Anne of Green Gables

Written by: LM Montgomery

First line: Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard to decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.

Why you should read this book: More than a hundred years after its original publication, this classic work about a precocious, imaginative, spirited orphan girl who comes to live on a farm where she is not originally wanted continues to hold great meaning for readers of all ages (a 3-season re-imagining of this novel can be viewed on Netflix under the title Anne with an E, and it surely does provide an excellent scaffolding for more modern ideas about childhood despite remaining set in the very early 1900s). Anne Shirley, an unwanted red haired child, whose head is full of books and poetry and romance, seems an unlikely addition to the Cuthbert family, which has, for decades, consisted only of laconic, tongue-tied farmer Matthew and his sharp, cold housekeeping sister, Marilla, but as it turns out, Anne's mischief is exactly what these siblings need in their old age. Whether she's unintentionally getting her best friend drunk, accidentally substituting liniment for vanilla in a cake for the minister's wife, or deliberately appearing in church wearing a heathenish quantity of wildflowers on her hat, Anne's antics continue to delight and draw in her new family and her many generations of dedicated readers. 

Why you should not read this book: You don't believe in the magic of childhood.