Anne of Green Gables

Anne Shirley is a fictional character introduced in the 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Montgomery wrote in her journal that... the idea for Anne's story came from relatives who, planning to adopt an orphaned boy, received a girl instead. Anne Shirley's appearance was inspired by a photograph which Montgomery clipped from the Metropolitan Magazine and kept, unaware of the model's identity as the notorious 1900s Gibson Girl Evelyn Nesbit. Anne was born in Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia and spent the earliest years of her childhood there. She was orphaned as an infant of three months, when her parents, schoolteachers Walter and Bertha Shirley , died of typhoid fever. Without any other relations, Anne was taken in by Mrs. Thomas, who had done housework for the Shirleys. After Mr. Thomas died, Anne went to live with the Hammond family for some years and was treated as little more than a servant until Mr. Hammond died, whereupon Mrs. Hammond divided her children amongst relatives and Anne was sent to the orphanage at Hopetown. She considered herself as "cursed" by twins — Mrs. Hammond had three sets of twins whom Anne helped raise.
more

Children's literature as such probably started in the 17th century; it is generally believed that before then books were written mainly for adults.... Additionally, most printed works were hard to come by due to their cost and were mostly available for purchase only by upper class society. Scholarship on children's literature includes professional organizations, dedicated publications and university courses. There is some debate on what constitutes children's literature. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as "a human being below the age of 18 years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier". Some books written for children, such as The Young Visiters by Daisy Ashford or the juvenilia of Jane Austen, written to amuse brothers and sisters, are also written by children. Anne Frank wrote a novel and many very short stories in addition to her diary . Barbara Newhall Follett wrote four books, beginning with a novel called The House Without Windows at the age of nine; when the manuscript was destroyed in a fire, she rewrote it from memory.
more