The Secret Garden (Gift Books)

When my sister spotted on Facebook that I had signed up for the Classics Club Challenge, she kindly lent me three classics from her bookshelves: The Secret Garden, Heidi and Animal Farm (I do know Animal Farm isn't a kids' book!) The first two I haven't read in well over thirty years and I hadn't read Animal Farm at all so I was keen to start them. I remembered some of the illustrations in a Ladybird copy of The Secret Garden and am sure we must have had a full text version too, however a lot of the storyline details seemed new to me this time around.

The Secret Garden is, of course, a children's book, but I was happy reading it as an adult and I didn't think the prose style was particularly younger than some modern young adult novels I've read in the past few years! The adult characters are perhaps too stereotyped - the poor-but-always-happy mother, the gruff-but-with-a-heart-of-gold old gardener - but the children, whose story it is after all, are wonderfully real and for most of the book are actually pretty unlikeable. I was shocked by the initial depiction of Mary's life in India. Simultaneously spoilt yet neglected it's not any wonder that she is so insular and awkward.

Where The Secret Garden absolutely shines for me is in the depiction of the eponymous garden and the natural world surrounding Misselthwaite. I loved the idea of this secluded estate isolated on the moor and began to feel enthusiastic at the thought of joining Mary in her efforts to regenerate the Garden (even though in truth I loathe weeding!) Burnett manages to teach without preaching and I imagine I was just as inspired to get out into the countryside when I first read this book as I am now. A true classic!