Tennyson’s poem “Lancelot and Elaine” plays a huge part in the plot of Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Anne and her friends decide to act out the scene where the Lady of Shalott dies and floats downriver to Camelot, where the court of King Arthur mourn her. However, Anne learns the hard way that life is more hilariously imperfect than the romanticized fictional world she admires so much.
Find out more about this poem and why it was such a big deal in the 19th century, inspiring painters to revisit the subject of Elaine of Astolat over and over again. You’ll also learn that, although fads themselves change, teenagers really don’t. Anne and her friends would have had feelings about this poem that are very similar to how teens today feel about their own popular culture.
Anne of Green Gables features a LOT of poetry. The book is set in the 1880’s, and back then teenagers would carefully select poems to recite to one another in the way that teenagers a few decades ago used to select songs to include in a mix tape.
“Bingen on the Rhine” is a beautiful poem by Caroline Norton, a writer and women’s rights campaigner who is so fascinating in her own right that her story could fill a hundred books. Gilbert Blythe chose to recite her poem in front of Anne Shirley – and every other kid at school – because it was one of the only ways he had to express to her his deep regret at having offended her, and his deep hope that she might one day forgive him.
Activity: Caroline Norton
Caroline Norton was a very important figure in the early battle for women’s legal rights. She was trapped in an unhappy marriage to a cruel and controlling man, who confiscated the money she earned from her writing and kept her own children away from her. She worked hard to raise this issue with the British parliament, which eventually passed laws that granted women the same legal rights as men when it came to property ownership, divorce, and child custody.
Students can research Caroline Norton’s life and the important social and legal reforms she worked so hard to achieve. It’s especially important for them to understand how these early efforts made the later campaign for women’s suffrage possible.
Activity: Memorize and Recite a Poem
Students can select a poem to research, memorize, and perform for others. The poem could be serious or humorous. It could tell a story or be more abstract. Poems should be selected to convey a special meaning to the audience. After the performance, have students ask audience members if they can guess the reason the poem was selected.
Lucy Maud Montgomery carefully reconstructed the pop culture of the 1880’s when she wrote Anne of Green Gables including the music that teenagers were wild about. While singing is referenced dozens of times in the book, just three songs are actually named, and they were all real songs!
Activity: Learn one of Anne’s Favorite Songs
Three songs are named in Anne of Green Gables, and they were all popular sentimental ballads. You can find the sheet music for these songs online in the following archives:
Learn one or more of these songs and have a performance! You could try to re-create the song as it is performed in Anne of Green Gables, or you could reinterpret it in your own style.
Anne of Green Gables was published in 1908, but it’s actually a work of historical fiction, very carefully recreating the 1880s through accurate depictions of music, teen trends, politics, and even fashion. In this episode, we take a look at the Anne-girl’s sense of style, and how it relates to real artistic and philosophical movements in the 19th century.
Activity: Teen Fashion Then and Now
Anne of Green Gables is set in the 1880s. One of the fashion trends at the time was called Artistic Dress or Aesthetic Dress. In contrast to tight-fitting, highly tailored styles that were considered mainstream, Aesthetic Dress featured soft, natural fabrics sewn in medieval-inspired fashions. Aesthetic clothing was designed to be beautiful, comfortable, and pleasant to wear.
Ask students to compare current teen fashions with the style Anne loved. Ask them to think about what artistic, political, musical, or social movements inspire the modern fashions they follow. Research the Pre-Raphaelite movement and the Aesthetic Movement, with emphasis on the philosophy behind artists’ fashion choices. Do any of these older ideas feel compatible with modern fashions? Is there anything about the older styles that appeals to any of the students?
After researching the fashion styles that inspired Anne Shirley’s romantic sense of beauty, students could try to re-create looks that she would have loved using clothing they have already or by making new items in an Aesthetic style.
Akage no An, the Japanese translation of Anne of Green Gables, has remained wildly popular in Japan for 70 years. But why has a story about a redheaded orphan from Canada’s smallest province become such an essential part of Japanese literature? Hanako Muraoka, the translator who brought this book to her country, published this story at just the right time, when her war-torn nation was eager for a simple story about a girl with realistic struggles, dreams, and relationships.
