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Children's Fiction Classics

Emily of New Moon

by (author) L.M. Montgomery

Publisher
Tundra
Initial publish date
Sep 2014
Category
Classics, Friendship, General
Recommended Age
8 to 12
Recommended Grade
3 to 7
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780770417987
    Publish Date
    Jan 1998
    List Price
    $5.99
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780771093555
    Publish Date
    Dec 2007
    List Price
    $17.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780771099793
    Publish Date
    Feb 1989
    List Price
    $7.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781770497474
    Publish Date
    Sep 2014
    List Price
    $9.99
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781770497467
    Publish Date
    Nov 2014
    List Price
    $19.99

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

Emily Starr never knew what it was to be lonely--until her beloved father died. Now Emily's an orphan, and her snobbish relatives are taking her to live with them at New Moon Farm. Although she's sure she'll never be happy there, Emily deals with her stern aunt Elizabeth and her malicious classmates by using her quick wit and holding her head high.
Things slowly begin to change for the better when Emily makes some new friends. There's Teddy Kent, who does marvelous drawings; Perry Miller, the hired boy, who's sailed the world with his father yet has never been to school; and above all, Ilse Burnley, a tomboy with a blazing temper. With these wonderful companions at her side and adventures around every corner, Emily begins to find her new home beautiful and fascinating--so much so that she comes to think of herself as Emily of New Moon.
In this first volume of the celebrated Emily trilogy, Lucy Maud Montgomery draws a more realistic portrait of a young orphan girl's life on early twentieth-century Prince Edward Island.

About the author

Lucy Maud Montgomery had her first poem published at the age of 15 and after completing college she worked for a short time as a journalist before becoming a teacher. In 1908 Anne of Green Gables was published to huge acclaim with Anne of Avonlea coming soon after. Many successful novels followed but by late 1930s, due to personal troubles, illness and depression, she stopped writing. Lucy Maud Montgomery died in 1942 and was buried on her beloved Prince Edward Island.

L.M. Montgomery's profile page

Excerpt: Emily of New Moon (by (author) L.M. Montgomery)

Aunt Elizabeth had a more prosaic idea to account for Emily’s languor and lack of appetite. She had come to the conclusion that Emily’s heavy masses of hair “took from her strength” and that she would be much stronger and better if it were cut off. With Aunt Elizabeth to decide was to act. One morning she coolly informed Emily that her hair was to be “shingled.”

Emily could not believe her ears.

“You don’t mean that you are going to cut off my hair, Aunt Elizabeth,” she exclaimed.

“Yes, I mean exactly that,” said Aunt Elizabeth firmly. “You have entirely too much hair especially for hot weather. I feel sure that is why you have been so miserable lately. Now, I don’t want any crying.”

But Emily could not keep the tears back.

“Don’t cut it all off,” she pleaded. “Just cut a good big bang. Lots of the girls have their hair banged clean from the crown of their heads. That would take half my hair off and the rest won’t take too much strength.”

“There will be no bangs here,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “I’ve told you so often enough. I’m going to shingle your hair close all over your head for the hot weather. You’ll be thankful to me some day for it.”

Emily felt anything but thankful just then.

“It’s my one beauty,” she sobbed, “it and my lashes. I suppose you want to cut off my lashes too.”

Aunt Elizabeth did distrust those long, upcurled fringes of Emily’s, which were an inheritance from the girlish stepmother, and too un-Murray-like to be approved; but she had no designs against them. The hair must go, however, and she curtly bade Emily wait there, without any fuss, until she got the scissors.

Emily waited — quite hopelessly. She must lose her lovely hair — the hair her father had been so proud of. It might grow again in time — if Aunt Elizabeth let it — but that would take years, and meanwhile what a fright she would be! Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy were out; she had no one to back her up; this horrible thing must happen.

Aunt Elizabeth returned with the scissors; they clicked suggestively as she opened them; that click, as if by magic, seemed to loosen something — some strange formidable power in Emily’s soul. She turned deliberately around and faced her aunt. She felt her brows drawing together in an unaccustomed way — she felt an uprush as from unknown depths of some irresistible surge of energy.

“Aunt Elizabeth,” she said, looking straight at the lady with the scissors, “my hair is not going to be cut off. Let me hear no more of this.”

An amazing thing happened to Aunt Elizabeth. She turned pale — she laid the scissors down — she looked aghast for one moment at the transformed or possessed child before her — and then for the first time in her life Elizabeth Murray turned tail and fled — literally fled — to the kitchen.

“What is the matter, Elizabeth?” cried Laura, coming in from the cook-house.

“I saw — Father — looking from her face,” gasped Elizabeth, trembling. “And she said, ‘Let me hear no more of this,’ — just as he always said it — his very words.”

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