SOURCE: Rubio, Mary. “Anne of Green Gables: The Architect of Adolescence.” In Such a Simple Little Tale: Critical Responses to L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, edited by Mavis Reimer, pp. 65-82. Metuchen, N.J.: Children's Literature Association and Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1992.

In the following essay, Rubio discusses Montgomery's attention to Anne's process of psychological maturation and the complexity of her portrayal of adolescence.

When Anne of Green Gables was first published in 1908, the terms “teenage” and “adolescent” were not in common use. Yet Anne caught—and continues to catch—the salient elements in teenage experience: yearning, rebellion, intense response to beauty, difficulty in accepting community standards, desire for an identity, friends, clothes, and popularity—all parts of an often difficult transition from childhood to maturity.

Anne of Green Gables was written by thirty-year-old Lucy Maud Montgomery, a woman living in a small rural community in Prince...