In the second of two episodes about the impressive life of Hanako Muraoka, learn about how the translation of Anne of Green Gables was finally published and why it became so popular in Japan. Much of this story can only now be known because of the publication of Anne’s Cradle: The Life and Works of Hanako Muraoka, Japanese Translator of Anne of Green Gables. This engaging biography was written by Hanako’s granddaughter Eri Muraoka and has much to teach us about the power of literature to bring people together, even when they come from countries that were once enemies.
Activity: Discussion or Essay Questions for Anne’s Cradle
After reading chapters nine and ten of Anne’s Cradle, consider the following questions. Answers could come in the form of a class discussion, short reflection, or essay.
Chapter 9: Hanako had mixed feelings about her father’s death. Do you feel that he did a good or bad job as a father toward his children?
Chapter 10: Hanako gave her mother a Buddhist funeral, even though she herself was a Christian. What does this say about Hanako’s ability to understand and respect different beliefs?
Hanako Muraoka is a name that is revered in Japan, but this remarkable woman is hardly known outside her home country. That should change with the publication of Anne’s Cradle: The Life and Works of Hanako Muraoka, Japanese Translator of Anne of Green Gables. This biography was written by Hanako’s granddaughter Eri Muraoka, and has been expressively translated into English by Cathy Hirano, who brought the phrase “spark joy” into existence when she translated The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. For more information about this book, check out its page over at Nimbus Publishing.
Hanako’s life is well worth discovering. Her life was burdened with many hardships. Born to a poor family, she grew up as a scholarship student in a boarding school with very few chances to see her family. As a devout Christian, she was a member of a stigmatized and mistrusted minority group during dangerous times. She lost loved ones to disease and war, yet always found a way to regain her faith in friendships and the power of books to bring people together. Her hard work led her to an impressive career as a teacher, writer, editor, translator, publisher, and radio host during a time when few women were permitted to be employed at all.
Just before the outbreak of World War II, a Canadian colleague presented Hanako with a parting gift before she fled the country to return home. It was a much-loved copy of Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, which Hanako promised to translate into English. She kept the book secret during the war, hiding a work by a “foreign enemy” that could have gotten her into quite a lot of trouble. By the end of the war, this beautiful tale had been translated into eloquent, expressive Japanese.
This episode covers Hanako’s life until the end of World War II. In the next episode, I’ll conclude her tale, revealing how Anne of Green Gables became one of the most popular books in modern Japan.
In this episode I mentioned this heartwarming video made by the Embassy of Japan in Canada, where Eri Muraoka speaks a little about her grandmother and the reasons she worked so hard to translate Anne of Green Gables.
Activity: Discussion or Essay Questions for Anne’s Cradle
After reading the first eight chapters of Anne’s Cradle, consider the following questions. Answers could come in the form of a class discussion, short reflection, or essay.
Chapter 1: Hanako’s father was a very unconventional man. In what ways did this positively and negatively affect his abilities as a father?
Chapter 2: Hanako’s family was relatively poor and low status. When she arrived at her new boarding school she was suddenly surrounded by classmates who came from wealthy, even noble backgrounds. She had to learn not only to speak English but a higher-status style of Japanese. How would it have felt as a girl of only ten to suddenly experience such a change?
Chapter 3: In what ways did Hanako’s education and upbringing leave her well prepared to understand Anne of Green Gables when she eventually encountered the book?
Chapter 4: Hanako’s friend Asako Hirooka says, “I want you to use your education not just to raise your own status but to raise the status of every woman in Japan.” Hirooka’s goal was to gain full human rights for women, along with the ability to vote. Why would she have felt that high status women could not have helped her cause by remaining focused on their own achievements? Can holding up the achievements of a few exceptional women serve as a distraction from broader issues affecting women as a class of people?
Chapter 5: Keizo Muraoka remained in a difficult position, still legally married to a wife he had not seen in three years but concerned about his religious prohibition on divorce. Was it fair to Keizo and Hanako to have referred to their early attraction as an “illicit affair”? Should they have felt so much guilt about their relationship? The text remains silent as to the first wife’s wishes or opinion regarding the divorce. Is it possible to imagine what opinions she might have held?
