Review: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Apologies to my (few) readers, but right now I've developed a wicked case of "re-read-itis", and I'm tearing through books I've read several times before.  Not that it will make any difference to you, really.  Maybe it's because we're moving and I'm falling back on the old, comfortable, and known.  Whatever the reason, this book (and the one I'm currently reading) are both well-read favorites.

For me, there are certain children's stories that never get old.  My favorite of these is The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  I read this for the first time when I was in fourth grade, and I can't count the number of times I've read it since.

The story of solemn little Mary Lennox, orphaned at 10 by a cholera plague in her homeland of India and sent to live with her widowed uncle on the moors of Yorkshire in England, has become a classic.  Mary is lonely, friendless, and disagreeable, and sees absolutely no benefit to her living in her uncle's lonely old manor until her cheeky maidservant, Martha, boots her out-of-doors to play.  During her walks about the grounds, Mary discovers an abandoned, walled-up garden -- the former property of her deceased Aunt Lilias -- and the buried key that unlocks it.  Within the walls, Mary realizes the joy of helping what has been abandoned and left to die, come back to life -- and in doing so, comes to life herself.

Frances Burnett is best-known for her tales of young children who persevere in difficult situations -- her other popular children's book, A Little Princess, focuses on the same theories of self-worth and belief in one's own personal "Magic" as The Secret Garden.  But Secret Garden is much gentler than Princess is.  While it still deals with the sensitive topics of parent death and abandonment,  the overwhelming message of The Secret Garden is the idea that the simplest, smallest things in life can help reawaken the beauty inside us all.  To a child, the story is as magical as a fairy tale...and for me, after 18 years, it's really no different.

Rating: *****