The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"A garden. I've stolen a garden. But it may already be dead, I don't know" "Mistress Mary quite contrary" arrives at the ghostly quiet Misselthwaite Manor looking very sickly and acting very sickly too. Up until her parents death she had lived in India surrounded by servants who did whatever she wanted. After they died she was sent off to be cared for by her uncle who was not a pleasant man. She was not pleasant either.

She was an ugly, sour tempered little girl and the people that ran the house didn't know what to do with her. The morning after she arrived she would not eat the food that was prepared for her. That shocked her handmaid very much , see she was poor and couldn't imagine the feeling of not being hungry. She suggested that she go out and play in the gardens to make her more hungry. She mentioned a specific garden, a garden that had been locked up for ten years. Mary finally decided she would go out and wander about the gardens, even though it was winter and she hated to be alone. The locked garden was certainly a mystery but there were even more mysteries in that old house.

Martha (the handmaid) speaks of her family often and one person person in her family strikes Mary's interest. Her brother Dickon. He lives on the moor and speaks to animals like one would speak to a baby. When Mary finally discover the entrance to the secret garden he is the first one she tells the first but not the last.

Mary and Dickon have been working in the garden for some time now when Mary discovers answers to a different mystery. The mystery of the screams. She hears them sometimes, if she's really quiet or is in the halls. When she goes into a room to investigate he doesn't scream. He stares at her and she stares back. like they see ghosts and don't know if it's bad or friendly. His name is Colin and he is supposedly a hunchback and a cripple. He screams because he says he can feel the lumps on his back. When Mary shares the secret with him too he wants to go outside. He wants to get better. He has hope and so they go into the garden and shut the door. no one but them knows what goes on behind that door. But one thing is for sure. It's magical.

This book is one of my favorite books of all time and the only reason I can't say I hate mystery books altogether. Surprisingly the part I like best isn't the garden It's Colin. The the author makes it seem like he is a hopeless child with nothing to live for makes the fact that he gains hope all the more wonderful. Mary, Colin and Dickon are all unlikely friends but they are friends and you can see their friendship grow throughout the story. This book made me laugh, cry and want to find my own magic. I suggest that every one read this fantastic book.