Emily Climbs is the second in the Emily of New Moon trilogy. If the first book was the more cynical equivalent of Anne of Green Gables, then this one is the more cynical equivalent of Anne of the Island.
Emily and her friends go off to high school, but Aunt Elizabeth only allows her to go on one condition: she must agree never to write fiction while she's there. Anyone who was born with the urge to write will understand how difficult it is for Emily to obey this order. Nor do some people around her make her time at high school any easier. She has to stay with Aunt Ruth, a woman so stubborn and unsympathetic she makes Aunt Elizabeth look jolly. And she constantly clashes with Evelyn, one of her schoolmates. Aunt Ruth improves later on (wonder of wonders!). Evelyn doesn't. And along the way Emily has a series of adventures that are decidedly more eerie than anything Anne encountered.
The incident of Emily being locked in the church with a madman wouldn't be out of place in a horror novel. Nor would Mrs. Kent. That woman gives me the chills 😨 And then there's the case of the missing child, a tragedy that's averted thanks to Emily's "flash" -- something that is even more frightening here than in the first book. All this is topped off with a more mundane but infuriatingly unjust incident: Emily and her friends are embroiled in a completely fictional scandal, and Emily is shunned because of it.
Still, the book has some humour. Large portions of it are from Emily's diary, and she makes no bones about what she thinks of certain people. Then there's the incident of the overturned ink-bottle, something that anyone who's spilled something messy can relate to. And the question of who owns a certain troublesome dog is the funniest part of the book.
I enjoyed this book even more than the first one, and I definitely recommend it!
Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.
Rating: 10/10.
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