Simple, abridged…a fresh way to introduce the classics to kids ( and useless adults like me). I read ‘THE SECRET GARDEN’ in the Classic Starts version.
As time passes Mary, Dickon and Colin have some good sprightly fun doing honest labour and watching the garden come alive. She snaps him out of his melancholy, befriends him and lets him in on the secret of the garden. The frail child stays in bed, is never visited by his dad, throws tantrums and is convinced that he is going to drop-dead soon! Used to bossing over the household, he meets his match in an equally pugnacious Mary. She soon finds out that it is Mr.Craven’s crippled son, Colin. In the midst of all these developments, she is still disturbed by a mysterious crying she often hears in the manor. With the help of her newly-made friend Dickon, she is soon spending happy-hours digging and planting and growing happier and healthier in the garden. Despite the air of seeming lifelessness, Mary sees that there is hope for renewal.
No one knows where the key is and even if they did, it would be useless.since Mr.Craven has forbidden anyone to enter the garden.īy a sheer stroke of luck ( or is it thanks to a red-breasted robin?), the now steadily improving Mary discovers the lost key and promptly enters the long-shut garden. Martha also tells Mary about a Secret Garden in the grounds which has been kept locked for the past ten years.
Dickon is a true child of nature.he can talk to animals, spend hours alone on the moors and make anything, absolutely anything grow. In an attempt to pep up the sickly child, Martha regales Mary with stories of her younger brother Dickon.
Mr.Craven is a reclusive widow and often travels abroad leaving Mary in the care of his unbending housekeeper,Mrs.Medlock and a cheery l’il chambermaid,Martha. The manor is a sprawling place surrounded by gardens and desolate moors. Not a very cheery start, is it? And so a sour-faced, sullen orphan Mary is whisked away from her birthplace India to stay with her guardian, Mr.Archibald Craven at Misselthwaite Manor in Yorkshire. I fell asleep when everyone had cholera, and I just woke up.”
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