Children's Book Review!

For Valentine's Day, BYU's Harold B Lee Library had a program called "Blind Date with a Book."  They had taken a bunch of "hidden treasure" books and wrapped them up in brown paper.  On the outside of the brown paper, they had written a description of the book, making it sound like a date (such as, "I'm adventurous and mysterious," or "I like to do things the traditional way").  Then, they had made a copy of the library barcode and put that on the brown paper as well.  Then, you picked a book and checked it out, not knowing what it was. 


I thought it was a cute idea.  They always say, "Never judge a book by its cover." This way, there was no way you could.  So, I looked at the descriptions and saw one that said, "I like the classics and I'm good with kids."  I assumed that meant it was a children's book, and the thickness didn't seem like something I couldn't handle with my classes.  So, I checked it out.  I was quite excited, and when I unwrapped it, I found this book:

 

I had never even heard of it, but it looked like it could be fun.  I was a little skeptical, because above the title it says, "A story inspired by The Secret Garden."  I hate Frances Hodgson Burnett.  I think every single one of her characters is so extreme that they're flat.  Every single book is about a child who has everything wonderful, then everything turns terrible, and then everything is wonderful again.  The Secret Garden is a book about a spoiled little girl getting broken.  And A Little Princess is a book about a goody-two-shoes getting sent through Job and refusing to be anything other than an obnoxiously optimistic goody-two-shoes.  But, I thought I'd read it all the same.  I had promised after all.  

It turns out it is simply a modern retelling of The Secret Garden.  But for some reason, Ellen Potter makes it good!  Roo Fanshaw (Mary Lennox) is taken to a remote mansion (actually abandoned turn-of-the-century children's TB sanitorium) called Cough Rock (Mistlethwaite Manor) owned by her uncle Emmett Fanshaw (Archibald Craven) after her parents die.  Then, Ms. Valentine (Mrs. Medlock) tells her to never go to the West Wing, but she can play anywhere else she likes.  Violet (Martha) then is friendly to her.  She finds Jack, the river boy (Dickon) and learns about the river.  She hears screaming and humming and crying in the night.  She eventually discovers that is her cousin, Philip (Colin).  Philip's mother was Brazilian, so Philip's father built her a greenhouse jungle (the garden).  Roo finds it, and it's dead. Is this ringing any bells?  

For being so similar, I thought I'd hate it.  But I really didn't.  This time, the story came alive, and it resonated with me the way that Ellen Potter wrote it.  Hiding things doesn't help anyone and hiding from people only hurts them.  The themes that I guess were supposed to be in The Secret Garden were actually brought out and took root.  The symbols, the literary techniques, they're all there.  The characters are flawed, but not so extreme that you don't believe that they could actually exist.  Roo is a handful, but she isn't the cardboard cut-out that Mary is; and Philip is spoiled, but he's actually given back story, reason and emotions, which Colin never was.    It's like The Secret Garden as it should have been written.

I would recommend it to anyone who likes Children's Literature.  I would probably call it middle grade if you're wondering if it's too hard for a child.  Probably advanced fourth grade to maybe seventh or eighth?  Read it.  It's a hidden treasure.