The Secret Garden

QUOTES from this book:

 To let a sad or wrong thought into your mind is as dangerous as letting a disease into your body.

If you let it stay there, you may never recover as long as you live.

When new beautiful thoughts began to push out the old ugly ones, life began to come back to him.

The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in England in 1911, it is one of Burnett’s most popular novels and seen as a classic of English Children’s Literature. Burnett was born in England in 1849, and moved to USA in 1865 that means she was 16 years old.  If your vocabulary is above 4500, it is easy for you to read it.

It is the novel which is my favorite type, all is about garden and nature, the description about spring, animal is quite vivid, the whole story is bright and positive, it can make the reader to have more strength and hope to have more chance to feel the nature and step into the nature.

It is a novel about one girl whose name is Mary that was born in British India, her family is wealthy, but she is neglected and unloved by their parents, she is raised by the servants, her personality is sour, spoiled, lonely, strange, surly, gloomy and self-centered, she dislikes everything, and she also think the others also dislike her. After the cholera epidemic, her whole family has passed away, she was sent to her uncle who lived in England, her uncle is wealthy and lives in the manor surrounded by expanse moor which lives a lot of animals and plants. Her Uncle Mr. Craven is very gloomy, heartbroken after he lost her loved wife, he always travels and run away from this house. Mary met one of the servants whose name is Martha, she is unlike the servant which Mary had before, obedient, subservient and respectful. Martha talks a lot, about her family, her mom, her brother Dickon, and also the moor, and encourage Mary to go outside to play in the moor. Over time, Mary becomes less Temperamental and befriends her servant Martha, after knowing Martha’s Mom and her brother Dickon from Martha’s talk, she also feels like them and hope to meet them. Mary spent more and more time in the Moor and in the garden, her face is also back to glossy and pink, she begins to talk to gardener, and the bird Red Robin. The moor wind and fresh air makes her healthy and stronger. From the gardener Ben she knows there is a very beautiful garden full of Roses there but was locked 10 years ago after Mrs. Craven was dead in this garden, Mr. Craven locked this garden to avoid to think about Mrs. Craven, and buried the key. Mary is very curious and hope that she can find the key and the locked garden. She thinks the bird Red Robin knows everything, and knows where to buried the key, one day, the red robin leads her and turns out she has been really found the key. Mary asked Martha to get some garden tools and seeds, and ask her brother Dicken to help to her to explore this Secret Garden.

In the big house, she always can hear someone is crying, but the servants are all reluctant to talk about it, one day Mary still hears the crying from the corridor, she followed the crying and found one boy whose name is Colin, even she has been told by Colin he is her uncle’s son, she is the young Master of this Manor. Colin was neglected by her father, he is sick and pale, bad-tempered, spoiled, all the people think he will be dead soon, when Mary saw Colin, she saw the old herself, she hopes Colin also can be better, Mary starts to visit Colin every day that week, to talk about the moor, gardens, Dicken and the animals to distract him from his trouble, Colin becomes more and more interesting and hopes to see all of it by himself, Dickon and Mary help colin into his wheelchair to the secret garden. All the green buds sprouting from the earth, the roses are hanging from wall to wall, tree to tree. Colin visits and works in the garden everyday with Mary and Dickon’s help, he becomes healthy and stronger like Mary.

Mr. Craven has back home and found his son and the other children and playing, laughing in his Wife’s Garden, he is also finally cured.