BOOK REVIEW

by Papa

Title: The Secret Garden

Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett

Recommended Age: 8-12

Pages: 274

Read-Aloud Time: About a month (20 minutes a day)

Rating: 8/10

The Secret Garden is a classic for good reasons.  Kid A and I really enjoyed it.  Even though the main character is Mary Lennox, the main relationship the story deals with is Colin Craven and his father.  This made the book more interesting to me as a father.  The book also made us both appreciate the outdoors more.  So much of the book was dedicated to describing the gardens and the animals and I realized how much I take nature for granted living in Washington.

Favorite Thing: Probably my favorite part of the book is where the kids are pretending not to eat so that Colin can keep his condition a secret.  They sneak in food with the help of their friend Dickon and they refuse to eat the food that a private cook provides for them.  Since Kid A is quite skinny, I told him that we should try to fatten him up and keep it a secret from his mama.  He didn't take to it though.

Least Favorite Thing: Reading Yorkshire aloud is quite difficult for me.  I'm positive that it doesn't actually sound the way that I read it.

Questionable Material for Kids: Mary's parents die early on in the book due to some kind of plague that isn't really explained.  This might be a tough issue to understand for younger kids, but the book moves ahead quickly from this scene and the bulk of the text deals with Mary living in her uncle's house.  Colin also speaks of dying a few times because everyone around him thinks that he's going to die.