I've read both
The Secret Garden and
The Little Princess and can only echo the praise they've received in this thread. Frances Hodgson Burnett really knows how to create an almost tangible atmosphere with words and creates exquisitely drawn characters in both books.
My personal favourite of these two is
The Secret Garden: Mary's exploration of the house and the discovery of the garden and the reawakening of both the characters and the world in which they live in is immensely moving. I think it's the way that the physical exploration leads to self-discovery that really does it for me.
Of course,
The Secret Garden has been adapted into
a super musical by Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman. There were also immensely evocative film adaptations of both books in the 1990s, although these were truer to the spirit of the novels rather than being a literally translation of the respective books into films - particularly in the case of
The Little Princess. In some ways, that makes the films more satisfying as films, but I suppose it all depends on what one is looking for in a screen adaptation of a favourite book.
Later days
David
Ritu
