![]() Both a celebration of the natural world and an expression of faith in the possibility that even the most wounded soul can heal and transform, The Secret Garden offers an ahead-of-its-time understanding of the link between mental and physical well-being. In nurturing the garden, the once physically and spiritually weak Mary – and her mirror, Colin – enact their own redemption: achieving health and happiness. Burnett’s Eden-esque garden acts as both the site and symbol of her characters’ physical and spiritual growth. And yet, it is precisely Burnett’s willingness to take her readers into the darkness – in order that they might better understand the path toward the light – which makes The Secret Garden such a compelling, modern-feeling tale today, more than 100 years after its publication. Nor is the novel’s exploration of isolation, death, and the ways the traumas of the past haunt the present, typical children’s fare. But Frances Hodgson Burnett’s orphan – the decidedly unlikable and unattractive but refreshingly honest Mary Lennox is hardly the idealized heroine found in most turn-of-the-century orphan stories. On its surface, The Secret Garden is a straightforward story of how an isolated orphan, by a lucky twist of fate, finds friendship and happiness in an unlikely way. ![]()
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