(Half a) Story Hour - Episode 1
Episode 1, “Anne of Green Gables:
We Start Chapter One”
New book alert! Today we start Anne of Green Gables, which was written by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery and first published in 1908. We learn about Montgomery and the imaginary version of Prince Edward Island where she set her story - and get ready to reintroduce some of the people she left out!
Tough stuff in this episode: death, orphan experience, lack of representation
⭐️ Bonus ⭐️
Vocabulary list: ladies’ eardrops, traversed, reputed, intricate, cascade, decency, decorum, whys and wherefores*
*Try looking these up before we start reading! 📖
(Inter)active reading suggestion: Visualise and make connections
For teachers: Ask students to research some of the technologies from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s / Anne Shirley’s time and place. How would life have been different for Montgomery? What might we expect Anne’s home and school life to look like, when we read about them? ✏️ 💭
Musical interlude: “Introduction and Royal March of the Lion” from Le Carnaval des animaux by Camille Saint-Saëns
Other Links…
The L. M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island maintains this interactive map of sites on Prince Edward Island related to the author’s life and books - check it out!
“Hedwig’s Theme” by John Williams for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, provided to YouTube by Atlantic Records… doesn’t it sound like the “Royal March of the Lion?” 👑🦁
Camille Saint-Saëns’ Le Carnaval des animaux was written so long ago that it’s in the public domain, so it’s no problem for composers like (Canadian 🍁) Howard Shore to (maybe) pay tribute to it in pieces like this one - “Thrice Welcome” for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug… 🐉
I hear more of our royal lion!
Easter 🪺: your “fairy tale auntie” is experimenting with a new recording set-up, so if you listen closely you might hear some room reverb (from “reverberation” - sound waves bouncing back, so teensy echoes)!