Title: The Secret Garden
Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Publishers: Penguin Group – Puffin Children’s (this version)
Format: Clothbound Hardback
Genre: Children’s Classic, Historical, Middle Grade, Friendship, Magic
Rating: 5/5
Pages: 342
Release date: January 25th 2010 (Originally 1910)
Where to by: Book Depository (Other covers and versions are wildly available to buy)
Summary: After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncle’s gloomy mansion on the wild English moors. One day she learns of a secret garden in the grounds that no one is allowed to enter. Then Mary uncovers an old key in a flowerbed – and a gust of magic leads her to the hidden door. Slowly she turns the key…
Review: I will forever love this book, it’s a childhood favourite and it still is a favourite now. It’s such a magical story and it’s so beautiful and enchanting.
Mary Lennox born and raised in India gets sent to Yorkshire after her parents die. She arrives an unwell and ill mannered child but with help from her maid Martha, The Robin and The Secret Garden she finds she becomes a much lighter and kinder person. She discovers a secret in the house a cousin she never knew existed a boy who was so dire and obnoxious she didn’t like him one bit. As she was once like him they found themselves compatible and became friends sharing her secrets with him. With help of Dickon Mary’s best friend they use magic in The Secret Garden to help Master Colin.
This story is amazing for many reasons, for one the character progression through the story is incredible they all change so much but so naturally. The Secret Garden itself is filled with magic and love and wonder and it’s written so well you are certainly in the garden with them. The things they accomplish together with a little love, magic and faith they do more than they ever dreamt they could do and it’s so precious to read about it, to follow these children in the story. As I said this is one of my favourite ever stories and it will forever be one. It’s a perfect book.
About Author: Frances Eliza Hodgson was the daughter of ironmonger Edwin Hodgson, who died three years after her birth, and his wife Eliza Boond. She was educated at The Select Seminary for Young Ladies and Gentleman until the age of fifteen, at which point the family ironmongery, then being run by her mother, failed, and the family emigrated to Knoxville, Tennessee. Here Hodgson began to write, in order to supplement the family income, assuming full responsibility for the family upon the death of her mother, in 1870. In 1872 she married Dr. Swan Burnett, with whom she had two sons, Lionel and Vivian. The marriage was dissolved in 1898. In 1900 Burnett married actor Stephen Townsend until 1902 when they got divorced. Following her great success as a novelist, playwright, and children’s author, Burnett maintained homes in both England and America, traveling back and forth quite frequently. She died in her Long Island, New York home, in 1924.
Primarily remembered today for her trio of classic children’s novels – Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911) – Burnett was also a popular adult novelist, in her own day, publishing romantic stories such as The Making of a Marchioness (1901) for older readers.
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I’m hoping my 8yo will read this soon. I’m going to re-read it too.
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Oh I really hope your 8yo will read and love this. This was my yearly re-read, I love it so much. I hope you’ll get to re-read it soon too, maybe you and your kid can do it as a read aloud together, good bonding experience plus getting to read a great story together.
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