It's not very often I feel truly sad at a celebrity death, but for many many girls out there I think the death of Jonathan Crombie will make them feel a little strange - I still think Gilbert Blythe is my favourite fictional boy, from what is definitely my favourite book and as discussed in the New Yorker here Jonathan Crombie gave him a kindness that is the key to why Gilbert is so great and by far the most feminist of fictional boys for young girls to admire: he loved Anne because she was clever, he never laughed at her quirkiness when she was deadly serious - he liked her precisely because of who she was yet still challenged her, he wasn't wet or dim or preening - just natural and clever and decent without being boring... Fictional teen heroes of today's overloaded YA romance genre don't have a patch on him with their silly manipulative needy ways (read good Guardian article here ). I was going to upload an Anne of Green Gables video but they all seem to have cheesy theme tunes on you tube, so here is a photo instead... So sad... My eight year old self's heart is broken!
