OLD QUARRELS, OLD LOVE Heather Conkie Toronto, HarperCollins, 1992. 122pp, paper, $4.50 ISBN 0-00-647393-8. (Road to Avonlea, 15). CIP FAMILY RIVALRY Gail Hamilton Toronto, HarperCollins, 1992, 124pp, paper, $4.50 ISBN 0-00-647403-9. (Road to Avonlea, 16). CIP MAY THE BEST MAN WIN Gail Hamilton Toronto, HarperCollins, 1992. 122pp, paper, $4.50 ISBN 0-00-647398-9. (Road lo Avonlea, 17). CIP Grades 6 to 9/Ages 11 to 14 Reviewed by Margaret Mackey. Volume 20 Number 6 1992 November This collection of books is Montgomery-by-numbers, the books based on the television programs of the same name. Shreds of Montgomery's original material are shuffled and reassembled. Unbelievably, the resulting stories are substantially more sentimental than the originals, with flat and predictable characters undergoing unlikely changes of heart in the nick of time. The blurbs on the backs of the books quote approving reviews of the television programs, but say nothing of these spin-off books. Viewers who enjoy "The Road to Avonlea" on TV would be infinitely better off with Montgomery's original texts: The Story Girl, The Gulden Road, Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea. These three books involve two plots in which erstwhile lovers return to Avonlea in order to court their former loves, and one in which a famous geologist also returns to Avonlea but neglects his own son. The prose is banal, and the characterization is insultingly thin. For once it seems appropriate to tell young readers to put away that book and go watch a good television program; the Sullivan series is far superior to these books. Margaret Mackey is a Ph.D. student at The University of Alberla in Demotion, Alberta.