Anne of Avonlea

If you loved Anne of Green Gables, then Anne of Avonlea is the book you absolutely need to read next—and honestly, it might just hit even harder the second time around. Lucy Maud Montgomery’s sequel was published in 2013 in this beautifully accessible edition, bringing back the spirited heroine we fell in love with, but now grown and transformed in ways that feel both surprising and utterly inevitable. At 194 pages, it’s a lean, purposeful novel that doesn’t waste a word, yet somehow manages to contain entire worlds of growth, friendship, and self-discovery.

What makes Anne of Avonlea so remarkable is how Montgomery handles the passage of time and maturation. When we rejoin Anne, she’s no longer the impulsive, imaginative girl who arrived in Avonlea five years earlier—she’s approaching seventeen, stepping into adulthood, and embarking on her first job as a teacher in the very community that adopted her. This isn’t just a continuation of the first book; it’s a meditation on what happens when childhood dreams collide with adult responsibilities. The narrative captures something genuinely difficult about growing up: the way we must learn to channel our passionate natures into practical service, without losing the spark that makes us who we are.

> The real magic here lies in Montgomery’s understanding that coming of age isn’t a single moment—it’s a series of small surrenders and surprising victories.

The book resonated deeply with readers precisely because it refused to shy away from this complexity. Rather than presenting adulthood as a simple progression, Montgomery shows us Anne struggling with:

• Duty versus desire: How to be a responsible teacher while maintaining her creative spirit
• Romantic confusion: The emotional tangles that come with first love and changing relationships
• Belonging and identity: Finding her place not just in Avonlea, but in the larger world
• Female ambition: Navigating what it means to want things—education, independence, love—when society has rigid ideas about what girls should want

What’s particularly striking is how Montgomery wove the character development across what feels like an intimate community narrative. Avonlea isn’t just a setting; it’s a living, breathing place with its own gossip, traditions, and moral complications. Anne’s journey as a teacher forces her to see the village and its people with new eyes—no longer as the backdrop to her adventures, but as a complex web of relationships she’s now responsible for shaping. Her students aren’t just charming props; they’re individuals with their own struggles, and teaching them becomes Anne’s first real encounter with responsibility that extends beyond herself.

The 2013 edition that came out through CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform helped ensure this classic remained accessible to a new generation of readers. By then, Anne of Avonlea had already secured its place in literary history, but reprints like this one matter. They keep the conversation alive, introducing readers who might otherwise dismiss it as “just a children’s book” to the sophisticated emotional intelligence Montgomery brought to her work.

Montgomery’s prose in this book is arguably more refined than in the first installment. She’d matured as a writer, and you can feel it in the way she handles reflection and dialogue:

• Witty banter that crackles: Anne’s conversations with kindred spirits like Prilla contain real humor and genuine connection
• Introspective moments that feel earned: When Anne reflects on her choices, you believe the growth behind those reflections
• Lyrical descriptions that ground you in place: Prince Edward Island comes alive not through purple prose, but through careful, loving observation

The book explores themes that remain startlingly relevant: the tension between personal ambition and community obligation, the ways women navigate limited opportunities, the question of what it means to use your gifts responsibly. Anne wants to make a difference through teaching, but she also wants to write, to love, to experience adventure. Montgomery never resolves this tension neatly. Instead, she suggests that the tension itself is the point—that maturity means learning to hold multiple desires simultaneously without being destroyed by their contradictions.

Why this book endures isn’t mysterious when you consider what Montgomery accomplished here. She created a character whose growth feels real because it’s incremental and sometimes painful. She set that character in a community complex enough to deserve serious attention. And she wrote with enough grace and humor that the reading experience remains genuinely pleasurable. You’re not trudging through moral lessons; you’re spending time with a world you want to inhabit.

For readers today, Anne of Avonlea offers something particularly valuable: a portrait of a young woman taking herself seriously, claiming her right to think and work and grow, while remaining deeply connected to love and community. It’s neither a romance novel masquerading as something else, nor does it dismiss romance as frivolous. Instead, it suggests that a full life contains multitudes—teaching and writing, duty and desire, solitude and belonging.

Pick this book up if you want to revisit Anne, but also if you want to understand why she matters. This sequel deepens everything the first book established, and in doing so, it becomes something even more substantial: a genuine exploration of what it costs and what it gains to become yourself.