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We're back with part 2 of Anne of Green Gables, because we, like Anne, can talk the hind leg off a mule. Anne's a capital R Romantic and obsessed with beauty. She sees it everywhere from the Lake of Shining Waters to the fashion of the day. Speaking of the fashion a la mode, we delve a little deeper into the trends and beauty standards of Anne's (and Lucy Maud Montgomery's) time. Once again we ponder whether the 1985 Sullivan rendition might have improved the story a bit by abandoning the bank failure storyline and having (spoiler) Matthew die in the harness as it were. We're all a little traumatized by film Matthew's death and at least one of us is still heartbroken over Jonathan Crombie's death. All of us are quite torn about which adult in Anne's life would make the best adoptive parent and we chat with some library users about their own adventures with runaway imaginations. We learn which character from the book we each are too. Will this quiz be a perfect graveyard of buried hopes?

These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at [email protected]. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode and used some books and articles as jumping off points. Here’s a brief list of some of them if you want to do your own further research:

Don't internalize beauty norms, Anne!  https://misfortuneofknowing.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/dear-anne-shirley-redheads-can-wear-pink-2/

She's always a woman to me... https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=gsw_pub

Passing that Bechdel test with flying colors: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1522&context=theses