Childhood Favorites

I sometimes crave reading some of my favorite books from my childhood from time to time.  To keep my perspective fresh, it is fun to read books that visit these stories from a different angle.  Recently, I read some books that have visited some of my childhood favorites.

Marilla of Green Gables explored Anne of Green Gable's Marilla Cuthbert’s backstory. It explored a romance she had with John Blyth. When Anne Shirley starts to grow in her romance with Gilbert Blythe, her guardian Marilla mentions having once been friends with Gilbert’s father, John.  I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts being a huge fan of Anne Shirley. I knew fully well that this romance that Marilla and John would have would end tragically. I went there willingly and sobbed into my Kleenex when their relationship ended. I love the world of Green Gables so much and I really felt like Sarah McCoy did the story a tremendous amount of justice while tapping into the world that LM Montgomery created. I seriously loved this book so much that I lamented that it was a library read.  I read way too much to not use my public library, but I could justify purchasing a copy of this book eventually to add to my personal homage to Anne Shirley.

While I generally favor reading actual history over historical fiction, I could not resist The Other Alcott. This explores the story of May Alcott, the sister of Louisa May Alcott who is best known for her book Little Women.  Her story picks up with Little Women already being a success and how she can’t stand how everyone knows that Amy March is based off of her.  While the story was considered a success, the illustrations were met with much criticism. May happens to be the illustrator of the original novel.  I really enjoyed this fictionalization of May’s life because it brought to life the professional tensions that the two sisters had of each other. It also chronicles May’s artistic training in Europe and during the era of Impressionism. I really love novels that delve into aspects of visual art and bring them to life (what academics call ekphrasis) so this particular piece not only appealed to me as a fan of Little Women, but also as someone who loves art history.  One of the other things that was also fun to me about a book like this was how it got me to delve into doing more online research about Louisa May Alcott’s life and work. It is always fun for me to read a book that wets my appetite for research.  Also, I finally got around to watching the PBS movie that released this year because it is finally on Amazon prime while I was reading The Other Alcott. Having the research on the Alcott family in front of my mind made me appreciate more nuances of the Little Women story even more.

I haven’t done that much Christmas themed reading yet this holiday season. (Although stay tuned, as I have books on my TBR list that are more in the holiday spirit). I have read A Christmas Carol numerous times. I was in a play production playing Scrooge’s ex-fiancé in high school, some of my favorite movies are adaptations of A Christmas Carol (Scrooged and A Muppet Christmas Carol) and I have seen a production of the Guthrie Theater's Christmas Carol. So, it is a story I know quite well. When I saw Mr. Dickens and His Carol on an Amazon kindle daily deal, I could not resist grabbing the book and reading it right away.  As with many fictional takes on writer’s lives it is important to do actual historical research before making conclusions about what a writer’s life was really like. Authors often take liberties even with known factors to help it fit into a narrative structure. I never knew before reading this book that Dickens was in a lot of financial debt when he wrote a Christmas Carol and that he spent part of his childhood in a debtor’s prison. I finally watched the movie  The Man Who Invented Christmas after I read this book…only to discover that it was based on another fictionalization of Dicken’s life with the same title. I haven’t gotten my hands on the other book yet, but I did find many similarities.

In reading these different perspectives on stories I already love, it was like getting a taste of home. I realize that it is never possible to read a book that I already love for the first time. So, stories like these bring a great mix of familiarity and a new perspective. I do tend to make up stories in my head based on characters that I already love, however when an author does a good job with dealing with the content of a book it is enjoyable to revisit these worlds that I already know that I love.