason: to teach children the magic of possibility.
All this to say – revisit your old haunts this year. No matter your age, you’ll always find something new and wonderful in the worlds you once visited alongside their protagonists. Go ‘further up and further in’ with the talking animals of Narnia. Experience the wonders of a Canadian twilight. Rediscover the magic of childhood, of unbridled wonder, of a ‘secret of peace the world has lost.’
Works Cited:
Montgomery, L. M., et al. The Blythes Are Quoted. Penguin Modern Canadian Classics, 2018.
Lewis, C. S., and Pauline Baynes. Chronicles of Narnia. the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. HarperCollins Children’s, 2007.
Lewis, C. S., and Pauline Baynes. Chronicles of Narnia. the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. HarperCollins Children’s, 2007.
Photo cred. from https://www.cntraveler.com/sponsored/story/discover-the-wonders-of-prince-edward-island