Rainbow Valley

Rainbow Valley came out in 1919 and is the seventh book in the Anne series, though Anne herself appears only intermittently. The novel follows her six children and the children of the new Presbyterian minister, Reverend John Meredith, who has recently moved into the manse next door. Meredith is a widower, distracted and well-meaning, mostly incapable of running a household, and his four children, Jerry, Faith, Una, and Carl, are left more or less to raise themselves.

The Meredith children spend most of their time in a wooded hollow they call Rainbow Valley, often with the Blythe children. The plots are smaller than in the earlier Anne books, mostly small-town scandals around the minister’s chaotic family. Faith preaches a sermon by accident. Una worries about her father remarrying. Carl gets in trouble for keeping pet toads. There is also Mary Vance, a runaway from the poorhouse who becomes a recurring loud presence. By the end Reverend Meredith is engaged to Rosemary West, and the children have a stepmother. Best read after Anne’s House of Dreams and before Rilla of Ingleside.