Chapter 6: Much of Hanako’s career success came from her ability to spot gaps in existing markets and find niches for herself to work in. How did she leverage business, personal, and community connections to find roles she was uniquely suited to fill?
Chapter 7: When Hanako is offered a job as a radio host, she turns to her husband Keizo for advice. How does their conversation demonstrate that they had a very effective partnership?
Chapter 8: For nine years, Hanako was a major radio star, famous across the nation for her children’s news program. During World War II, rather than read out government propaganda, Hanako quit her job. Would you have been able to not only turn away from a great career, but put yourself at risk by showing that you did not support a totalitarian government?
Since school is nearly out here in Britain and already out in many other places, I thought I might make some suggestions for a fun movie night with the kids during the summer holidays. I’ve chosen my top five favorite adaptations of a children’s book into a film or TV series to share with you.
Pop some popcorn. Get the comfiest blanket in your house and cuddle on the couch with your kids while you enjoy a film together, preferably one you watched as a child and which your own kids have not yet seen. Don’t engage in any kind of discussion or analysis of the film that your kids don’t initiate. Enjoy every moment.
This is the second in a three part series on tricky topics in children’s literature. Before people knew what germs were and developed sanitation to control them and medicine to fight them, disease was a constant concern. Today people hardly know about diseases like scarlet fever or cholera but they used to be alarmingly common, and this is reflected in the books written more than about one hundred years ago as well as in the attitudes of fictional characters.
Older tales are much more blunt about disease, its effects on those who are ill as well as those around them, and its impact on children. But parents and teachers shouldn’t shy away from the topic, as considering the effects of illness can help students develop empathy and more deeply appreciated the contributions of modern medicine to the well-being of children.
Activity: Diseases in the Past
Provide students with the following worksheet, to be filled out after reading a work of children’s fiction in which a main character becomes ill. The goal of the exercise is to help students understand the nature of a disease which was common or dangerous in the past but might be rare or less threatening today due to advances in civil engineering, personal hygiene, and medical treatment.
This worksheet can be used on its own or to begin research for an essay, report, or project.
Some suggested stories with depictions of serious illness:
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
This is the first of three episodes about three tricky topics in Children’s Literature – alcohol, disease, and death. I’m not doing this to be edgy – I feel that these are important subjects and parents and teachers need a plan for when they come up. And they do, especially in books from more than fifty years ago. Alcohol in particular comes up in books written before laws establishing a minimum age for drinking were set about a hundred years ago. But although the use of alcohol in children’s fiction may seem jarring to our modern-day understanding of science and health medicine, the issue of teenagers using poor judgment when it comes to powerful substances is timeless.
This episode takes a close look at incidents from Little Women and Anne of Green Gables involving children drinking alcohol. Some understanding of the historical use of alcohol as medicine, the temperance movement, and the establishment of minimum drinking age laws about 100 years ago is needed to properly frame the context of these scenes. But the issues around underage drinking that parents and children must discuss haven’t actually changed that much. These scenes would not likely be published in a new book today, but they shouldn’t be censored or glossed over. In fact, they provide a good opportunity for a conversation about the tricky topic of alcohol.
Activity: Discussion Questions for Chapter 26 of Anne of Green Gables – “Diana is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results”
Chapter 26 of Anne of Green Gables can be read and understood on its own if you don’t have time to read the entire novel. After reading the chapter, ask students to consider the following questions. They can be answered in a one-on-one conversation, in a small group, or with the entire class. They could also be answered in writing. If it would be productive and not contentious, students with differing opinions could respectfully debate their answers.
1. Is there anything Marilla could have done to prevent Anne from finding and mistakenly serving the wine instead of the non-alcoholic raspberry cordial?
2. What did Anne do correctly after Diana said she didn’t feel well?
3. Was Marilla too critical of Diana for drinking three glasses so quickly? Why or why not?
4. What do you think about Marilla’s reaction to the incident?
5. What do you think about Mrs. Barry’s reaction to the incident?
6. What would you do if one of your friends became intoxicated from alcohol, began to feel unwell, and no adults were around? Would you worry about how your parents or your friend’s parents would react?
Music in this episode
“Rare old Mountain Dew” by Edward Harrigan and David Braham
Activity: Teen Fashion Then and Now
