Many of you have seen the commercial merchandising chaos of such books as Twilight or Harry Potter. I’m here to tell you about one almost as big that many of you don’t know about: Anne of Green Gables. Anne of Green Gables was written by Lucy Maud Montgomery who grew up in the small town of Cavendish, which is in Canada’s smallest province, PEI. Having grown up in Canada (1000 miles away from Cavendish) I read all of the Anne of Green Gables books as a kid. I watched the Anne of Green Gables movies. I dressed up as Anne of Green Gables. I had Anne of Green Gables dolls. Okay, I also wrote an Anne of Green Gables spoof. Even so, my obsession is nothing like what you would see if you went to Cavendish, PEI (pictures below taken last month, my 3rd visit to Cavendish):

Lucy’s Home

This is the sign marking Lucy’s homestead. If you turn here, you get to the Lucy Bookstore and then to Lucy’s house itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Souvenirs

I didn’t take photos of all of these but Cavendish is filled with Anne of Green Gables souvenir shops and even the shops that are supposed to sell things like, oh, food, still have an Anne of Green Gables souvenir section. For example, there are no less than 20 different kinds of Anne dolls:

 

 

 

 

 

And then there are these Anne hats EVERYWHERE and if you are really mean, you can make your son wear one:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Avonlea

Then, if you actually go to Avonlea, the real Anne obsession begins. You see the school house:

 

 

 

 

 

The food and drinks (yes, those are Anne potato chips!):

And then there are the actors, wandering around Avonlea, never wavering from character and often spontaneously breaking into scenes from the book:

 

 

 

 

 

Imagine, if you can, what it would be like if someone did this to YOUR book?