The Secret Garden

About the book

After losing her parents in India, Mary Lennox is sent to her uncle's large, unfamiliar house on the Yorkshire moors. Accustomed to being served rather than understood, she initially meets her new surroundings with anger and suspicion. A garden kept closed becomes an object of curiosity, and the people she encounters draw her into activities beyond the house's routines and silences. Burnett connects changes in attention and companionship with the work of tending living things. The story moves through discoveries, conversations, and the physical pleasures of outdoor effort. Its account of renewal depends on several people learning to participate rather than merely endure or command. At the centre is the possibility that caring for a place can help children begin to care for one another.

• Friendship
• Care and renewal
• Nature

Why read it

For the gradual transformation of an enclosed mystery into a shared, living project.

English text