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��Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.��

One of Montgomery's more unknown books about a group on children that spends a carefree summer on Prince Edward Island with a girl who tells stories so vividly, that they feel like reality. A book filled with Montgomery's trademark charm and incredible understanding of childhood. Idyllic, fun and optimistic. Always optimistic.

More than anything, this feels more like a short story collection than a novel. Each chapter entails some sort of mischief, a mystery or a conflict, a solution �� and, of course, a story told by the story girl. And then the next chapter awaits with another mystery, another conflict and another story ...

For all its charm and optimism, this book never really touched me the way, Montgomery's writing usually does. I think, it's because I never really liked the characters and the forced structure. The Story Girl's perpetual need to tell a story and Montgomery's need to constantly tell the reader, the stories are good stories, feels too repetitive and unlikely. While Montgomery usually is eminent at characterizing artists and writers, her characterization falls flat here.

But still �� if you adore Montgomery, you'll like this. If not for anything else, then for the writing. Nobody can craft a lyrical description more beautifully than Mongomery. Her metaphors are exquisite. And her optimism is never-failing:

��It is always safe to dream of spring. For it is sure to come; and if it be not just as we have pictured it, it will be infinitely sweeter.��