The Secret Garden

My January read for Love Blippin’ Books. A kind of reading group on Blip - the wonderful idea of Squatbetty. The theme for January was ‘revisit a favourite’. The Secret Garden was first published in 1911 - and this edition is from 1960. I think the cover has a bit of a sixties feel to it - especially her coat. You can see it cost three shillings and sixpence- about 17p - though it was actually quite a lot. About 1 months pocket money.
I read it when I was 8 or 9 - which was sixty years ago.I would have said it was my favorite book from my childhood. I remembered it as a beautiful sparkling gem. When I mentioned to my cousin (who was an English teacher) I was rereading it she said “oh that awful sickly book!” And I have to admit there’s some truth in that. There are 3 main characters:
A boy whose father is lord of a huge stately home. He is neglected and unloved, and told he is a cripple and will die young. His father refuses to look at him - because his beloved wife died giving birth to him.
A girl who is disagreeable, unwanted and unloved. When both parents die of cholera she is brought back from India, out of obligation, to live in the big house, as the lord is her uncle. But the existence of the boy is kept from her and she is completely lonely.
A boy who is one of 12 children and lives in abject poverty on the moor. Yet he is an almost magical (Christ like?) figure whom all wild animals are drawn to. Likeable wise and kind, loved by everyone. He has a mother, unlike the others, and she is the archetypal mother, giving, loving, nourishing, always doing the right thing by her children and other people’s.
The three meet, spend time together in the Secret Garden, a locked walled garden they’re not supposed to enter. And wonderful plants flowers and trees grow. And like a miracle everything gets better for the two motherless ones. It is a bit sickly but I enjoyed reading it again, and thinking about my nine year old self. I suppose there are allegorical religious undertones which I would have missed first time around. Thank you to Squatbetty for this idea.  Made me think:)