The Story Girl Earns Her Name

Road to Avonlea #2

by Gail Hamilton

To make amends for unwittingly helping a con man steal money from a picture show, Sara creates her own "Magic Lantern" show and becomes known as "the story girl."

Genres: Childrens, Young Adult, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical, Canada, Juvenile

117 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1991

About the author

Gail Hamilton has been creating novels since the great romance boom began, writing for Harlequin and other publishers. She has been a farm hand, English teacher, ad copywriter, and once rode a British Bedford truck across the Sahara and back to see Timbuctu. All of it is fodder for her fiction. She is drawn to action, romance, adventure and characters with a distinctly odd twist. These show up in her many romance novels and her fast-moving historical, The Tomorrow Country.

After trying urban life in Europe and Toronto, Gail returned to live on the family farm where she grew up. In this rural corner hugging the north shore of Lake Ontario, Gail digs into the rich, raucous local history. She cherishes a secret passion for animated movies and loves photographing the nature all around her, reading the constant changes like a newspaper every morning.

When she blogs, it’s apt to be about a wind-downed oak that was a beloved childhood friend, amazing chipmunk facts, a dramatic house fire in the village, odd Victorian crimes, or what vampires might do when the sun goes red giant and gobbles up our planet. “Somehow,” she says, “I can’t get into hard-nosed book promotion. I’d rather write about the quirky what ifs that pop into my head. I am lucky to live in the vibrant natural countryside so many urbanites secretly thirst for but cannot access. That’s why all those tough-shelled professionals love to read about the return of garter snakes to the spring air or how field mice survive an ice storm. Our ancestral genes still tell us we are supposed to be out there, living it for ourselves."

What better place to hatch new tales for everyone’s enjoyment.

Reviews

[fin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this series a lot better than L. M. Montgomery's other better known series "Anne of Green Gables"

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 4 out of 5]

khodamam dodelam ke shaiad be in seri ketaba,ye setareh ziad dadae basham.vali khodayi ghashngan.natoonestam kamtar setareh bedam:(barakse oon ghessehaye bimazzeye anne sherly

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

"June 1992. Shannon, Congratulations on great grades in 3rd grade! Love, Mommy and Daddy."

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

another little substory in the Avonlea tales

[Allison Ripley-Duggan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Loved It! Such a riveting tale. I couldn’t put it down. I got so engrossed in the story that I actually felt like I was apart of the story. I also love the TV series and movies as well.

[MelRose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently came across a bunch of Road to Avonlea novelizations on Scribd and I realized I never saw the episode of The Story Girls Earns Her Name. Maybe it wasn't released in the US. I thought I would skim the book and see what I had missed out on but I couldn't put the book down. I was immediately transported back to the 90s, back to Avonlea. It was a great little read that truly captured the essence of the series. It was a funny little story centered around Sara and Jasper Dale (which solved the mystery of their bond, something that had always been hinted out in other episodes that I saw way back when but never connected the dots on) and their attempt to have a magic lantern show. I really enjoyed it. I was surprised to learn that the entire Road to Avonlea novelization set is based on episodes that have already aired and not on original, extended content like other novelizations of the 90s but this was a welcomed distraction in troubling times. I'm tempted to hunt down the original episode to see how the book compares.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jasper Dale. School library donations. Little Match Girl recitation.
Nostalgia.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just had to revisit this one because I owned it years ago as an Avonlea obsessed child. Honestly the writing isn’t as good as the books in the series written by Heather Conkie (the actual screenwriter for the TV show) but I still enjoyed it for what it was. If you love the show and the characters it’s fun to relive the episode through the book.