Rilla of Ingleside

This is the eighth book in the "Anne of Green Gable" series and the third in L. M. Montgomery's war novels. The main character, Bertha Marilla "Rilla" Blythe, was born to Anne Shirley Blythe in 1899 when Anne was 33. The story begins in 1914, and Rilla is 15 years old. She is a frivolous young girl who anticipates a life of neverending parties with an assortment of boyfriends at every turn. She has convinved her mother that she has no intention of attending college when she graduates from high school. Just as she is ready for lighthearted adventures of superficial meaning, World War I begins. Her brothers go off to battle, and Rilla is swept away into a dramatic test of her courage and tenacity which revolutionalizes her life. Rilla becomes a serious, hardworking woman whose time is taken over with Red Cross drives and filling in gaps in the work force left by the young men. She adopts an orphaned baby and waits silently and poignantly for her love to return. She realizes what is of consequence and what it takes to be a woman. This fictional account of World War I is the only modern portrayal by a Canadian woman about the home front. Montgomery resolved to praise the valor of those who fought and worked for the war effort. She kept journals that span the full four years of the war, and she dedicated the book to her cousin who died of the Spanish flu that resulted from the fields of combat.