Caldecott Medal Contender: Anne of Green Gables

by Sam Juliano

 Classics Illustrated first appeared in 1941.  Over the ensuing thirty years a total of 169 titles were published.  This comic book format brought great works of literature to elementary school age children by way of a rudimentary condescension of epic storylines, and a comic book format that made the experience enjoyable.  While some academic purists found the venture as appalling as the Cliff Notes, others of equal pedagogical distinction deemed the series an ideal method to coax reluctant readers to take on the genuine article after their interest was notably piqued by this pictorially attractive beginner course of sorts.  Of far more recent vintage is the “Babylit” collection that has so far eclipsed thirty titles, several of which have spotlighted seminal works by the Bard, Jane Austen, Victor Hugo, Leo Tolstoy and the Bronte sisters.  Published by Gibbs Smith Inc., which poses the books as “a fashionable way to introduce your child to the world of classic literature”, this remarkably passionate and prolific enterprise is a collaboration between author Jennifer Adams and Alison Oliver, both of whom are resolved to sow the seeds of literary identification and appreciation for a pre-school set capable and willing to connect sensory dots.  These stage setting primers are designed to fuel proper triggers that will lead to the deeper levels of appreciation at the time they enter grade school and later taken on the deeper contexts that may have been inaugurated by the Babylit entries.  Adams has been on a sustained mission to promote literary awareness, and one of her previous works in her Edgar Allan Poe series, Edgar and the Tattle-Tale Heart with illustrations by Ron Stucki was given a Caldecott Medal Contender review in the 2014 roundup.  Some of us holding English literature degrees can only wished we would have had such an inauguation to some of our most beloved works.

The exquisite tapestries gracing the board pages of her literature projects are by extraordinarily talented New York-based artist Alison Oliver whose remarkable profligate propensity is exceeded only by her breathtaking canvases inspired by Adams’s sagacious discernment of what type of pictorial strategy should be employed with each of the titles.  In 2017 the pair have pooled their gifts for several books.  One on Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker is billed as a “dancing primer” and the swirling colors are strikingly attuned the dancing and costumes that would of course attract the initial and continued attention of the very young.  Another sublime book, released in the first quarter of the year is a “sound primer” on Aladdin and His Lamp.  For their partnership on Anne of Green Gables, by “Little Miss” (Lucy Ward) Montgomery the concentration is on the breathtaking beauty of Prince Edward Island, a Canadian island province off the coast of Nova Scotia that has long been celebrated as the pastoral setting of the Anne of Green Gables books by Canada’s most beloved writer.  The plucky and cerebral red-haired, freckled Anne Shirley -Canada’s answer to Huckleberry Finn- is seen only once in the book on a front cover frolic in the fields, but since the book is pointedly a “Places Primer” there isn’t a need to employ her likeness again.

The lead-in to nine ravishing scenic island locations frequented by Anne after her adoption by Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert for life at the quaint cottage “Green Gables” in the village of Avonlea is a map of the island, which when turned upside down bears a striking geographical resemblance to Cuba.  Adams adds one of the most famous lines from the first Anne novel and the Kevin Sullivan miniseries, when Anne Shirley tells Matthew as he escorts her by horse and buggy back from the train station, a simpler paraphrase of   “I love this place already. I always heard that Prince Edward Island was the most beautiful place in Canada and I used to imagine I was living here. This is the first dream that has ever come true for me.”   As a convenience for young readers who have the option of going back to the map to attain an overall feel of the island the nine places are  marked off on the dark green colored island (the sea is a pastel aquamarine) along with some mini corresponding icons and Green Gables itself, which is set near the middle, on the opposite side (north to south) of the island’s capital Charlottetown.

Oliver’s response to Adams’s first chapter panel heading and single sentence encapsulation:  HOME.  The Kitchen light of Green Gables winked a friendly welcome is the nocturnal security of Anne’s new home, a place where the light in the kitchen will upon arrival and any time thereafter ward away any notion that this isn’t her home base in an idyllic enclave almost too good to be true.  The “Avenue” is a dazzling splash of white apple tree blossoms, which Anne marvels at riding by on a coach.  The pond, named “the lake of shining waters” provided for shifting colorful hues, a tranquil swimming spot yielding crystal clear reflections on a particularly sumptuous shade of azure blue.  Sparingly placed white-peddled flowers, one overhanging tree, a sun not showing its full illuminative power and the swing, the portal that will transform tranquility into something far more interactive.  Beginner eyes will see the GARDEN tapestry pretty much in the way Adams describes it:  In the beds old-fashioned flowers ran riot, as a place where the animal world’s interlopers will find themselves hypnotized by the sensory allure, much as Ferdinand the Bull was while out in the fields in Robert Lawson’s classic picture book.  Oliver’s lush oasis of minimalist greenery is followed up with a more measured nighttime depicting of fir trees and the ghostly specters, who children will quickly realize are the birds noted for their hooting.  Adams downplays the spooky atmospherics  by promising the scene is of the ‘wonderful variety.

 

Fields glistened like cloth of silver as a result of heavy dew on the FIELD panel, and Oliver translates this as a place where cows graze and where some trees add to the sedate beauty of a farming trek.  This is the general location where Matthew (Richard Farnsworth) was stricken in the magnificent Sullivan adaptation, dying in the arms of his beloved Anne.  One of the artist’s loveliest tapestries of all is the one that visualizes BROOK: Down through the hollow the brook ran and scores of white birches grew.  The bamboo birch poles wed at the top by branches in full leafy regalia lord over the blue water brook and what appears as a beaver in the background.  Toddlers will see all they need to, while adults will be seduced by Oliver’s illustrative mastery.  Adams comes up with a superlative metaphor for her ORCHARD description: The orchard on the slope below the house was in a bridal flush of pinky-white bloom, and the inspiration is assimilated by Oliver who envisions this in a flurry of pink and white impressionism mounted on a subdued pink base.  The SEA is evoked as “misty and purple” and as a force with a “haunting, unceasing murmur.” the lighthouse structure, setting sun and water tides make for an especially elegiac tableau.

Artist Alison Oliver

It would be a long while before Anne would tell the proposing Gilbert Blythe “I don’t want sunbursts or marble halls.  I just want you.”  Adams and Oliver aim to chronicle the earliest time period when the incorrigible nature aficionado explores an island seemingly tailor-made for her textured sensibilities.  Though this is only a single entry in their amazing ongoing series, it is the one I have proposed for Caldecott Medal consideration.  It is a pastoral tour de force both for author and illustrator, and for the latter it surely represents one of her best works to date.  Surely Ms. Montgomery herself would be mightily impressed as the Caldecott committee should be.  Now all a teacher or parent needs is to play the magnificent sweeping music by Hagood Hardy while reading through the book.  The effect is cathartic.

Anne Shirley and Matthew Cuthbert rising through ravishing Prince Edward Island scenery in 1985 film masterpiece.

Note:  This is the thirteenth entry in the 2017 Caldecott Medal Contender series.  The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running.  In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration.  It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 30 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender.  Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end.  The awards will be announced in mid-February, hence the reviews will continue until around the end of January or through the first week of February.