The Secret Garden

Who remembers reading a novel entitled 'The Secret Garden' written by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The first time that I have heard of this novel was in elementary school, but I cannot remember which grade through. The teacher would read this book at the end of the day when the work was completed, but this was back in the 70's. I do believe that teachers still do this in their classrooms.

'The Secret Garden' is all about a small girl named Mary Lennox who at the start of the story lived in India at the time of a cholera epidemic, and she finds out that her whole staff and parents have died due to cholera, and now she is all alone. Mary is then moved to England to live in Moors of her uncle's huge mansion where is only allowed to venture just so far in the house and the gardens. In the beginning of the story Mary is known as being quite contrary thanks to how her Indian staff saw her and she believed. Mary is to live under the rules of her Uncle Archibald Craven and Mrs. Medlock. Mrs. Medlock is the woman who Mary travels with on the train to the Moors than on another coach trip across the moors to the manor of her Uncle Archibald Craven.

The next person Mary meets is Martha, and they each kind of learn a lot about each other over time, and Martha shares a lot about her family especially her mother and brother 'Dickon', who is a boy who can understand nature in its many forms. It takes a while for Martha to understand Mary and to get Mary to stick to the rules, so Mrs. Medlock does not tell Mary's uncle what she does while her uncle is gone. One night Mary hears crying, and she goes in search of the crying and discovers many things. One day when Mary is out and after many trips around the formal gardens she notices thanks to a little bird she got to know is a key sticking out of the ground, and she wonders if this is the key to the 'secret' garden that no one is allowed into presently in the story. She makes many trips trying to find the door, and also thanks to the little bird and the gardener she finds the door. On another night she, Mary, hears the crying and goes in search and finds Colin, her cousin, and they make many plans along with Martha, Dickon, and Martha's mother. There are a lot of ups and downs and misunderstandings to work through though. The garden once Mary finds the door there are a lot of discoveries that she and all involved will discover about themselves and why the garden is so important to all of them. On page 155 when Mary will see why Colin is the way he is, but will see that things do not seem as bad as he believed they were for him. There was another scene at the end in the final chapter that all she knew along with everyone else was how nature can heal us all both physically and emotionally.

'The Secret Garden' by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a work of children's literature but adults would enjoy this work of literature too. The author shows how humans and animals can achieve many things to bring about the survival of the species, and still enjoy their surroundings by observing and listening ever so closely from the plants bursting through the ground to the birds in the air and how people learn from one another that we will survive.