Anne with an E (2017) — the Netflix series · Anne of Green Gables (1985) — the beloved Megan Follows miniseries
If your child came to Anne through the Netflix series, say one thing before they start: the book is sunnier, and the show's darker inventions aren't in it. A kid who wanted more of that edge may stall; a kid who loved Anne herself will find the concentrated version. The 1985 miniseries and the book agree with each other, so that pairing works in either order. And it reads aloud beautifully, if you can do the voices.
The Netflix series adds flashbacks to abuse at the asylum, bullying plots, and season after season of invented hardship. Montgomery's Anne mentions her hard past in one matter-of-fact conversation and then gets on with being Anne. The book runs on charm, not survival.
New storylines, new residents of Avonlea, new social issues each season. Some of it is good television; almost none of it is in the book, and a kid who loved the show should know the book is a different, sunnier thing.
The Megan Follows version is the faithful one; it mostly just squeezes 38 chapters into four hours. What gets lost is the small stuff, and in this book the small stuff is the point.
Anne's runaway speeches about puffed sleeves, tragical romances, and the naming of geraniums run for whole pages, and they are the funniest voice a kid will meet in an old book. Every adaptation trims them; the book is where the talking lives.
The narrator loves Avonlea and gently teases it at the same time, especially Mrs. Rachel Lynde. That double vision, warm and wry at once, has never made it to a screen.
The mouse in the pudding sauce, the liniment cake, the ridgepole, the green hair. The adaptations pick three or four; the book has a fresh disaster nearly every chapter, which is what makes it such a satisfying long read.
Matthew barely speaks in any version, but the book lets you inside his head, and his silent campaign for puffed sleeves is one of the sweetest threads in the classics. On screen he's a kind face; on the page he'll wreck you.
Film links are Amazon affiliate links. Works both directions, by the way: how to use a movie to spark the book →