Tag: Books

A Classic Children’s Book

I recently re-read Anne of Green Gables after many decades and was delighted and amazed to learn Anne is still beloved by women and girls around the world. The book, first published in 1908, has never gone out of print.  Anne is a very unusual personality.  She is unique, highly imaginative, and an animist who converses with plants and animals.  The book often made me laugh out loud or brought tears to my eyes.  It is so hopeful that this character and her story still resonate profoundly with so many.

Last month I visited the Anne of Green Gables Heritage Center in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, Canada.  Hundreds of visitors tour this site daily.  We saw the large pond that Anne called, “The Lake of Shining Waters” at a second site.  Sure enough, if you watch long enough, you can see the water shine.

We also took a walk on Anne’s “Lover’s Lane”, a beautiful path through the forest, happily preserved for over a century, where we saw a Red-eyed Vireo and a Common Yellowthroat among other creatures.

Author Lucy Maud Montgomery, who wrote Anne of Green Gables, and 18 other novels, went to live with her grandparents when she was 21 months old after the death of her mother.  Her grandparents’ house was her inspiration for Green Gables, the home where 11-year old orphaned Anne went to live at the beginning of the novel. We were able to tour that house as well.

The character of Anne portrays just how full and rich the human spirit can be, in creativity and imagination, in understanding and friendship, in experiencing love of “kindred spirits” and the natural world as a deep and joyful fulfillment.

The World According to Engineers

The Middle of a Wish is a futuristic novel that foretells many things.  In the following passage, Mom, the oldest character, reflects on the reality she finds herself in in 2047:

Homo Electronicus. I remember when it was “announced” by the Academy that our species designation had changed from Homo Sapiens to Homo Electronicus.  They didn’t even try to find a Latin word for it—humanity’s embodied internet and AI.  How could a dead language describe who we are now?

     It was controversial. Many academics refused to accept the change just as they refused to accept “Anthropocene” as the name of our current geological age. And really, now—I agree with the dissenters.  The Earth is not defined or governed by Man, by Anthro. It is still for us to adapt or go extinct. The Earth will go on. But I suppose that’s understood. Our junk is still everywhere, and that’s the point. The fossil record will show man’s effects everywhere. Yet the Anthropocene may simply be a very short geological age.

   …Shanika is speaking, something about the satellite picture. I move closer and peer at the screen as she holds up the device for us to see. It appears there is a cyclonic cloud formation covering most of the southwestern United States. Heavy rains at the eastern periphery for some 600 miles. It will be sure to wash away more lowlands. Clear skies where we are, but not for long. We need to get into the boats. People start moving. Millie has already put her terrier, Dot, into a carrying sling. And Jen has Honey on a leash. The children are holding the hands of their mothers and caretakers. I quickly go to get my pack.

   I have to say, after staring at the satellite image just now of the atmospheric conditions of the U.S. that was created in outer space by AI—that it is godlike, to have this knowledge. But, I, for one, don’t miss computers—”devices.” I was so sick of them. I was sick of living in “the world according to engineers.” They were always thinking up new “user friendly” hints and gimmicks and complexities that…what? Took over. They took over our brains.

To purchase the ebook: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-middle-of-a-wish 
or the print book https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-middle-of-a-wish-heather-conrad/15777969?ean=9780971242586′