Anne of Windy Willows (Poplars) - Lucy Maud Montgomery

[goodreads]

Title: Anne of Windy Willows (Poplars) Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery Genre: Classics Rating: 4.5/5 # pages: 258 Date read: May 2006, May 2011

Anne Shirley has left Redmond College behind to begin a new job and a new chapter of her life away from Green Gables. Now she faces a new challenge: the Pringles. They're known as the royal family of Summerside - and they quickly let Anne know she is not the person they had wanted as principal of Summerside High School. But as she settles into the cozy tower room at Windy Poplars, Anne finds she has great allies in the widows Aunt Kate and Aunt Chatty - and in their irrepressible housekeeper, Rebecca Dew. As Anne learns Summerside's strangest secrets, winning the support of the prickly Pringles becomes only the first of her triumphs.

The 4th Anne book has two different titles depending on whether you get the British or the American version (apparently the American publisher feared people would confuse "Windy Willows" with "Wind in the Willows"). LMM herself wanted to call it AoWW, so that's what I consider the 'proper' title myself. Also, I've been told that AoWP is abridged compared to AoWW, but I haven't checked myself.

Many people find AoWW the weakest of the Anne books, because we hear so little about the characters of the other books. I'm not among them though. I love reading books made up of letters, so this is one of my favourites. The last star was removed solely because there were some of the plotlines/characters I didn't care about at all (e.g. Gerald and Geraldine... or whatever their names were ;) ).