The book that I enjoyed most in the past years is Lucy Maud Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gables”. This is one of the first novels I “read” and encountered throughout my life. This story is cute, touching, heart-warming, and tear-jerking. I fell in love with all the plots and characters in the story and was especially “fanatical” toward Anne, who captured my heart and never let it go. The fact that Anne is stubborn and makes mistakes really moved me because I had a strong connection with this. I remember a quote from Anne, she said that she does make many mistakes, but she never makes one mistake twice, and through her growth, the number of mistakes she makes decreases. This quote made me let go of the feeling of resisting mistakes and started to have an open and reflective feeling toward them. This habit of reflecting on mistakes accompanied me till now, and this really helped me improve a lot. Moreover, I also imitated Anne’s actions and personality as being talkative and Imaginative, and these started to become a habit, which gradually affected me. That is to say, I not only “talk to myself” when I’m bored, but I also did that in other circumstances. For example, when I was doing my summative assessment, I was really stressed and nervous. In order to comfort myself, I told myself that I am awesome, and I already digested all the necessary information. I also imagined how delightful I will be after the test so that I could have a positive mindset. This series of actions really comforted me and helped me do great in many stressful times. Thinking back, I’m proud of myself to know how to “meditate” at such a young age.

However, things above all happened half a decade ago. The second time that I picked up this unforgettable book was during the Shanghai lockdown. China’s governing center was censoring books for children in many school libraries, and I unexpectedly saw “Anne of Green Gables” on that list of banned books. I was shocked. The motivation to discover why this book was banned pushed me to read it again. I noticed a lot more things, and deeper ideas about this book when reading again. I feel that “Anne of Green Gables” is more of a feminist and women-right book, rather than only an easy-read children’s novel.

Avonlea maintained the traditional attitude toward women. This is shown when the Cuthberts wanted to adopt a boy rather than a girl; the women characters primarily remain in their homes and raise their families; the rejective feeling toward imagination upon women.  On the other hand, the women characters in Avonlea all have some dimly-visible elements of modern women in that traditional circumstance. One evidence is that Anne’s life is mostly influenced by women since it is Marilla who decided whether she can stay or not. Most importantly, Anne is depicted as a powerful and strong woman who turned her life around at a start of obvious disadvantage. Anne started as an unwelcome orphan who was miserably “trapped” in the orphanage and luckily went to live in the Avonlea afterwards. Although she was physically “locked” in these places, she still stays hopeful and works super hard in order to reach her dream, and go out to discover the rest of the world.