Anne of Avonlea

The second Anne book catches Anne Shirley at sixteen, newly minted as Avonlea's schoolteacher, helping raise two orphaned twins, co-founding the Village Improvement Society with cheerfully disastrous results, and drawing ever closer to Gilbert Blythe as college looms for both of them. Montgomery's prose is as graceful as ever, and the portrait of small-town Canadian community life — its warmth, its pettiness, its generosity — gains depth here that the first novel could not afford while establishing Anne herself. The honest caveat is structure: Anne of Avonlea is episodic in a way that can feel meandering, and without the urgent stakes of Anne's arrival at Green Gables, the dramatic tension is lower. For readers already in love with Avonlea, that is a minor complaint. A worthy, quietly lovely continuation.