2024 is L.M. Montgomery’s 150th birthday! The L.M. Montgomery Institute (LMMI) at the University of Prince Edward Island is celebrating with 150 tributes – celebratory statements or greetings – that reflect upon personal connections to Montgomery or on an aspect of her life, work, or legacy.
International Children’s Book Day is being celebrated throughout the world on April 2. Sponsored by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), events are planned that “inspire a love of reading” and “call attention to children’s books.” Margaret Mackey, Joanna Lipinski, and Patti McIntosh share different experiences of how Montgomery inspired their love of reading.
*
A tribute from Margaret Mackey, reader and scholar:
Recollections of childhood reading experiences tend to blur repetitively, but, for me, one memory is categorically singular. I was nine years old, home from school sick. My dad, on his way to work, stuck his head inside my bedroom door and said, “Here, try this.” He handed me a blue hardback of Anne of Green Gables. When he returned that night, I had finished it. For that whole day, I lived inside the skin of a different person. In a blur of astonishment and devastation, I learned that it was possible for a beloved fictional character to die. And I explicitly knew I was a different Margaret from the one who had woken up that morning. I remember my startled recognition, in so many words, that Thornton Burgess’s animal stories – hitherto completely satisfying – would never be quite the same again. My life as a reader had suddenly and irrevocably expanded.
Margaret Mackey is Professor Emerita in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta, and a lifelong reader of L.M. Montgomery.
*
A tribute from Joanna Lipinski, reader and translator:
Dokladnie pamietam moje pierwsze spotkanie z L.M. Montgomery. Miałam siedem lat i narzekałam mamie, że przeczytałam już wszystkie moje książki. Wtedy mama zasugerowała mi ,,Anię z Zielonego Wzgórza”, która stała na jej półce, pośród reszty powieści z tej serii. Pamiętam zgaszony kolor okładki, szorstki papier i czarno-białe ilustracje, które wydawały mi się takie ,,dorosłe i nudne”. Nie była to zatem miłość od pierwszego wejrzenia. Moja mama nie dała jednak za wygraną i zaczęła czytać pierwszy tom na głos - to wystarczyło bym zakochała się w krajobrazach malowanych słowami i w historii Ani, a następnie w książkach o Emilce, Jane i Valancy. Nasza literacka przyjaźń trwa już ponad 30 lat i zmienia się z każdą ponowną lekturą, każdym na nowo odkrytym slowem, podkreślonym cytatem. Na półce mam wiele różnych wydań Ani, ale niedawno kupiłam to, od którego wszystko się zaczęło, a które dziś, niczym czerwcowe lilie, jest dla mnie najpiękniejsze.
I remember clearly my first meeting with L.M. Montgomery. I was seven years old and complaining to my mum that I had nothing to read. She suggested to me Anne of Green Gables, which was on her shelf with the rest of the novels from the series. I remember a cover with muted colours, rough paper, and black-and-white illustrations that seemed so “grown up and boring” to me. So it was not love at first sight. However, my mother did not give up and started reading the book aloud – and then I fell in love with the landscapes painted with words and the story of Anne and then with the books about Emily, Jane, and Valancy. Our literary friendship has lasted for over thirty years and changes with each re-reading, each rediscovered word, each underlined quote. Now I have many different editions of Anne on my shelf, but recently I bought the one that started it all, and which today, like June lilies, I find the most beautiful.
Joanna Lipinski is a teacher and independent scholar focusing on Polish translations of Montgomery’s novels as well as symbolism and literary allusions.
*
A tribute from Patti McIntosh, IBBY Canada:
Based in Edmonton, Alberta, Patti McIntosh is a writer, cultural manager, former publisher, and current president of IBBY Canada (2020-2024), a charitable organization with the mission of bringing books and children together. Patti is also the chair of IBBY Canada’s Reading with Newcomer Children program. IBBY Canada is on social media at: Twitter Facebook Instagram.
*
Next week we celebrate the publication of the first impression of Anne of Green Gables in April 1908.