Book club for June. So far: Pat hates change. Got it.***The second half grew on me quite a bit, maybe around when Jingle's mother shows up. Pat is still a little too obsessed with Silver Bush, but she became a little more complex as life started happening to her. It got me interested enough to go straight on to Mistress Pat! ( )

This was my favorite of all the L. M. Montgomery novels when I was a kid. Though none of my copies were in particularly good condition (I'd managed to get most of them as remainders from a family friend who ran an independent children's bookstore, and thus they were missing the front covers), I had actually bought this one brand new and ended up reading it so much the cover fell off. The book is now held together with several bits of yellowing tape, and the cover is more of a suggestion than something actually attached in any way. I mean, I loved this book so much.

I was always crazy for Montgomery's heroines, with their imaginations and pretty words and old-fashionedness, but Pat was the one I was best able to relate to. I knew exactly how she felt about change, since I loathed any kind of change myself, and her adoration for Silver Bush was matched in my love for semi-rural Florida. Her clannishness reminded me of my family, I even thought we looked sort of alike. I used to read Pat of Silver Bush and want so much to either be Pat or be her best friend in the whole world - I daresay I was rather jealous of Bets and Jingle.

As Treeseed said in that review, this book has a lot in it that appealed to me at different ages, which is probably why it was one of my best-loved books. But I have grown and changed, just as Pat does, and I can't read the novel anymore without crying and feeling that I've lost a dear friend. Where once the highly evocative imagery delighted me, I now find it cloying and tedious. Where I used to love all the little details about Pat's life and her friend and family and everything, I've started to grow weary of the pace and fiddly bits where all that happens is imagination. I notice more how old Judy Plum grows and how obvious it is that Silver Bush is no longer the haven it used to be, and I know that the end is coming, and I can't bear to follow through with the book anymore.

In my identifying with Pat, I always knew exactly what she meant when she said she never wanted to get married and leave home. I always thought that the romance between her and Bets was the most beautiful thing in the world, and it broke my heart every time Bets died, and then my heart broke again when Pat and Jingle ended up promising to each other. I suppose that's the one thing that never worked for me with this book - even at nine years old, I knew that I wanted Pat and Bets to get married and for Jingle to be their best friend forever. Or maybe for all three to live together in a happy polyamorous trio. Now, when I read, I find myself skipping any passage that might suggest romance between Pat and Jingle, and I skip huge chunks of the end, because I prefer to imagine that Pat and Bets are together forever in Silver Bush with Judy Plum.

Maybe I still identify too strongly with Pat. Even if I've grown out of the period when L. M. Montgomery's writing style charms me and captures my attention completely, I still love the story and the characters, and Pat is the best of them all.

(But let's not talk about Mistress Pat. We'll pretend that one never happens, okay?) ( )

The book is about a 7 year old girl living on Prince Edward Island. I have a friend with a 6 year old so I can easily see the thoughts and actions as described. Pat loves widely and deeply. Which means that change is dreaded, but must be faced as a fact of life. This book shows 11 years of Pat’s loves and growth through changes. I enjoyed the descriptions of her emotions, her surroundings, and how she faced each change. ( )

Pat of Silver Bush is a story very much in the vein of Montgomery's Emily and Anne books. Pat Gardiner loves her home Silver Bush, the ancestral farm of her family. She loves it so much that her uncle jokes, "Silver Bush isn't Pat's home — it's her religion." And he certainly wasn't far off the mark. Pat hates change, and her dream is to stay forever at her beloved Silver Bush with her family and their servant (who really is like a member of the family), Judy Plum. Judy plays a big role in the story, as Pat's mother has poor health and Judy helps raise the children. When the story opens, Pat is eight years old and very attached to her brother Sid and to Judy. Much of the narrative is taken up in Judy's rich brogue and richer stories of ghosts and fairies. Pat is "pickled" in these stories from birth, and very enjoyable they are.

The characters were well-drawn, as is usual with Montgomery, and there were many similarities between them and characters from Montgomery's other books. Judy Plum is like Susan Baker and Rebecca Dew, Pat is like Emily and Anne, Aunt Edith is like any number of straitlaced maiden aunts that abound in Montgomery's world, Josiah Tillytuck is like Mr. Harrison, May Binnie is like Josie Pye, Hilary Gordon (Jingle) is like Teddy Kent, and on and on. The story and episodes also remind me of those in the other books.

If you're looking for something different from Montgomery's other books, you won't find it here. She writes poetically of the scenery and often quotes poetry. There are scandals at funerals and weddings, humor and gossip and pretty girls, and plenty of good food. There are ghost stories and fairies and long descriptions of the beautiful Island, and over it all there is the comforting presence of wholesome family love. Certainly this book reminds me a great deal of Montgomery's other works — and that is why I enjoyed it. There is something addicting about Montgomery's delicate prose, so poetic in one place and so funny in another. Whenever I start one of her books I have trouble putting it down, not because it's suspenseful (it's not) but because I love that idealized world so much. Recommended. ( )