Book Review of the secret garden

 

THE SECRET GARDEN - By Frances Hodgson Burnett

Release: 1911.
Genre: Fiction, Children’s Literature.
No. of Pages: 375

Welcome Back Readers!

Summary:

The Secret Garden is story about a 10 years old girl named Mary, who used to live in India with her parents, but their parents were so busy and didn't have time for Mary.

Little girl’s life even got worse when her parents died of cholera and the she was sent to a very strange Mansion in UK where her uncle resided.

It was a big mansion, where her uncle used to live with his servants, but most of the doors were closed and she was not allowed to move around. Her aunt was also no more, and the little girl had to live all alone in that strange house. She could not talk to anybody except Martha, who was among the staff in that house, and Martha was kind to her. Martha had a brother Dickon, who was very kind towards animals and birds, which fascinated Marry. She used to wait for him eagerly.

One fine day she came to know about a secret garden, which was closed since the death of her aunt and no body was allowed to go there. During the night Mary used to listen to crying of a boy, but whenever she used to ask about him, everyone used to hide it. One day Mary decided to follow the sound, and to her surprise, she saw a boy of her age lying in a bed. Later on she came to know that the boy, Colin, was the son of her uncle, and he seemed to be very week and cranky.

He had a misconception that he was suffering from a disease and very sooner he was going to die. Day by day Mary became inquisitive about the secret garden, and she wanted to have access to it. While wandering nearby to the garden she got the keys and decided to revive it. Martha helped her to get flower seeds through Dickon, and both worked very hard to revive it.

 

Meanwhile Colin and Mary became friends and she started sharing positive words to him. Eventually, he also started believing that one fine day he would be capable of standing on his own and no sooner he is going to die. He started going out secretly with Mary and Dickon. 

The story shows how the positivity of the little girl changes the old silent Mansion to a sweet home and brings Happiness in everyone's life.

My Review:

The Secret Garden is definitely a good read for children with a positive message in it.  As far as the writing and story is concerned, I really liked  the storyline. Best part that I liked was the climax. The author has written it so beautifully. There were few words which I feel were difficult to understand, but, positive part is that it would finally help the child to improve their word power.

What all things I liked about the book

• Sequence of the events are very well created.
• It has beautiful message for the readers.
• Moral values could be inculcated to the child.

What all things I disliked about it

The only thing that I disliked about the book was the way Mary found the keys to the secret garden, it could have been plotted in a more better way.

Reason to read it

• The storyline is very short and won’t take much time to complete the whole book.

 

Any Reason to skip it

A movie based on it has already been released, so, if you want to grasp the same message without reading, then you can watch the movie.

My Ratings:

I would like to rate 4 out of 5 stars.