The Secret Garden - Libroj.org

Neniu kovrilo — The Secret Garden (EBook, 2009, The Floating Press)

Bitlibro

Lingvo: English

Eldonita je 19-a de novembro 2009 de The Floating Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-77541-178-9
Numero OCLC:: 600151379

(1 recenzo)

Mary Lennox is born in India. She is a sickly, sallow child, whose parents hide her away with her Ayah. After her parents die in a cholera outbreak she is sent to live in Yorkshire with her uncle. She is, once more, left mostly to herself. Her uncle still mourns his beautiful wife ten years after her death, and seeks to escape his grief by traveling. When a chambermaid tells Mary about her mistress's garden, which her master locked up on her death, Mary is determined to find it. Bit by bit, as the garden comes back to life, so do the lives of those around her begin to mend.

47 eldonoj

Stephanie Jane recenzis The Secret Garden (Penguin Classics) de Frances Hodgson Burnett

Still inspirational

4 steloj

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 …

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!