Reading Log: The Secret Garden By Frances Hodgson Burnett

Book Title: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Reflection:

        This book really moved me. I like the thought that even a child can make a big change – with the help of what they call MAGIC.  Though Mary Lennox grew as a small brat that had always been taken cared by her Ayah all her life, she grew more as a changed girl with a positive insight about life after she discovered the secret garden. When she found the way, she begun to tend it and then a change came over her and her life. I like it because it’s from another time where things were very different and yet it’s about a great heroine, a little girl who is not at all perfect like other girls from her time were expected to be. When the time came that she found out about her cousin Colin, she made a way to bring the boy in the garden. I am very glad that she did because that act helped and healed Colin to overcome his shadows. I’m just amazed of how Mary, Colin and the boy Dickon gathered the courage to believe that the only limit they have are the ones they set for themselves. Most of all, their story showed me that happiness doesn’t just happen to you – you have to decide to be happy.

Connect:

        When I was young like Mary and Colin, I also experienced the feeling of being alone, unwanted and unloved. It was because between me and my younger sister, I am the one who always end up a loser. It seemed to me that every wanted her but me? I was nobody. But then, I realized that living isn’t just about pleasing others, instead it is about being who you are amidst discrimination. That’s why I am really inspired by the children’s attitude in the story. They taught me a lesson that though I am unwanted, I can make a way to prove myself through what they call Magic. And that with a positive attitude comes a great change that will make one a better person. That though may seem uneasy, there is a magic that will make everything alright, the magic that can be seen from a heart that is as pure as a child.

Predict:

        I think Susan Sowerby and Martha, Dickon’s mother and sister respectively, would both become Colin and Mary’s personal Ayah’s since they are the ones who stood with the kids throughout the story. Ben Weatherstaff probably would be the one to tend the garden again since it had been his job when Mr. Craven’s wife was still alive. Also, I guess the attitude of Mr. Craven towards his son Colin and towards life changed because of what had happened.

Question:

        What if Mary’s parents did not die and she was not sent into Yorkshire, would Colin still change and become a cheerful boy? And I just wonder why when Mary learns that her nurse and both of her parents died in the epidemic; she does not display any expression of grief? I would really cry if that happens to me. Also, I couldn’t figure out what the story really meant about magic? What are some of its features? Where it does come from? What are its effects? Critics believe that the novel’s shift from Mary to Colin makes it ultimately Colin’s story. Others claim the story is really that of Mary’s triumphant transformation of herself and of Colin. Whose story is The Secret Garden?