What the Fireflies Knew is a novel that is replete with references to other texts with girls as protagonists. Kai Harris introduces these works as texts that shape how KB understands her identity as a Black, working-class girl. What the Fireflies Knew is most in conversation with Canadian writer Lucy Montgomery’s 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables. These literary representations of girlhood are important to KB, but Harris intervenes in the conventions of representing girlhood in books like Anne of Green Gables by being attentive to the impact of intersecting oppressions and social identities in her characterization of KB.

Anne of Green Gables is about Anne Shirley, an 11-year-old girl who is an orphan until she is sent to live with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, aging siblings who asked for a boy to help them with the increasingly burdensome work on their farm. Anne is fascinated with words and the natural world that she discovers on the farm. Although Anne’s spirited nature upsets the sedate life to which Marilla and Matthew are accustomed, Marilla in particular leaves behind her repressive, grim manner and grows to love the girl.

Despite some encounters with girls who look down on her because of her background, Anne develops close friendships that enrich her life.