The Secret Garden (unabridged)

Rating:
Summary: Heart Warming Inspiring Story
Review: This is a truly beautiful book about the power of life to heal the sick and the down hearted. Using the analogy of a garden coming to life, and the plants blooming in the springtime, Burnett tells the story of children and people becoming well, and discovering the "Magic" that is life, or God.

Mary is a sour little girl from India who is orphaned after a sickness hits her Indian town, and she is sent to live with her uncle, Archibold Craven, in Yorkshire, England. The manor is full of mysteries, as Mary soon discovers. Along with her new friend Dickon, a boy animal charmer from across the moor, she begins to discover the secrets of the manor and of the gardens that surround it.

This is a beautiful book, just brimming over with life. I would recommend this to young readers as well as adult. It is very sweet, and has a warm-hearted tone.

Rating:
Summary: One of my childhood favorites -- and I still love it!
Review: I can't count how many times I read this book in elementary school -- dozens, I'm sure. I still read it occasionally and listen to the musical.

Here's a brief synopsis: Mary Lennox is a bitter child whose parents live in India during the very early 1900s (approximately). Her mother and father pay no attention to her, and she is spoiled, selfish and temperamental. When cholera kills her parents, she is sent to live with her uncle -- a hunchback who lives in a huge mansion on the Yorkshire moors.

Slowly and with the help of the maid, the maid's brother, and the gardener, Mary becomes a normal, happy child. But her uncle never sees her and is rarely there. He was devastated by his wife's untimely death years earlier and cannot bear to be in the house where they lived together.

Mary also hears a mysterious crying that no one else seems to. She investigates and discovers it is her cousin, Colin, who refuses to see anyone, believing he is crippled. His father can't bear to look at him because his mother died in childbirth. Mary and Colin discover his mother's garden, long neglected, and eventually Colin realizes he is perfectly healthy and learns to walk again.

This is one of those books every little girl should read. It will stay in your heart forever.

Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: I think that this is FHB's best book. Although I certainly enjoy the romatic ideas of diamond mines, life-size dolls, and (completly platonic) secret admirers (as all appear in "A Little Princess") nothing beats the spunky nature and burgeonng independance of Mary, Colin and Dickon.

After her parents die of Cholera, spoiled brat Mary is sent to live with her uncle in Yorshire. She is shocked, absolutely shocked, to find a world that is the complete opposite of India. Not just the weather: gone is the fully staffed nursery which completely revolved around her every whim (and she had a lot of them) and in its place is a local maid who brings her breakfast and that's about it. Mary doesn't even know how to dress herself.

Appalled at first by the notion of having to look after herself, Mary discovers that it's really not so bad. Especially when she discovers a secret garden that has been locked for ten years. Together with her cousin, a boy as bratty and obnoxious as she is, and Dickon, a local boy with a way with living things, she sets about to bring the garden back to life. Mary and Colin, who have been raised with fairly good intentions and plenty of material possesions but no real love, learn what love is as they care for and nurture the garden.

Burnett really has an ear for children's dialogue, and she brings a real sympathy to Colin and Mary even when they are at their most obnoxious. In addition, their transformation is believable, complete with little relapses into their self-absorbed natures.

This is a book that is perfect for people of all ages.

Rating:
Summary: A Nice Story, but a Little Boring
Review: My oldest daughter who is seven had just seen the movie, "The Secret Garden" in school, so when I suggested we read the book together she was thrilled. We picked it up and I read it to both her and her younger sister who is six. It was a nice story, and my oldest daughter liked it better than the movie (which she said was very different), but it just didn't seem to capture their attention for extended periods of time. Unlike other children's novels we've read together where they would generally be begging me to continue reading into the next chapter to see what's going to happen, several times they just kept asking when each chapter was going to end because they were bored.

I think they were turned off a bit by some of the old English, and the broad Yorkshire slang that is used extensively throughout several parts of the book. They had a hard time following the story line at those times.

The story itself is about a spoiled ten year old English girl with a bad disposition named Mary, who lived over in India. When her parents suddenly die she is sent back to England to go live with her Uncle at Misselthwaite Manor. Here she meets a nice Yorkshire servant girl named Martha who won't be bossed around, and she informs Mary of how spoiled she has become. Everyone thinks Mary looks ugly and sickly as well because she never gets any fresh air or does any exercise. Martha suggests to Mary that if she wants to improve her health and her disposition that she might try going out on the moor and get some fresh air and to do some exercise. She does this and her outlook on life begins to change for the better.

In one of their conversations, Mary finds out from Martha that ten years previously, Mr. Craven's wife (her aunt) had died during childbirth, and that her uncle Mr. Craven had been devastated by it. He couldn't bear to be around anything that would remind him of his loss so he spends most of his time away from the one hundred room manor traveling the world instead. Mrs. Craven had loved to spend all of her time in a walled off rose garden, but since the sight of the garden brought him such great sorrow, Mr. Craven had ordered that it be locked up and that the key buried. For ten years it had sat there being overgrown, and now nobody knew how to get into it since the gate was no longer visible.

