MARGARET ATTWOOD SALUTES A CHILDHOOD CLASSIC

The story of an orphaned, talkative, red-headed 11-year-old sent to a remote farm by mistake, Anne of Green Gables was an instant success in 1908 and, a century later, is still loved by girls from Canada to Japan. Margaret Atwood salutes a childhood classic

From The Guardian - Saturday March 29, 2008

Lucy Maud Montgomery's novel Anne of Green Gables is 100 years old this April, and the Annery is in full swing. Already there's a "prequel", Budge Wilson's Before Green Gables, which chronicles the life of spunky, strange, but endearing Anne Shirley before she hit Prince Edward Island's Green Gables farmhouse in a splatter of exclamation marks, apple blossoms, freckles and embarrassing faux pas.

And there's yet another mutton-sleeved, button-booted, Gibson-girl-hairdo'ed television show in the offing - Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning - due in 2009, following the 1919 silent film, the 1934 talkie, the 1956 television version, the 1979 Japanese animé, the 1985 Green Gables series, the 1990-96 Road to Avonlea and the PBS Animated Series of 2000, not to mention the various parodies - Anne of Green Gut, Fran of the Fundy and its brethren - that have appeared over the years.

Read Attwood's full tribute here.