Sara Stanley and her circle of cousins, who are close to her in age and revel in her storytelling abilities, actually mirror the characters of some other popular stories.

Waterston writes about the actual novel, The Story Girl, from which Kevin Sullivan drew inspiration for his own series.  “The circle of listeners includes Felicity, Cecily, and Dan King (aged thirteen, twelve, and eleven), with Sara Ray as a virtual sister and Peter Craig as a young farm helper who shares the family’s leisure time.  It is perhaps coincidental that this constellation closely parallels that of the March family in Little Women, where Jo is the story-teller to Meg, Beth, and Amy while nearby Teddy Lawrence adds a male listener to her circle.”

According to Waterston, this similarity may have to do with the popular genre of the day.  “‘Big family’ stories like Alcott’s perennial favourite were still in style when Montgomery began writing The Story Girl: the Five Little Peppers series was just one of a host of books satisfying young readers’ fascination with the genre.”

But to say that Montgomery’s novel is a possible, or coincidental, reflection of other popular classics, is only scratching the surface.  Waterston says that despite being an only child, Montgomery had many experiences of being part of a big family.  “Felicity, Cecily, and Dan King match the real-life circle of her cousins—Clara, Stella, and George Campbell, with whom she had spent long happy visits as a child and young girl, playing her part as a nearby cousin who joined them to tell fabulous tales.”

And Montgomery came from a long line of storytellers herself. She grew up in a Scottish-Canadian community where sharing old tales was a noted pastime.  Montgomery weaves some of these old tales into Sara’s stories, but brings them to life with “new flash and variety and sensationalism”.

To learn more about the writing of Montgomery’s novels, take a look at Magic Island.