This evening I finished Frances Hodgeson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, which I first read back in the third grade. There was already an assumed gender divide in the children’s fiction at the school library. Once we got beyond Peter Rabbit and Charlotte’s Web animal stories were for boys, unless they dealt with horses, and then they might be for girls, too. Dogs, though? Boys. While Beverly Clearly could be read by boys and girls, Judy Blume was for girls (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge excluded). Boys got Choose Your Own Adventure. The Hardy Boys were for boys, Nancy Drew for girls, and so on.
The Secret Garden was somehow a book for girls in the minds of many. This is something you just knew, and so while there was no need to hide my reading of it at the same time it’s not something I advertised by saying, “Look what I checked out!”
In all the years since first reading it I managed to forget most everything except the orphaned protagonist, the absent uncle, the ill cousin, and the garden. Perhaps I was not as careful a reader as I could or should have been, or perhaps I just fixated on certain elements, but in in any case returning to it two and a half decades later and having such a new and different reading experience was a joy. I read the “World’s Classics” edition from Oxford University Press, (1987), edited with an introduction by Dennis Butts, and perusing Butts’s annotations and introduction after reading the novel reassured me that I was not imagining things when (I thought) I saw echoes of Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science or at least “spiritual healing” in the latter part of the novel. It is worth noting that Burnett was not a member of Eddy’s cult, but she had come in contact with some of Mary Baker Eddy’s teachings.
“It is always having your own way that has made you so queer.” Mary went on, thinking aloud.
Colin turned his head, frowning.
“Am I queer” he demanded.
“Yes,” answered Mary, “very. But you needn’t be cross,” she added impartially, “because so am I queer — and so is Ben Wetherstaff. But I am not as queer as I was before I began to like people and before I found the garden.”
“I don’t want to be queer,” said Colin. “I am not going to be,” and he frowned again with determination.
He was a very proud boy. He lay thinking for a while and then Mary saw his beautiful smile being and gradually change his whole face.
“I shall stop being queer,” he said […]
It is amusing, I find, to quote passages out of context (pages 238-9). Oh how the use of “queer” has changed over the years.
Given how much certain groups of Christians hate Harry Potter as promoting magic and Satanism, I wondered whether this nearly 100 year old children’s book would receive similar ire for discussions of “Magic” late in the text. Answer: yep!:
The Secret Garden is clean and decent; a movie for the whole family. There is one scene where, in childish innocence, they are seen casting a spell, which is sent to bring back Colin’s dad who is away on a trip. Be sure to rent this video with your family, but also be sure to take the time to explain to your children why casting spells is wrong. You’ll be glad you did!
(source)
There are a number of decent resources online related to the book, but I’ll just mentioned the W.W. Norton & Company: College Books page, which has some bibliographic info and an “influenced by” section, as well as the Project Gutenberg versions of the text (for free, but I prefer to read with a book in my hands).
