Margerumalia – Anne of Green Gables

Newsletter – July 18, 2025

Hey, look at that! I designed a book cover. Pretty good, I think. (Okay maybe it’d be better without the manhole cover.) 

I thought I’d take time this week to recommend a classic book that I ran across when looking through free Apple Audiobook options. In fact, I was listening to it while walking on the path in the photo.

I worked in a bookstore for about three years in L.A. and became familiar with a lot of titles and authors. One we were constantly re-stocking was the Anne of Green Gables collection in the children’s section. My mom had read several of the Little House on the Prairie series to me and my brothers, and I tended to think of the Green Gables books as pretty much the same thing.

They’re not. 

First of all, Green Gables is in Canada. Second, Anne is one of the best characters ever written. She’s is witty, charming, optimistic, dramatic, and verbose! I mean, this gal can talk the ear off a pitcher! 

I was literally laughing out loud while listening to this audiobook. When a passer-by on the path was startled by my guffaw I felt the need to explain to her that I was laughing at an audiobook. I think her expression could be described as tolerant. And she probably labelled me as “odd but not dangerous.”

Kudos to the narrator, Kae Denino, for capturing the essence of Anne’s character and for spouting long paragraphs of Anne’s speeches almost without stopping for breath. 

I’m working on narrating my own book and, believe me, I know what Denino has accomplished here! 

The rest of what makes Anne’s incessant chatter hilarious is that she was “adopted” by two quiet elderly people—a brother and a sister—who are completely taken aback by the child they’ve brought into their home. They were expecting a boy! Anne wins them over, of course, but not without a lot of drama and many what-are-we-going-to-do-with-her moments.

At one point in the story I knew Anne’s words would get her into trouble once again and I kind of thought of skipping ahead. “We’ve already seen this episode,” I thought, but, to the author’s credit, Anne did learn from her mistakes and grew more mature with time. Don’t we all? 

Another compliment to the narrator is that Anne’s pitch and tone at the end of the book reflected a character who had grown up and taken on more adult attitudes. I really believed this was an older version of the same person. Subtle, but solid. 

There’s so much we can learn just by paying attention to someone else’s work, whether it’s a writer, a narrator, or a graphic artist. My design for this newsletter reflects what I learned from someone who designed many of my theatre posters at Carthage College. 

Everyone in your life is a teacher. If you pay attention, you may learn something.

TTFN

* * * * *

If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.