While traveling in Japan, among several personal quests, I wanted to find signs of Anne of Green Gables. I wasn't sure if I would spot her, but I did. I managed to find Anne Shirley in Fukuoka.
I was spending some time in JR Hakata City, a giant mall with a major train station hub at its core. While there, I visited the Bandai Namco Crossstore. The place was kind of mesmerizing, with a giant Pac-Man video game and lots of toys and other games. One section of the store had hundreds of capsule machines. You drop 400 yen into a machine, turn a lever, and receive a random toy from a selection of toys pictured on the machine. I walked around a bit, wondering if I might spot a machine featuring World Masterpiece Theatre toys, and I found one pretty quickly.
The machine contained five toys, and among them was an Anne of Green Gables (Akage no An) model. It took a bit of trying, but I got the toy I wanted.
Above, you can see the model out of its capsule. Little Anne Shirley is waiting at the Bright River Station. She's not in PEI though. She's actually waiting with me at the Hiroshima station on a bullet train to Tokyo. We're keeping each other company.
Image credits:
Photographs by World of Anne Shirley.
Created May 30, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com
The Blue Castle is one of my favorite stories by L.M. Montgomery. I wanted to share an in-progress graphic novel adaptation of The Blue Castle by Maaike Bouhuyzen-Wenger. Maaike is a Canadian artist who is based in Toronto, and her specialties include printmaking and pen & ink drawing. She began drawing and designing her graphic novel in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the introduction to her project on Tumblr, Maaike writes that she thought The Blue Castle seemed "to be a good choice for my first graphic novel project – an opportunity to practice art work and learn from mistakes without the pressure of writing my own story and characters." She has currently concluded Part 2 of the story.
I just began exploring this adaptation, and I think the novel is a beautiful choice for her work. I'm excited to view both Valancy's personal growth and Maaike's artistic growth as the project continues.
External Links:
The Blue Castle Graphic Novel by Maaike Bouhuyzen-Wenger adapted from the novel by L.M. Montgomery
Maaike Bouhuyzen-Wenger's Website
Image Credit:
Page from The Blue Castle Graphic Novel by Maaike Bouhuyzen-Wenger adapted from the novel by L.M. Montgomery.
Created May 29, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com
The L.M. Montgomery Bookshelf is a project launched by the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island in November 2022. It is described as, "a physical and digital collection of some of Montgomery's most-loved or most interesting reads." The bookshelf is curated by Dr. Emily Woster, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota in Duluth.
It's interesting to consider what a writer reads and how books influence them. Which books did L.M. Montgomery own, quote from, and give as gifts to others? This website helps explore these questions, and the book collection will continue to expand over time.
Image credit:
Screencapture adapted from The L.M. Montgomery Bookshelf website.
Created May 27, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com
In 2017, L.M. Montgomery and War was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. This book of scholarship examines how war influenced L.M. Montgomery's life and work. It was edited by Andrea McKenzie and Jane Ledwell. The volume contains contributions by Jonathan F. Vance, Irene Gammel, E. Holly Pike, Susan Fisher, Laura M. Robinson, Sarah Glassford, Maureen O. Gallagher, Caroline E. Jones, Andrea McKenzie, and Elizabeth Epperly.
Here's the description of the volume from McGill-Queen’s University Press:
War marked L.M. Montgomery’s personal life and writing. As an eleven-year-old, she experienced the suspense of waiting months for news about her father, who fought during the North-West Resistance of 1885. During the First World War, she actively led women’s war efforts in her community, while suffering anguish at the horrors taking place overseas. Through her novels, Montgomery engages directly with the global conflicts of her time, from the North-West Resistance to the Second World War. Given the influence of her wartime writing on Canada’s cultural memories, L.M. Montgomery and War restores Montgomery to her rightful place as a major war writer.
Reassessing Montgomery’s position in the canon of war literature, contributors to this volume explore three central themes in their essays: her writing in the context of contemporaneous Canadian novelists, artists, and poets; questions about her conceptions of gender identity, war work, and nationalism across enemy lines; and the themes of hurt and healing in her interwar works.
Drawing on new perspectives from war studies, literary studies, historical studies, gender studies, and visual art, L.M. Montgomery and War explores new ways to consider the iconic Canadian writer and her work.
Megan Follows is known for playing the outspoken, imaginative and talkative Anne Shirley in the 1985 TV miniseries Anne of Green Gables, which was based on L.M. Montgomery's novel. In December 2023, Follows reminisced about how playing Anne Shirley changed her life in a podcast conversation with the CBC's Tom Power. In the introduction to the podcast, Power mentions how the conversation made him rethink Anne of Green Gables and consider how radical the story was then and how relevant it still is today. I loved their conversation. Give it a listen!
Sometimes actors dislike being identified with a particular role, but not Megan Follows. She expressed gratitude about playing Anne Shirley and emphasized how great it was to play a character that was "a girl that got to express rage." When asked about her relationship with the character, Follows responded, "I love Anne...She and I have a great relationship. We're tight. We're bosom buddies. I think she's an extraordinary character, and uhm, I always felt incredibly grateful to have played her and to have been introduced to a strong-willed, female-driven story where you got to be number one from the point of view of a story." Often, Follows reflects, women are the appendage in stories and not the backbone or driving force. In contrast, Anne has a driving force to belong and to be seen for herself, and Follows believes that this is what resonates with people.
Megan Follows delved back into L.M. Montgomery's stories in preparing to record an Emily of New Moon audiobook a few years ago and then to direct a new Audible Anne of Green Gables audiobook featuring Michela Luci, Catherine O’Hara, Victor Garber, and Sandra Oh. Follows remarks that her deep dive back into the stories allowed her to discover "the subversiveness of the text." She had previously understood Montgomery's humor, but now she observed her way of pointing out hypocrisy through Anne. Follows feels that the power of the character scares people.
Follows sees Anne's compulsive talking as coming from a dark place where Anne chooses to go toward the light, not out of naivety, but for her own survival. As an example, she mentions how Anne planned to sleep in a cherry tree at the train station. She believes that Anne came up with this idea for safety, but that Anne focused on the beauty of the blossoms because she was terrified to be abandoned and alone in the world. Follows says that Montgomery used poetry because children don't actually speak this way.
Follows also reflected on her amazing experiences working with Colleen Dewhurst (Marilla Cuthbert) and Patricia Hamilton (Rachel Lynde). She discussed how Richard Farnsworth (Matthew Cuthbert) was only available for six days of filming, so she worked very long hours with him to film his scenes. Later, she did scenes with a grip stand with a hat on it as a stand-in. Follows also talked about the raspberry cordial scene with Schuyler Grant, who played Diana Barry. They were giving Grant glasses of watered down grape juice or Ribena, and she really did get sick after filming the scene multiple times. Follows briefly mentioned that her heart always smiles for Jonathan Crombie and that they laughed a lot.
Power asked Follows about her audition for Anne. Strangely, the day after her audition, her tape disappeared, and she had to redo her audition at the last minute. Follows mentions that there was another actress who was the first choice for Anne Shirley and that she had to fight for the role. Luckily, she had advocates at the CBC and
someone at PBS who believed that she was the right fit for the role.
Later, when asked about how the success of the miniseries affected her, she reflected that she is grateful that she did a good job playing Anne, and that she has received a tremendous amount of goodwill because of the character and how much the character and writing mean to people.
Toward the end of the conversation, Follows talked about how she is currently developing a limited series on the life of L.M. Montgomery, her legacy and the power of her writing. I can't wait to hear more.
Image credit:
Photograph of Megan Follows as Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables © Sullivan Entertainment.
Created May 24, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com
