A to Z Challenge - Favourite Books - Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery

illa of Ingleside, the last book in L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series.

I love this series since it reveals so much about what life was like in Canada at the turn of the last century, and this book especially, as it's set during World War I. I know it sounds odd whenever I say that, but I really do love reading stories about ordinary people in World War I and World War II.

Would you believe I still haven't visited Prince Edward Island? I have been to Guelph, Ontario, though - the University there has a collection of Montgomery's writing, apparently, which I only just found out about (next time I go to the Fergus Scottish Festival, I'll definitely have to stop by) including her journals - I'd love to read those! - and exciting pages such as this, a handwritten page of Rilla of Ingleside:

Bernice Thurman Hunter, in her Middle Grade series about Booky, featured a scene where Booky meets L. M. Montgomery, based on Hunter's own meeting with Montgomery:

"She received the following advice from Montgomery on July 2, 1937: 'You ask if you are too young to be writing a book with the expectation of publishing. I would say emphatically much too young. I cannot think any girl of fourteen, no matter how earnest and gifted she might be, could possibly write a book which any publisher would accept. But if you mean writing a book for your own pleasure and for training in the art of expression and creation then age has nothing to do with it. It will be good practice for you...

'Do not ever consider your writing more important than your studies. Nobody needs a good education more than a would-be writer ... You have chosen a very interesting but exacting career... if you have talent and perseverence you will succeed in the end." (The L. M. Montgomery Album by Alexandra Heilbron)"

I took this quote from the Anne of Green Gables and L. M. Montgomery Lexicon. A fuller account is available in the book Remembering Lucy Maud Montgomery.