Budge Wilson's Before Green Gables

Budge Wilson's Before Green Gables, the authorized prequel to L. M. Montgomery's classic Anne of Green Gables, is out today. I'm a big Anne fan -- I've read everything Montgomery wrote at least a couple of times (including her rather grim personal journals) and I'm nervous. It could be terrible. It could also be great, particularly because Montgomery left a number of tantalizing clues about Anne's  early life. I can remember wanting to know more when I first read the book as a child. In fact, I remember thinking that I was reading the second in a series -- I was disappointed to discover that all the other books dealt with Anne's later life.  Budge Wilson was also a bit worried when she was first approached about the project:

The author of more than 30 books including Friendships (a Governor General's Literary Award finalist), Wilson wrote a chapter a day and finished the prequel just in time for her 80th birthday last spring. She tried to capture the spirit of Anne but wrote in her own voice because she didn't want to try to imitate Montgomery. She still isn't sure what Montgomery would think of someone writing a new story about Anne: "I wondered whether L.M. Montgomery would want me to do this, or anybody to do this," she said.

She agonized for two months after she was approached by the publisher, Penguin, but finally decided to go ahead with the project.

"One of the things that drew me in was the puzzle of how Anne came to be.

That curiosity about how Anne became Anne sustained Wilson through a rigorous process that included submitting a 38-page outline and sample chapter for approval by Montgomery's family.

It's the resilience of Montgomery's heroine that impressed her. From the time Anne's parents died when she was three months old until she came to Green Gables as an 11-year-old, she was neglected by the families who reluctantly took her in. She was forced to do housework and babysit from a young age. And her life in the orphanage was even worse.

Yet when Matthew Cuthbert picks her up from the train station to take her to her future home at the beginning of Anne of Green Gables, she's bubbling over with life, talking a mile a minute and thrilled at the prospect of living on Prince Edward Island.

In addition to the prequel, there is a national letter writing contest.