Mary thought it would be wonderful to try to find this secret garden and sets out looking for it. With the help of a robin she finds the key and gains access to it. She then tries to restore it to it's former beauty. She doesn't know much about gardening however so she enlists the help of Martha's brother Dickon who seems to know everything about plants and animals and is a kind of animal charmer. Working in the garden makes Mary healthier and happier then she's ever been in her life. Then she uncovers another mystery.

During the night she hears screaming coming from another part of the manor and goes to investigate. There she finds a very sickly looking boy named Colin who none of the servants are allowed to talk about. Everybody believes the boy is going to die soon so they humor him by giving him anything he wants. This has made the boy quite spoiled.

Mary believes the boy is acting a lot like the way she used to when she first came to the manor. She believes that if she can get him to agree to go into the garden, maybe the magic there will help him get better as well, and maybe he won't die. She then puts this plan into action.

They all believe the garden has special magical powers since it made Mary better, but it's also common sense that as long as you don't have some deadly disease, that if you eat right, get plenty of fresh air, exercise, and reduce your stress level that it should make you healthier. With the help of Dickon, Mary tries to instill a positive attitude in the boy, and convince him to at least give the garden a try.

If you love gardening, rather then like it, then maybe you would appreciate the rest of this book a little more than my daughters and I did. There are long descriptions of each type of flower that grows in the secret garden and how to tend to each one of them. Like the adage that watching the grass grow is considered to be boring, well, the descriptions that follow throughout the remainder of this book of people watching flowers grow aren't that much more exciting either.





Rating:
Summary: The Secret Garden a review by super-girl
Review: The Secret Garden

Have you ever discovered a place that has bee locked up for a long time? If so, then you can relate to The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Mary Lennox, the protagonist, moves from India to Misselthwaite, England because her parents die of cholera. She lives with her cousin Colin Craven, who thinks he's a cripple and believes he is never going to walk. Mary tries to convince him that he's not a cripple. The children meet Dickon, a local boy who they call the animal charmer. Together they find a magical world inside a garden.

Mary, Dickon, and Colin find the garden left alone and locked. They find a key with the help of Robin and then start to garden without anyone knowing it. Mary and Colin are very frail like a toothpick, but then they grow because the fresh air makes them well. Dickon is a teacher because he shows them how to garden.

Then, on a rainy day, Mary and Colin go into rooms in the house that are locked up and they learn about their ancestors. In Colin's room Mary sees a portrait hidden under a tarpaulin, she opens it and sees picture of Colin's Mother (Mrs. Craven). Mary asks Colin why it is covered and he tells her that he doesn't want to see her because she reminds him of his Father and how he is mad at him because he will be a hunchback. Finally, Mary and Colin learn to overcome their tantrums and the fears of never seeing their parents again. When the children are in the garden, they were caught by one of the gardeners, however he said that he wouldn't tell because he himself had been inside the garden.

Read to find out if the children ever get caught in the garden again, or if Colin ever walks. Ladies and gentlemen, I invite and encourage you to read The Secret Garden.

Rating:
Summary: secret garden
Review: The Secret Garden is truly a classic, written more than a hundred years ago. I think all young people and their parents should read or listen to this book and be familiar with the author's philosophical points, which are: what you think is what you are, and will become if you are not careful; that one can examine one's own character flaws and correct them so that life is better; and that positive thoughts and feelings bring the best result. The grandest point is that working this "magic" with self and others can create unintended good effects a thousand miles away.

I believe the story and the points of view of Mary and Colin are important talking points between adults and children. They could be watchwords between parents and their children all the way to 18 years of age when discussing personal behavior. The reason is that Mary and Colin are objective and can be discussed as a third party instead of blame and shame between a parent and child. In the book, adults and children were polite to each other, at the last even under stress.

Is it not odd that you want a child to listen to this book and be influenced by it; and that you let a child watch smash-mouth cartoons Saturday morning and hope they will not be influenced by the astonishing violence and shallow characterizations?

I thoroughly enjoyed this Book for the Heart even though I am an adult. It is a classic on a par with Alice and Wonderland, which is another book I really like.

The reading of The Secret Garden was wonderfully done, though the sound of the characters Mary and Colin sounded authentic but made my ears arch sometimes.

Rating:
Summary: DULL DULL DULL
Review: This is really disgusting! How could a child read this crap! I thought children where supposed to be encouraged to read, but this book, doesn't support that fact. A Little Princess is a little better, the story moves along at least, but the story of the secret garden is like a lame side story in a B movie.