A touch of nature for you


I just finished reading Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. I’m not sure how I never read this as a child–I’d have loved it. I haven’t seen any of the movies adapted from it, either. The book was initially published in a serial format in 1910, and I can just imagine children having it read to them and eagerly waiting to see what would happen to Mary, Dickon, and Colin next.

Some of the happiest times of my childhood were spent in the rose garden that was part of the orphanage near our house, as well as in my grandmother’s garden. I’ve never had much of a knack for growing things, though both my siblings got our mother’s green thumb.

When I was reading the book, I found myself wishing that all little kids could learn a reverence for the natural world by working and playing in a garden.

15 thoughts on “A touch of nature for you”

  1. This is one of my all time most favorite books. My mother would read it to us kids when we went on long car trips with my dad. (Hitty, Her First 100 Years by Rachael Field was/is another.) Is your edition of Secret Garden illustrated by Tasha Tudor? She is one of my collections.

    1. No illustrations. I bought a set of 25 books for my Nook eReader for something like 3.99–a lot of classics that I hadn’t read before, and this was among them. So are the three Anne books, though so far I’ve read only Anne of Green Gables. I didn’t read those as a kid, either.

      A mother who reads to her kids is a marvelous thing! I’ll have to check out Hitty, yet another I never read!

  2. The Secret Garden was one of my favorites from childhood, and remains one of my alltime favorites, although I haven’t re-read it in a number of years. I bought a gorgeous annotated edition several years ago, when spouse and I were planning to adopt. The adoption plans fell through, but I kept the book.

    1. I still don’t know how I missed it. Although I doubt I’ll buy a copy–no shelf space!–I do plan to look for illustrated ones the next time I’m in a bookstore so I can see how things were drawn.

  3. My garden is limited to the front beds these days. And the roses have reached the top of the front porch railing and attracted a daily bevy of bees. Hope this helps with their comeback.

  4. My Oma in Germany had a gorgeous garden. There were veggies, and flowers — and way way in the back of her property there were gooseberries, blackberries, and raspberries. I spent a great many summers there, and I loved picking the berries in the back.

    What I remember most is that at about 3pm it seemed automatic that some of her brothers and sisters and my aunts and uncles would come over for kaffee and kuchen. And family would visit for at least an hour every day.

    1. Thanks!

      A Little Princess is also in that group of “25 Favorite Novels” I bought for my Nook. Guess what I’m reading next?

      Finally–I always want to call you Laurel but I was never sure whether I should use that name or your “writing” name. You’ve merged your personalities! 😉

    2. Oh, man, poor little princess. I’ve just gotten to the sad times. Was this made into a movie with Shirley Temple? It’s vaguely familiar.

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