Book of The Week #28 "Jane of Lantern Hill"

Jane of Lantern Hill

by L.M. Montgomery

Jane's parents have been separated since she was a baby. She and her mother live with her cranky grandmother where Jane isn't allowed to have friends or to see her father. She is terribly lonely, until she finds a friend in the neighbor's lonely child. The two have secret meetings in the backyard until Jane's grandmother finds out and forbids Jane to see the child. Jane comes to think that she will never have a companion, until her father sends a letter requesting she visit him at his sea side home during summer break. Against her grandmother's wishes, Jane's mother sends her to stay with her father for the summer. She instantly bonds with her father and feels more at home at Lantern Hill than she ever felt with her mother and grandmother. She takes care of her father's house, makes friends with some of the local children, and listens to her father read stories in the evenings. As the summer draws near, she is already planning and looking forward to spending the next summer at Lantern Hill. Though things may not go quite as planned...

This is a really great book. I'll admit it starts out a little shaky because Jane is so miserable and her grandmother is so mean, but when Jane goes to Lantern Hill the entire tone of the book changes. Jane becomes happy and carefree, things she never thought she could be. In the beginning I thought that Jane's mother was mean like Jane's grandmother, but the more you read the book, the more you see that she's simply unhappy having never made her own decisions, rather she has always done as her mother says.

All in all, Jane of Lantern Hill is a great read by a wonderful author. I'd recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of Anne of Green Gables and other imaginative heroines.

I give this book a 5 out 5.