The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery

 

Title:  The Story Girl

Author: L.M. Montgomery

Narrated by:  Grace Conlin

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Length: Approximately 8 hours and 59 minutes

Source: Checked out from the Kewaunee Public Library through Overdrive.  Thank-you!

 What type of books do you read to relax?  Work had been pretty stressful lately, so I thought it was time to harken back to the books that help me to relax; childhood favorites such as L.M. Montgomery.  I read all of her books when I was a teenager.  Reading them again now as an adult brings me back to simpler times and happy memories. 

 In The Story Girl, Beverley (Bev) and Felix King are two brothers who come to live with their Uncle Alex and Aunt Janet on Prince Edward Island while their father travels for work.  Their father has told them many stories about the family farm, and they are delighted to finally see the farm and family members for themselves.  They spend their time with their group of friends; their cousins Dan, Felicity, Cecily and Sara, hired boy Peter Craig, neighbor Sara Ray.  Sara Stanley is known for her ability to tell grand stories and is also known as “the story girl.”  The book tells the adventures of the friends and also the stories that Sara tells.  It is an interesting mix of stories and I enjoyed it.  It’s a fun book to listen to as an audiobook.  Grace Conlin was a good narrator.

 I found the stories to be charming.  They made me think of my own childhood playing with my cousins and friends on the family farm.  I even had a few similar times in the 1980s when we thought the world was going to end and also the discovery of an old trunk of my great-grandfathers. 

 I thought it was strange how Felicity was always looking down on Peter as the “hired hand.”  It was odd to me that being poor, Peter now just worked as a hired hand and didn’t go to school.  He was allowed to play with the kids after work.  It’s interesting.  Also interesting is that I read that L.M. Montgomery based the character of Peter on Herman Leard, the great love of her life.  Her family looked down on Herman and didn’t think he was good enough for her or high enough class.

 There is a lot of talk about Methodists and Presbyterians in the novel and Peter’s confusion about the difference between the two.  I thought it was amusing that they seem to be the only two churches in the area.

 I loved the show Avonlea in the 90s.  We didn’t have the Disney channel, but my grandparents would tape it for me.  This is one of the books that the show was based on.  There are many of the same characters, but also many changes.  I really need to rewatch this series!

 L.M. Montgomery also writes fantastic cats into her fiction.  In The Story Girl, we meet Pat the cat.  He is a large and in charge type of cat until he mysteriously falls ill.  The kids are sure he has been cursed by a woman who visited that many believe is a witch.  Do you have any favorite authors that write great animal characters?

 Favorite Quotes:

“Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.”

 “It is always safe to dream of spring. For it is sure to come; and if it be not just as we have pictured it, it will be infinitely sweeter.”

 “I do like a road, because you can be always wondering what is at the end of it.”

 “Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland.”

 Overall, The Story Girl is a delightful mix of stories that brings back the happiness of childhood.