In November, Naomi and Sarah are hosting a readalong for The Story Girl, so the last time I packed up my bookbag, I stuck in my copy of Elizabeth Waterston’s Magic Island (2008) to read her chapter on L.M. Montgomery’s 1911 novel.

Story Girl reads like a collection of short stories and, over the summer, I read a collection of L.M. Montgomery’s short stories—and a novella, more on that Monday, with Novellas in November in mind—but I’m rarely in the mood for them, and Story Girl strikes that tone for me.

So, I thought, why not read about it instead. Waterston counts 32 short tales embedded in the novel— pulled from LMM’s favourite sources, ranging from family gossip to school readers and mythologies—and considers the framing device LMM uses with this group of children sharing and admiring all the stories—a group of children that mirrors the Little Women group (Alcott’s March sisters and neighbour-boy Laurie).

Along the way, there are the usual joys, descriptions about the seasons and trees, and many fine quotations about telling stories and what’s satisfying and frustrating about imagination, along with a debate about whether it’s better to be interesting or useful. It was just in 1908 that the monumental Anne of Green Gables was published, so here’s LMM just a year later, starting to work on The Story Girl and she is feeling herself for sure.

It’s not enough to write stories now, she’s writing stories about telling stories—so there are lots of musings on the power of shaping and ordering, creating the endings you desire and that kind of thing—through these children’s stories. There’s also Paddy (Pat) the cat: “He had a sense of humour, had Pat. Very few cats have; and most of them have such an inordinate appetite for flattery that they will swallow any amount of it and thrive thereon. Paddy had a finer taste. The Story Girl and I were the only ones who could pay him compliments to his liking.” LMM gives Paddy the kind of ending her own cats didn’t have: that, I do love.

Waterston has so many wise things to say about how reading LMM’s journals brings out layers in Story Girl and how, in turn, reading Story Girl brings out layers in LMM’s thoughts and beliefs. (Waterston edited the journals for publication with Mary Rubio, who wrote a stunning biography of LMM, The Gift of Wings, also published in 2008).

One of my favourite parts about reading LMM’s journals was discovering that she was more complex than I’d guessed from her books. Orphaned Anne had an indomitable spirit and the strength to resist when others dampened her spirit; I longed for that kind of courage myself, so, in my early twenties, when I learned that her author struggled off-the-page in ways that Anne didn’t on-the-page, I felt a sense of kinship (and potential).

After LMM started working on Story Girl, her publisher asked her to shelve it and, instead, work up one of her longer standalone stories into a novel for immediate publication; LMM would be forever haunted and boosted by Anne’s success, grateful for and frustrated by the need to reproduce Anne, whether in cloned stories or additional Anne stories. So, she paused Story Girl to complete Kilmeny of the Orchard and, then, other disruptions to Story Girl followed, which Waterston describes.

Not that Waterston suggests that impacted the book negatively; she’s curious about how the nature of those disruptions affected the novel’s tone. She discusses specifically how LMM affords different women in the story atypical choices (e.g. remaining unmarried), her concerns about time passing and mortality (e.g. the grandmother with whom she lived and whom she cared for was nearing the end of her life, which would leave LMM stranded because she would not inherit), and her romantic life (e.g. not feeling the kind of passion for Ewan, the minister she’d eventually marry, that she felt for other men).

When Waterston quotes LMM’s journal entry about being sorrier to leave behind these characters than any others, I’m at a loss, because I didn’t feel that connection. After I’d learned about this in the journals, I’d reread Story Girl, thinking it would make me feel for them more, but I didn’t. Now, I wonder whether she wasn’t saying how little she cared for the other characters (including her growing resentment of Anne) than how much she cared for these. But I suspect it’s simply that I am fonder of the LMM books I first encountered as a young reader (which is nearly half of the twenty-two that Waterston presents).

Nonetheless, by the time I’ve finished Waterston’s chapter, she’s drawn so many interesting connections and raised so many questions that I begin to wish I’d reread Story Girl after all. But, then, I think, there’s the companion novel, too, The Golden Road, and that’s not a favourite either. And, then, I think, well, if I read Waterston on that book, I’d probably want to reread Golden Road too. So, then, I think about all the library books in the stack and how, lately, they’re finished at the last minute and rushed back for other borrowers. And, then, I leaf through the other chapters in Waterston and think about starting with LMM from the beginning so I could read straight through. This is how it is.

Also in the bookbag this month:

One Drum (2019), the book that Richard Wagamese was working on for three years before he died. It’s a slim, glossy-paged volume of writing on three of the Seven Grandfather Teachings in Ojibwe tradition: Humility, Courage, and Respect, He did not complete the chapters on Love, Honestly, Truth, and Wisdom. “Harmony is the energy that heals,” Wagamese writes: “However, it is a sad truth of the nature of our lives that many have no access to traditional teachers or the ceremonies and teaching that sustain a spiritual way. Even among my own people this is true.” You might choose to read this as an act of reconciliation, as part of a quest to understand. But you might be surprised to find yourself responding more deeply: “It begins, as all things do, with stories.”

A children’s book: Mon amie Agnès by Julie Flett (2019, Birdsong in English), a touching story about Katherena who moves with her mother to a small house far away from everyone except Agnès, who lives some distance away yet. The seasons pass and, thus, time passes, with Katherena often drawing the birds who live there too; she doesn’t really notice how differently the time passes for her friend, Agnès, who’s elderly by the time they are friends. Readers learn a little Cree along the way (Flett is a Cree-Métis artist)—like  Pimihâwipîsim is “la lune des migrations” and Ayîkipîsim is “la lune des grenouilles”—and Katherena learns about friendship and what goes and what stays.

And, finally, a new collection of short essays and creative non-fiction, edited by Rebecca Solnit (among others), Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility (2023). If you’re terrified by the climate crisis (and who isn’t) and haven’t yet found a way into reading about it, I wholeheartedly recommend this collection. It’s a tidy little packet from Haymarket Books, that easily slips into a pocket. Some of the pieces are very informal, others more scholarly, some inventive and messy, others lyrical and crafted. The tone is remarkable. “It is late,” Solnit writes: “We are deep in an emergency. But it is not too late, because the emergency is not over. The outcome is not decided.”

Are you reading LMM this month? What’s in your bookbag?