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Little orphan Annie By Neri Livneh They called me from the radio station, requesting an interview about "Anne of Green Gables" (known in Hebrew as "Ha'asufit" - the foundling), which is now celebrating the centenary of its publication, and the other books in the series by Lucy Maud Montgomery. According to the program's producer, the interviewer had been very impressed by a lovely article I'd once written about the book. Even though I know for a fact that I have never written about "Anne of Green Gables," I enjoyed the compliment, because the person who actually wrote (in the women's magazine La'isha) about a trip she took through the area where Montgomery's books are set is my best friend, Yael Fishbein. The truth is that I didn't really remember the book. Owing to the peculiar reading habits I developed as a youngster, I remember in vivid detail books such as "Treacherous Catharine," "The Combat Surgeon's Love," "Vanity Fair" and "Society Girls," which I devoured in fourth and fifth grades, while my girlfriends plunged into the tale of the orphan Anne Shirley, from the time she was a dreamy scamp until her wedding and her transformation into a proper Victorian lady. But I did remember, of course, that Anne was an orphan. Advertisement Nearly all the children's books that were considered classics in the 1960s were about orphaned or semi-orphaned protagonists. Marco in "Heart" faced the world as an orphan, the orphan boy in Hector Malot's wonderful "Nobody's Boy" and "Nobody's Girl," the French children's series starring Sophie, the fatherless heroines of "Little Women," "Oliver Twist," Pippi Longstocking, about whose parents we heard nothing; the survivor children on "The Children's Island," some of the protagonists of Erich Kastner, "Pollyanna" and many others. Perhaps the hidden message of these books was that we should be grateful for at least having real parents, no matter of what type, and that this was all we needed for happiness. But I'm pretty sure I was not the only girl who got the impression that being orphaned was something magical, and a lot more fascinating than just being a kid in a two-parent family. As a girl, I often thought I might be missing something big by not being an orphan (irrespective of the fact that I was constantly afraid that something terrible would happen to my parents, especially my mother). The fact is that only orphans are considered interesting enough to have books written about them. And if not an orphan, then at least a freckled redhead like Anne Shirley, Pippi or Aya the redhead, may she enjoy a long life, who was not an orphan and lives in Israel to this day. But dreamy as I was, I realized that I wanted to be an orphan even less than I was capable of acquiring green eyes and orange freckles. That may be why I quickly switched from heroines who were athletic or mischievous or smiled nonstop in a wheelchair like Pollyanna to flamboyant society women after their debutante ball. Today I can say with certainty that I was most influenced by books such as "Society Girls," which recounts the miracles that befell a certain girl whom no one wanted to invite for ginger ale until she dieted and became thin enough to wiggle into a skin-colored "elastic swimsuit" and then was immediately invited to the prom by the most popular guy in the college. Anyway, I couldn't for the life of me remember what happened in "Anne of Green Gables," but in the light of the wild praise I mistakenly received, I never considered not doing the interview. Accordingly, I found myself sitting in the course of two mornings and six cups of Americano coffee in my favorite bookstore, "Prosa," on Dizengoff, devouring every one of the book's 200 pages. "Lever-wood juice" (something I had never heard of, which starred in the original translation) had now become simply maple syrup, but the updated translation still contained marvelous places such as the "Lake of Shining Waters" and currant wine, which I am the last person to disparage. From one page to the next, my amazement grew. Matthew and Marilla, an unmarried brother and sister from the village of Avonlea in Prince Edward Island, are looking for an orphan to help them with the farm work and by mistake get a red-headed chatterbox orphan girl. Anne stays on the farm against Marilla's will, and the two soon become bosom friends. This is a wonderful story about parents' love for a girl and about her love for them (when Matthew dies, I suddenly shed a tear), but also bears a distinctly feminist character - for the period when it was written. The true heroines are women whose job description goes far beyond simply being a "wife." They are hard-working, opinionated women who make the important decisions and impel the plot. The men, in contrast, are quite pale, and for the most part remain in the background. Anne is the perfect opposite of the good Victorian girl. True, she loves pretty dresses and is bothered by her unusual external appearance, but she is far from being a staid, polite creature. She is wild and dreamy, and tries with all her might to build up her physical and mental prowess, and her courting technique includes breaking a slate board over the head of the most popular boy in the class, who in response falls in love with her eternally. There are also wonderful descriptions of the landscape. Mists and streams and lakes and gloriously blossoming trees and butterflies fluttering and birds chirping. For a moment I felt an urge to organize a trip to the Canadian province, but then I remembered my bitter disappointment when I learned that rekikim, the Hebrew-translation soul food of my childhood books, were no more than plywood-like crackers. It's unlikely that even if I had the financial resources to go there, together with all the millions of tourists (most of them Japanese) who now walk about the site in Victorian attire in memory of Anne Shirley, I would find a magical place like "Lake of Shining Waters" But it's never too late to dye your hair red. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Scuba SMS Ultrasonic sound wave technology revolutionizes underwater communication. 'Hip-hop violinist' Israeli violinist participates in New York event, celebrating Israel's 60th anniversary.

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